Procedure Many faculty members already write acceptable objectives and should continue to use the techniques that work for them. Experienced objectives writers may wish to scan the procedure below and reaffirm that their methods produce objectives which meet the ABCD criteria. The ABCD mnemonic is simple but does need some clarification. The B stands for behavior . The behavior is that of the learner, it is an outcome, and it must be measurable.
Many people regard behavior as one entity i.e., the measurable behavior.
However, more precisely the behavior consists of two parts, first the Action Verb and second the Content Reference. The action verb specifies the behavioral action the student is expected to perform, e.g., define, compare, describe, contrast, list, recall etc. Sample action verbs shows a more extensive list of action verbs to illustrate the concept. The second part of Behavior is the content reference which specifies the specific subject content being treated. While both the action verb and the content reference are necessary to specify the measurable student behavior, they are different aspects of that behavior.