Athena Rayne Anderson

The verb “understand” is commonly used by well-meaning instructors as part of Learning Objectives (LOs) or course objectives.

What’s the problem with it?

It’s not measurable

Think about it: what assessment could you use to determine whether your learners understand something? It’s a great verb for talking about learning, but it’s too fuzzy to be measurable. When you get right down to it, assessing understanding always involves the use of a more specific verb. It’s this verb that should be used in the LOs every time, because it tells the learners exactly what they’ll need to be able to do.

Take a look at Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning below. This is a great tool that I recommend to every instructor for crafting LOs. Every verb in the list of examples (on the right of the pyramid) is measurable. You’ll notice that “Understand” is the name of one of the levels of the taxonomy, but is not used as an example in the list. Bloom knew the verb is too difficult to assess.

What to use instead?

The Taxonomy lists many verbs that relate to learner understanding but are actually measurable. In case you have trouble reading the image, I’ve duplicated the list here:

• Classify
• Describe
• Discuss
• Explain
• Identify
• Locate
• Recognize
• Report
• Select
• Translate

It’s always best to be as specific as possible with your LOs, because they should guide the design of your entire learning unit. They also tell learners what they’ll need to be able to do to be successful.