Overarching Components
Set Clear Goals and Outcomes
During the initial stages of analysis, one important task was to define the problem. The corollary to that task is to define the desired outcome. What is it you want your education and training program to achieve, not just for the organization but also for the individual learner and/or the employer?
One reason that setting clear goals and outcomes is important is because those goals will drive the design of the program. If a desired outcome is for 50 extremely low-skill workers to qualify for training that requires 12 th grade proficiency in math and reading, that needs to be defined prior to the design phase. For example, if a goal of the program is for the graduates to be able to read blueprints, activities in the design and development phases will ensure that the curriculum focuses on the mastery of these skills. This example seems obvious, but it illustrates the importance of having some goals clearly spelled out from the onset of an education and training initiative.
Second, a focus on setting some clearly-defined goals can also be helpful to the individual learners. One finding from research on adult learning is that adults are more goal-oriented than traditional-age students (Lieb, 1991). They have clearly-defined goals for themselves, and they want to be able to see clearly how an education and training program will help them reach those goals. (During implementation, it will be important to make the goals and objectives of the learning program clear to the worker/learner.)
Setting clear goals also has a third purpose which is to guide the design of the evaluation. Goals will define what it is that needs to be measured and tracked so that it will be possible to learn what the true impact of the program or learning initiative is.