*Maurice Ryan
AN
EVALUATION
OF OUTCOMES-BASED APPROACHES IN
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CURRICULUM GUIDELINES
The New Reformers
Since the decline in the use of the question
and answer catechism in most Catholic school
classrooms in the early 1960s, many reformers have
responded to the challenge of religious education in
the classroom: kerygmatic catechisms, life
experience discussions and structured activities,
shared Christian praxis and religious studies
approaches are only some of these reform
movements. The latest effort to reform and improve
religious education in schools finds inspiration in
initiatives developed in a number of Western liberal
democracies in the 1980s. These educational reforms
have taken on characteristics of economic models
founded on the cultivation of competitive market
forces. Schools and other educational institutions, it
is argued, will be more effective and efficient if they
adopt practices which correspond to those of the
business corporation and the competitive market
place. In Britain particularly, this has meant the
introduction of uniform national standards for
classroom curriculums, national testing programs,
national league tables comparing individual school's
performances, and national standards for professional
qualifications, accreditation and teaching quality.
British schools have been encouraged to become
self-managing, with greater responsibility for
income-generation and expenditure. Overseeing this
operation is a privatised form of school inspection
known as OFSTED (Office of Standards in
Education).
Many Australian education authorities,
unionists, politicians, and business leaders since the
mid-1980s have sought to introduce many of these
kinds of reforms to Australian schools. These
policies, as they unfold in Australian schools, are
altering the leadership and administration of schools,
the content of the curriculum and the work practices
of teachers and students. In the mid-1990s, some
diocesan religious education authorities began to
adopt some elements of these competitive market
reforms. This article seeks to chart the course of this
latest reform movement within school religious
education. The discussion which follows will assess
the meaning of this movement for religious education
and evaluate its possibilities and limitations.
_____________________
*Dr Maurice Ryan is Head of Department
Religious Education at McAuley Campus of Australian
Catholic University
of
School improvement and market forces
Markets are ‘social settings that foster
specific types of personal development and penalise
others’ (Bowles, 1991, p. 13). Precisely what aspects
are fostered and penalised in schools when they are
subjected to market forces is vigorously contested by
rival sides in the discussion. Those who argue for
competitive market forces to be given greater
emphasis in the community assert that a culture of
competition increases flexibility and rates of
innovation: if individuals and groups compete with
each other to resolve dilemmas and difficulties, new
solutions can be found much more efficiently.
Competition is said to increase the diversity of what
is produced and therefore to increase choice:
producers are encouraged to fit their product to the
needs and demands of their customers, especially
smaller groups of customers known as niche markets.
Competition encourages people to adopt more
efficient work practices: to maintain competitive
advantage, ‘muscle’ must replace ‘fat’, collusive
work practices are curtailed, ownership and control
of resources is privatised, and incentives to work
efficiently are increased. Competition improves the
volume and quality of products: productivity
increases occur when customer-focus and efficient
work practices combine in the production and
distribution
process.
Competition
increases
accountability to stakeholders: business owners and
customers have a clearer idea of the way that
production outcomes have matched market
expectations at all stages of the process (Marginson,
1997).
The introduction of competitive market
forces, seen as essential for contemporary business
practice, has found favour in school and university
systems as well. The most obvious exercise of these
principles has been in the construction of the
classroom curriculum. These curriculum initiatives
have stressed the careful description of outcomes.
Outcomes-based approaches to school curriculum
design have been trialled in many parts of Europe
and North America since the late 1980s. Those who
support such an approach point to the greater I
improve curriculum decision-making, assessment
accountability which is possible across a whole
system of schools. They also argue that it is a way to
improve curriculum decision-making, assessment and
reporting of key learning areas in the school.
14 Word in Life Journal of Religious Education 46 (1) 1998
Teaching for specified outcomes is meant to raise
standards for all students. This approach emphasises
the need for a sophisticated and detailed framework
of learning outcomes for each curriculum area. Less
stress is placed on the ‘inputs’to the curriculum: what
will be taught and how it will be taught. It is felt that
these aspects of teaching and learning will be
clarified and enhanced once it is clear where
everyone is headed.
