Learning outcomes in Higher Education were introduced as a result of recommendations in the Dearing Report (1997). They are designed to clearly state what a student should have learned by the end of the course. According to the UAL course designer document, components of a learning outcome should be; an action verb to describe the behaviour which demonstrates the student’s learning,information about the context for the demonstration and how well the outcome will be demonstrated. Furthermore outcomes need to specific and clearly written, measurable and demonstrable, and aligned with what is taught and assessed, i.e. accessible, assessable and achievable. Course learning outcomes should align to the QAA subject benchmark statement or Master’s degree characteristics statement. At UAL each of the learning outcomes 

needs to be linked to at least one of the five assessment criteria:

Enquiry

Knowledge

Process

Communication

Realisation

When learning outcomes were introduced, they were met with a mixed response from educators and there is debate over whether they are a suitable way to measure success in creative education. Assessment criteria had been used with a range of gradings (unsatisfactory – excellent) since the 1950’s and so learning outcomes had to find a way to map onto these assessment criteria when they were introduced – a process which wasn’t always either smooth or meaningful. 

Benefits:

• They enable students to identify what they are expected to learn, evidence that learning and measure the skills and/or competencies they have learned on the course. (Addison, 2014)

• The use of learning outcomes can help staff to create a coherent curriculum and deliver content that is consistent and at an appropriate level (AEM course designer).
• They promote the benefit of ‘transferable’ cognitive skills gained during a course of study (Addison, 2014).
• They may lessen teacher idiosyncrasies or prejudices when it comes to marking (Addison, 2014).

Opportunities

• They can be used to encourage development by highlighting what students need to evidence in order to achieve a higher mark (Addison, 2014).
• Learning outcomes and empower students and creates transparency by placing the knowledge of what they need to achieve in their hands (Addison, 2014).

Challenges 

• Learning outcomes may not be consistently applied consistently by staff or indeed may not be fully understood by students or staff. Davies (2012) comments that in some cases, only those who write the learning outcomes fully understand them and that it can be challenging to understand the context for tutors who teach part-time as in some cases, only the course designers have a real understanding of how things fit together.
• “New or part-time teachers, for instance, have to take the module outlines at face value and make sense of them in terms of their own professional experience.” (Davies, 2012)

Limitations

• It has been argued that learning outcomes “may inhibit learning within creative domains, supporting only those students who work strategically to meet largely pre-determined, necessarily accessible outcomes” (Records 2013, via Addison 2014)
• As learning outcomes are ‘measurable’, they may not support risk-taking, creativity, inventivenes or imagination which are  all features of the creative education (Davies, 2012). For example ‘visualisation’ is neceesary for design capability but is not easily captured in a learning outcome. 
• In some cases, learning outcomes become overly generic to match with assessment criteria and therefore become less meanignful (Davies, 2012).

References:
Addison, N. (2014). Doubting learning outcomes in Higher Education contexts: from performativity towards emergence and negotiation.
Davies, A. (2012). Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?
Currant, N., Stephens, T. and Staddon, E. University of the Arts London, Course Designer 4: Crafting Learning Outcomes, [Format – PDF], Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/190395/Course-Designer-4-Crafting-Learning-Outcomes-PDF-255KB.pdf, (Accessed: 01/03/24).