C-OBE key terms

An approach in which curriculum, teaching, and assessment are planned around the specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes learners should be able to demonstrate at the end of a learning experience, rather than around content coverage or time spent.

An OBE principle stating that teachers, learners, and stakeholders must share a clear, explicit picture of the intended exit outcomes before any content, activity, or assessment is planned.

A planning sequence that begins with exit outcomes, then derives program and course outcomes from them, and finally designs the activities and assessments through which learners will achieve those outcomes.

The OBE principle that learners should receive multiple and varied opportunities, with sufficient time and different pathways, to reach the required standard instead of a single high-stakes chance.

The principle that programs set challenging yet achievable standards for every learner and then supply the support needed so that most learners can actually attain them.

The deliberate participation of students, faculty, alumni, employers, and community partners in defining outcomes, reviewing curriculum, and judging whether program quality is adequate.

The generic skills, values, and dispositions an institution or program intends to develop in its graduates, usually expressed as an agreed profile that program outcomes must support.

Broad statements describing the competencies every graduate of an institution should possess, phrased generally enough to guide the design of outcomes for all programs it offers.

Statements describing what graduates of a particular program should be able to do by the time they finish, derived from institutional outcomes and shaped by discipline or professional requirements.

Broad, long-range statements describing what graduates should accomplish in their careers and professional lives a few years after completing the program, distinct from what they can do at graduation.

Specific, measurable statements describing what successful learners should be able to demonstrate by the end of a single course, each contributing to one or more program outcomes.

The explicit, observable results a lesson, module, or course is designed to produce in learners, usually written at a finer grain than program outcomes and stated in student-centred language.

A hierarchical classification of cognitive processes ranging from remembering through creating, used to write outcomes at suitable levels of complexity and to structure assessment tasks accordingly.

A checklist requiring outcome statements to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, so that learners and teachers can tell whether the outcome has actually been achieved.

The broad categories used to classify outcomes: cognitive (knowledge and thinking), psychomotor (physical skills), and affective (attitudes, values, and emotions), each needing different kinds of evidence.

A design principle in which intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks are deliberately matched so that succeeding in assessment requires the intended learning to occur.

A table mapping outcomes against activities and assessments, or course outcomes against program outcomes, revealing where each outcome is taught and assessed and where gaps or duplication exist.

The planned tasks and interactions, such as lectures, laboratories, projects, and discussions, that give learners the opportunity to practise and develop the competencies named in the outcomes.

Any instructional method that requires learners to do something and reflect on what they are doing, such as solving problems, discussing with peers, or practising a procedure, rather than only listening.

Assessment tasks that mirror realistic professional or everyday problems and require learners to apply knowledge and skills in context, going well beyond selecting answers on a test.

The systematic process of gathering information about learner performance and using it to judge progress toward intended learning outcomes and to inform subsequent decisions.

The assignment of numbers, scores, or categories to learner performance according to explicit rules, supplying the quantitative data on which later evaluation and judgment rest.

The process of interpreting assessment data and comparing it with criteria or standards in order to judge learner achievement, teaching effectiveness, or overall program quality.

Assessment carried out during learning that supplies feedback to learners and teachers so both can adjust their work and instruction before any final judgment is made.

Assessment conducted at the end of a unit, course, or program to determine the level of achievement reached and to support grading, certification, or progression decisions.

Assessment in which learners demonstrate competence by producing a product, carrying out a procedure, or completing a task that is judged against explicit, pre-published criteria.

A scoring guide listing the criteria that define quality and describing performance levels for each, making judgments transparent and more consistent across different raters and occasions.

Assessment that compares a learner's performance with a defined standard or set of intended outcomes rather than with the performance of other learners in the group.

The extent to which an assessment measures what it is intended to measure and supports the interpretations and decisions that are made from the resulting scores.

The consistency of assessment results across repeated administrations, different raters, or parallel sets of items, indicating how free the scores are from random error.

A two-dimensional grid that distributes test items across content topics and cognitive levels, helping ensure a balanced and representative sampling of the intended outcomes.

Information given to learners about the gap between their current performance and the desired standard, together with guidance on the specific actions needed to close that gap.

The process of producing a visual or tabular representation showing when, where, and how each outcome is introduced, practised, and assessed across courses and year levels.

The arrangement of outcomes so they build in complexity across year levels (vertical) and so that courses running at the same time address complementary outcomes without gaps or unnecessary repetition (horizontal).

A course document specifying outcomes, content, activities, assessment methods, and grading criteria, functioning as a shared reference and agreement between teacher and learners.

The academic advising, tutoring, mentoring, and logistical services provided to help learners reach outcome standards, particularly those at risk of falling behind.

The degree to which learners actually achieve stated outcomes, typically computed from assessment results and used as evidence when judging the effectiveness of a course or program.

An ongoing cycle of collecting evidence about outcomes, analysing strengths and weaknesses, implementing changes, and re-measuring to confirm that the changes produced real gains.

The step in the improvement cycle where assessment evidence is actually used to revise curriculum, teaching, or support services, and the effect of that revision is later verified.

The planned policies and processes that establish, monitor, and demonstrate that programs and their outcomes meet agreed internal and external standards on a continuing basis.

A formal process in which an external body reviews a program or institution against published standards, usually through self-study and peer review, and grants recognition for meeting them.