Outcome-Based

Education
By
Abhishek Das
What is Outcome Based Education?

“(OBE) is an educational theory that bases each part of an educational system

around goals (outcomes). By the end of the educational experience, each student
should have achieved the goal. There is no single specified style of teaching or
assessment in OBE; instead, classes, opportunities, and assessments should all
help students achieve the specified outcomes” [1]
Goal of Outcome Based Education

Outcome Based Education, as the name suggests depends on Outcomes and

not Inputs. The outcomes in OBE are expected to be measurable. In fact each
Educational Institute can state its own outcomes. The ultimate goal is to ensure
that there is a correlation between education and employability
The problems with the Traditional Education System

Age-old methodology that doesn’t get intended results

Doesn’t measure attainment of skills
Little to no correlation between classroom learning and industry expectations
Doesn’t incorporate feedbacks from industry experts
Doesn’t encourage students to apply learnings to real time scenarios
No Continuous Improvement process
Why Outcome Based Education?

Outcome Based Education has been widely accepted as a solution to ensuring

that the students are more industry ready. Following are the major benefits of
Outcome Based Education -

1. Makes the Program student-centric

2. Reviewing and Revising Curriculum
3. Better tracking the learning in students
4. Assessing better
5. Engaging with students in a better way
6. Meeting Accreditation requirements
Differences between Traditional Education System & OBE
Traditional Educational System
Traditionally based on inputs; content to
teach and teaching methodologies
Teaching involves sharing of knowledge
on topics
Assessments based on marks or
grades attained by students
Only learning is assessed at the end of
each course
Does not focus on Continuous
Improvement
Outcome Based Education
Based on outcomes; that students should
attain at the end of each course
Teaching involves incorporating activities
that requires students to demonstrate their
learnings
Assessment based on attainment of
outcomes for each activity
In OBE, every activity of the student is
assessed eg. field visits, assignments etc.
Involves Continuous improvement through
feedbacks from alumni, students, industry
experts etc.
History of Outcome Based Education

1988 1989 1999 2017

William G Spady Washington Accords was
coins the term Outcome- created to accept
Based Education Engineering degrees obtained
through OBE
Harden published a report By 2017, Washington
describing OBE as a Accords has 20 Full
performance based approach Signatories and 5
at the cutting edge of Provisional Signatories
Curriculum Development
Principles of Outcome Based Education
Principles of Outcome Based Education

Clarity of Focus

It means that all activities of the teachers(E.g. teaching, knowledge sharing,

assessment etc.) are focused on what knowledge they want their students to
gain or what skills they want their students to develop.
Principles of Outcome Based Education

High Expectations

It means that faculties/teachers should set up high expectations and

benchmarks to stimulate the minds of students. They should encourage
students to implement their learnings and skills to thought inducing situations
and scenarios.
Principles of Outcome Based Education

Expanded Opportunities

It means that all the students have to be provided expanded opportunities.

The rationale behind this is that not all students can learn the same things at
the same time and in the same way. However, if students are given ample
avenues and opportunities, then most can achieve high standards.
Principles of Outcome Based Education

Design Down

Faculties/teachers take a design down approach. They work backwards with

the outcomes that the students need to demonstrate. They thus incorporate
different teaching styles to ensure that students develop the requisite skills
and knowledge.
Challenges with Outcome Based Education
Challenges with Outcome Based Education

Lack of Unified Process

There is no uniform process for outcome based education. Each Educational

Institution can have their own set of outcomes. When it comes to calculation
of attainments at various outcome levels, confusion still persists.

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Challenges with Outcome Based Education

Poor Data Accuracy

Pooling in data from all activities is a humongous task and so is calculating

attainments of each student in each activity. All this data needs to be in one
single platform to ensure accuracy. There is also a need for uniform tracking
tools.

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Challenges with Outcome Based Education

Devalued Classroom Experience

Teachers/faculties should be focusing on new innovative ways to enrich the

classroom experience for students. Additionally all the workload from
incorporating OBE, additional effort on calculations takes away faculty’s focus
from teaching.

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Challenges with Outcome Based Education

Human Errors in calculating attainment of outcomes

Human errors are unavoidable. Lack of control environment, too many

manual calculations etc. increase the risk of human errors. Add to this, the
lack of error tracking means, leads to further increase in risk.

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Challenges with Outcome Based Education

Little to no importance given to feedback

Feedbacks and surveys are the backbone of the institution. Yet, it remains as
challenging as ever. Feedbacks are often not taken seriously, they tend to be
not genuine and sometimes even faculties/teachers are unable to get
feedbacks on time.

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Solution for Challenges with OBE

Want to incorporate Outcome Based Education in your School/Institute/

College/University?

Get in touch with Creatrix Campus : info@creatrixcampus.com

For more information, visit the website : www.creatrixcampus.com

Request a demo

Creatrix has been built keeping Outcome Based Education and Bloom’s
Taxonomy in mind. Creatrix helps Educational Institutions in incorporating OBE
thus increasing skills of students, reducing faculty workload, becoming
Accreditation Compliant and increasing overall Institutional Efficiency.
References

[1] Spady, William (1994).  Outcome-Based Education: Critical Isues and

Answers  (PDF). Arlington Virginia: American Association of School
Administrators. ISBN 0876521839.[2]
 THANKS!
Feel free to write to me at:

abhishek.das@creatrixcampus.com

www.creatrixcampus.com www.anubavam.com