A curriculum based on statements of
outcomes places up front what is to be learned and
what will be assessed, a dimension which is not
always clear in other curriculum approaches. Often,
students need to guess ‘what will be on the test’ or
use ingenious methods to gauge the most significant
aspects of a curriculum. This can mean students are
not sure what the desired outcomes of the course are
until they have seen the assessment requirements.
With outcomes stated up front, students are able to
know what kind and depth of learning is required.
This greater specificity clarifies for teachers the kind
of teaching and learning approaches which might be
likely to achieve these outcomes as well as the forms
which assessment procedures might take. It also
provides teachers with a timetable for determining
whether and when students have arrived at
designated points. This approach, because it provides
a variety of pathways for achieving learning at each
age level, is more sensitive to an individual student's
degree of readiness, prior background and different
rate of learning. For these reasons, proponents of an
outcomes-based approach argue that it can lead to the
revitalisation of classroom teaching and learning:
students know what they are expected to learn;
teachers are aware of their responsibilities in helping
students to achieve their outcomes; community
stakeholders in the school, including parents and
government officials, can see what has been
achieved. Accountability is assured if this approach
has been faithfully implemented.
In terms of assessment and reporting,
students are not scored and ranked in comparison
with other students who have taken the same
standardised test, as is the case with norm-referenced
approaches. Instead, they are able to judge where
they stand on a continuum of learning. Outcomesbased assessment does not eliminate norm-referenced
approaches. However, students are better able to
view their performance in terms of their own rates of
achievement and progress, rather than by comparison
with their age-peers. The aim of assessment, then, is
to identify progress in each student's learning,
indicate what has been learned, what has been
missed, and what might be taught and learned next.
In this way, assessment is designed to assume its
rightful role as an aid to learning, not act as a barrier
or disincentive by simply comparing the performance
of students with each other.
In an outcomes-based curriculum, class
groupings are not constituted purely on the basis of
age. Outcomes-based approaches take as criteria for
determining groups, the readiness of students to
learn. Some schools employ the profile of an
individual student's learning to determine class
groupings. In the matter of grouping, flexibility is the
key, since student performance can be shown to vary
between tasks and topics. While there is no one best
way to organise groups, because of the variability of
students' learning and traditional expectations about
being grouped in age cohorts, schools and classroom
teachers are challenged by this approach to organise
the best arrangement according to a balance of
competing claims.
Hannan and Ashenden (1996) have outlined
the language used in an outcomes-based approach to
the classroom curriculum. A definition of key terms
based on their work is provided in Table 1(p.16).
Outcomes-based approaches in Australian
religious education
For Australian religious educators who have
adopted an outcomes-based approach, a number of
ideas coincided to lead them to accept this way of
educating. For one, it was perceived as a way for the
classroom religion program to be seen as equivalent
to other key learning areas. This would assist the
process of accreditation of religion courses to meet
requirements of State certification, at least in the
secondary schools where such certification exists.
Also, the need for accountability to Church
authorities had been a constant call by some since the
decline of the traditional catechism approach. When
the catechism was the preferred style of classroom
religion teaching and learning, it was a reasonably
straight forward prospect for a teacher to make
judgments about learning achieved in Catholic school
classrooms. An appointed officer of the Church,
usually the local priest or inspector of schools would
enter a classroom and quiz students on their ability to
recall prescribed responses to catechism questions.
Ever since the disappearance of the catechism, some
Catholic Church officials have been heard to
question the role of the school in the religious
formation of their students. The articulation provide
precise information on students' learning in
Word in Life: Journal of Religious Education 46(1) 1998 15
Table 1
The Language of Outcomes-Based Education
Areas of Learning
The curriculum is divided into areas of learning based on either skills or content.
Indicators
Each outcome is accompanied by pointers or indicators of the kind of work that
demonstrates achievement of the outcome.
