Instructional design		75
Classification by:		Values:		Practical illustrations
•	subject area	•	humanistic	for teachers:
•	nature of learner	•	individualistic	•	several hundred in six
	behaviour (thinking				curriculum areas
	and feeling)			•	strategies are listed
					which are relevant for
					all age groups

Hannah and Michaelis’ comprehensive framework for instructional objectives

Description and intended use

Acknowledging their debt to Bloom (1956) and Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia (1964), and drawing on relevant literature about perceptual and motor skills, Hannah and Michaelis (1977) were the first to realise Bloom’s original aim of producing a comprehensive framework for the design and classification of educational objectives. They sought (1977, iii) to ‘bring objectives back into teaching’ by encouraging teachers to write lesson and course objectives ‘so that students move from knowledge to operations on knowledge that involve increasingly more complex processes, to greater independence in the development of skills, and to higher levels of commitment insofar as attitudes and values are concerned’.

According to Hannah and Michaelis, the perceptual and knowledge base for learning is built up by data gathering (observing and/or remembering). As shown in figure 3.2, the availability of data is a prerequisite for all development. The authors illustrate (1977, p. 173) the interrelatedness of their categories in the following way:

a student with prior experience participating in an experiment may observe certain elements, recall prior learnings including a generalization, and quickly state an inference related to the experiment . . . Moreover, the student’s feeling that she or he is a capable learner . . . influences both the receptivity to participation in experiment and the willingness to offer ideas. Mastered skills may have been involved in data collection during the experiment.

The categories of intellectual processes, skills and attitudes and values are independent but interacting dimensions, each of which is ordered

76 Frameworks for Thinking

Fig. 3.2. The comprehensive framework for instructional objectives.

by a different principle (complexity, degree of learner independence and level of commitment, respectively). All the level headings used are clearly defined, as shown in the examples below:

•Generalising – the student expresses a conclusion drawn from the consideration of a number of specific instances.

•Inferring – the student uses appropriate generalisations to reach and express conclusions that go beyond the data studied.

•Patterning – the student practises a skill with assistance while progressing towards unassisted performance.

•Integrating – the student consistently demonstrates a pattern of value-based behaviour.

The scope of Hannah and Michaelis’ framework is unrestricted, but it seems not to have been used outside the school-age range. The authors did not attempt a thorough academic justification for their framework, but instead put their energies into making it effective

Instructional design	77

over a five-year period, working with teachers and administrators in the Elk Grove School District in California.

Evaluation

Hannah and Michaelis’ primary intention was to encourage teachers to write lesson and course objectives in order to enable them to move students from lower levels to higher levels of thinking and to encourage them to become autonomous learners with a genuine commitment to learning. Their framework was developed with and field-tested by teachers. It uses many of the terms found in the work of Bloom and his associates and is compatible with several later frameworks. Although not aligned with a particular theoretical position, the authors were influenced by the behavioural objectives movement and drew on work in cognitive psychology, motivation and attitude development.

This initiative represents a significant development in the advancement of frameworks for thinking, in that it was one of the first attempts to integrate all of the three domains of learning identified by Bloom (i.e. the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains). All types of skill (covert and overt) are encompassed by the skills category and the attitudes and values category is equally broad.

This comprehensive framework is descriptive rather than normative. While subscribing to democracy and human rights, Hannah and Michaelis are relatively neutral about which attitudes and values are worth developing. There is, for example, no explicit encouragement for learners to become more reflective or empathetic. At the same time, it is possible to detect the influence of a particular approach to pedagogy, as learning is largely portrayed as the responses of individuals to teacher instruction.

Hannah and Michaelis point out that while the categories of intellectual processes, skills and attitudes and values are independent, they are also interacting dimensions of learning. Their framework serves a useful purpose by raising questions for practitioners about how stages in one dimension may correspond to complementary stages in the others. However, they make unrealistic demands on teachers by expecting them to take all stages and dimensions into account when writing lesson objectives and making assessment

78 Frameworks for Thinking

decisions. This may lead some to over-plan and try to assess each lesson objective in excessive detail. However, for longer-term planning the framework has much to offer. It is expressed in simple language and has been worked out in considerable detail, with many illustrative objectives.

Despite the commendable multidimensionality of this framework, it seems to rest upon linear assumptions about the direction of learning in each dimension. Hannah and Michaelis also tend to emphasise the compliance of learners with the expectations and values of educators. Nonetheless, if interpreted flexibly, this framework clearly has considerable potential as a design tool and for a range of other uses, ranging from teacher education to programme evaluation.

Summary: Hannah and Michaelis

			Relevance for teachers
Purpose and structure	Some key features		and learning
			Intended audience:
Main purpose(s):	Terminology:
• to guide teachers	•	clear	• teachers
in writing and	•	simple
evaluating objectives

•to provide a model of how students learn in order to align and improve planning, teaching and assessment

Domains addressed:		Presentation:		Contexts:
•	cognitive	•	includes definitions,	•	education
•	conative		focusing questions	•	work
•	affective		and directions,	•	citizenship
•	psychomotor		illustrative	•	recreation
			objectives and
			assessment tools
		•	teacher-friendly and
			not too complex