Traditional Classification of Educational Objectives

In Western curricular and instructional organization and design, it has long been dominant to classify instructional objectives into the domains of "facts, skills, and attitudes."[1] Although this classification is no longer popular, many new theories have been developed from it. Although this categorization is no longer in vogue, many new theories of categorization of objectives have been developed from it, some of which are directly derived from it.

The traditional classification of the objectives of teaching and learning, "facts", is a general term for objective things, phenomena, relationships, attributes and regularities that have been correctly recognized, as expressed in information, opinions and concepts. "Skills" are complex systems of intellectual and physical actions that individuals develop through practice using their prior knowledge and experience, and refer to those that can be demonstrated and practiced, such as reading, writing, penmanship, acting, verbal communication, critical thinking, and so on. "Attitude" is an individual's evaluation of an object and behavioral tendencies, referring to the individual's tendencies and feelings toward various sources of stimuli, such as preferences, interests, and needs. For example, the following three objectives are for the Geography course in middle school and fall into three areas[2]:

1. To enable students to acquire knowledge (facts) about the Earth.

2. To enable students to have the initial ability to learn geography on their own (skills).

3. Cultivate students' scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts and the spirit of constantly pursuing new knowledge (attitude).

The division of teaching objectives into facts, skills and attitudes is relatively simple, highly feasible and easy for teachers to accept and use. However, there are two problems: one is too general, difficult to operate in the implementation and evaluation of teaching, easy to go out of shape; the second is the logical hierarchy is not clear, facts, skills, attitudes are difficult to differentiate, can not be concretized, and it is difficult to accurately represent the actual phenomenon of the process of teaching and learning in education.