Levels
Each strand is divided into levels or bands of outcomes for ease of reporting student
achievement which represent an ascending order of difficulty. Levels do not
correspond to age or grade levels.
Outcome
A brief statement of the various skills and knowledge that students typically acquire
as they become more proficient in an area.
Profile
A subject profile is a shared reporting framework. It gives a picture of the progress of
a typical student across the curriculum.
Strands
Each learning area is divided into several strands which are components of an area in
which a progression of learning can be charted. Strands can be groupings of content,
process and/or conceptual understanding.
Work Samples
Samples of students' work are collected to illustrate achievement of specific
outcomes. These help to build a consensus on the meaning of particular outcomes.
and even, in some places, for the accreditation of
teachers to teach religion in a Catholic school. The
first attempt at instigating an outcomes-based
approach occurred in the Archdiocese of Sydney
which published revised religious education
curriculum guidelines for Catholic secondary schools
in 1996. These guidelines are called, Faithful to God,
faithful to people, (1996) as were the previous 1984
guidelines. The difference is the departure from a
catechetical approach which used a school based
curriculum development model to one using an
outcomes-based approach closely modelled on the
one proposed by the New South Wales Board of
Studies curriculum guidelines. The outcomes for the
religion program are expressed at two levels of
specificity:
Bands of outcomes which are general
outcomes relating to specific topic areas,
form the basis for a curriculum map
covering the five areas of Scripture and
Jesus; Church and Community; God,
Religion and Life; Sacraments, Liturgy and
Prayer;and Morality and Justice. These
general outcomes become the basis of a
module
Classroom outcomes developed in the
modules, are written in more specific terms.
There are generally five sets of classroom
outcomes which spell out the areas which
will be covered in the module. They
indicate a range of actions a student might
be able to perform in order to demonstrate
achievement of the module's Band of
Outcomes. The
classroom outcomes are complemented by suggested
teaching and learning, and assessment strategies,
classroom resources and the other module elements
previously indicated (Crotty, Fletcher & McGrath,
1995, p. 17).
Some evaluative responses to outcomes-based
approaches
Even a brief discussion of the introduction
of standards and outcomes measures for Australian
school curriculums reveals that these ideas are not
much more than a sophisticated repackaging of ideas
which have been incorporated in school curriculums
in previous eras. Indeed, what was the traditional
catechism but a book of standard responses which
were to be re-presented by students on demand? The
talk of outcomes measures is not so far removed from
initiatives to incorporate behavioural outcomes
light of historical developments in religious
education.
The careful articulation of standards and
outcomes may be necessary  even essential  for the
teaching and learning of basic or foundational
knowledge and skills such as spelling, basic
computation and fundamental physical skills. These
foundational skills or capacities are instrumental for
other, larger and more important educational aims.
However, standards may not be effective in
Word in Life: Journal of Religious Education 46(1) 1998 17
cultivating in students desirable capacities for
creativity, critical thinking, and variety in the
outcomes produced in a classroom. In these
instances, students create outcomes which may not be
identical with their peers, although they may
contribute immensely to the image of an educated
person.
Sime commentators have argued that a
prescribed national curriculum which requires the
teacher to implement the curriculum designs of
others may result in ‘de-skilling and a decline in the
professional status of teachers, rather than an
elevating of it’. Lovat and Smith (1995) think that
The teacher should be one who can
personally analyze the needs of a situation,
in this case, the teaching/learning or
educational needs. These might well be
unique, or at least sufficiently distinctive to
forbid the use of a prescribed formula
devised hundreds of miles away by
‘experts’ unfamiliar with the context in
question. . . . With the assistance of
guidelines provided and a department with
support personnel available, the teacher, in
collaboration with others who know the
context, might well be charged with the
prime responsibility of designing and
implementing the curriculum which is
needed in this context (p. 195).
