It is only when they take action based on knowing or understand that we can observe the acts that signify knowing or understanding. Whatever terminology we are fond of - objectives, outcomes, goals, careful description of intended student learning outcomes is at the heart of the student learning outcomes assessment movement. There are other important aspects of the assessment process, particularly the value of a systematic approach that incorporates the assessment process in a systematic instructional development process in which student performance data becomes a tool for improving courses to foster student success. However, writing clear descriptions of what successful learners will be able to do upon completing a course or program is a prerequisite. These notes give examples of such description in the context of a widely used system for classifying student learning outcomes.
Goals describe aims, wishes, aspirations.
However, abstract versus concrete is not the same as simple versus complex. Both goals and objectives can be simple or complex. There is a logical relationship between goals and objectives. Objectives make progress toward goals observable by identifying the actions that signify successful outcomes or performance of a task as in the statement below.