Such criticisms need to be thoughtfully
applied to religious education in contemporary
Australian Catholic schools. Lovat and Smith
presume that a well prepared and skilled teaching
force exists in a discipline area, or in general
curriculum in the primary school: that is, teachers
have a reasonably high level of expertise in the
design and implementation of curriculums which has
been enhanced by thorough pre-service preparation
and supported by systematic and ongoing inservice
opportunities. Any approach which seeks to relieve
teachers of the exercise of this expertise in favour of
faceless and distant ‘experts’ would rightly draw the
condemnation of all school teachers who consider
themselves professional. However, fears of deskilling of teachers when those teachers themselves
do not feel adequately prepared to carry out their
curriculum design and teaching responsibilities
requires some acceptance of the need for greater
teacher support and alleviation of the more
burdensome aspects of the task. Whether the
adoption of an approach based on specifying precise
outcomes and indicators will provide the appropriate
support remains an open question: will teachers who
work with these curriculum materials perceive them
as providing the right balance between the provision
of adequate resources and freedom to modify and
create the appropriate program for their religion
classes?
Other critics have argued that this kind of
balance cannot be achieved using an outcomes
approach since it represents a narrowly
instrumentalist approach to teaching, curriculum
construction and assessment. They argue that a range
of teaching approaches and assessment options is not
possible. They note a marked lack of attention to
theories of teaching and learning in discussions about
outcomes-based approaches. In fact, teachers
following an outcomes-based approach are highly
constrained in what they can do in a classroom:
The logic of the competencies movement
would still seem to be based on the notion
that a teacher/trainer ‘gives’ information to
a student/learner who ‘absorbs’ it and
proceeds to demonstrate their individual
‘acquisition’ on a technical competency
assessment grid. . . . With ends determined
and assessment standardised there is little
room for pedagogic manoeuvrability. This
is still a static view of teaching and learning
which bears little relation to the dynamic
picture built up through more recent
research (Porter, et al., 1992, p. 56).
According to this view, the narrow
conception of teaching and learning which
underscores outcomes-based approaches offers a
restrictive vision of the nature and purpose of schools
in a complex, diverse and diffuse world. It constrains
classroom teaching and learning to supplying the
basic skill requirements of the work force or other
community stakeholders. This could lead to the
stifling of creativity and divergent thinking in
students. Students may come to perceive that it is
possible to offer one, standard answer for a particular
problem or dilemma rather than seeing variant
possibilities, multiple meanings and the complexity
of issues involved.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, it does
seem possible that a precise description of learning
outcomes can contribute to teachers' capacity to plan,
teach and assess their religion lessons. In many
Australian religious education curriculum guidelines
documents in the past, indications of intended
learning were too vague, general or unclear for the
wonder of God's creation’ may have described the
general goals of the topic or the wishes that a teacher
held for students enhanced capacities. But, they
wonder o f God’s creation’ may have described the
general goals of the topic or the wishes that a teacher
held for students enhanced capacityes. But they
offered teachers little to assist them to formulate
teaching and learning activities which would help to
achieve this outcome, and almost no direction at all
for assessing students’ achievement of it. A part of
the problem in this way of describing student
learning outcomes is the lack of specificity in the
verbs used to describe them. The use of terms such
as ‘understand’, ‘appreciate’, and ‘know’ does not
18 Word in Life Journal of Religious Education 46 (1) 1998
offer sufficient guide to the activities of the class.
The outcomes movement has focused greater
attention on the need to articulate more accurately the
kind of outcomes which can be expected in
classroom programs.
The outcomes-based movement also has
assisted a number of Australian dioceses to articulate
a common vision of religious education which is to
operate in the diocese. The specific articulation of
standards and outcomes for religious education is a
helpful exercise for those curriculum planners most
closely identified with establishing diocesan policy.
This process can help to establish a common vision
for the curriculum area. The reformulation of
diocesan guidelines using an outcomes approach has
enabled dioceses to consider contemporary
conditions for religious education and ‘articulate
what these differences might mean in a practical way
for religious education in Catholic schools’ (Barry,
1996, p. 3). Also, it seems that the process involved
in determining outcomes  especially since it can
involve high numbers of classroom teachers in the
articulation of outcomes  leads to greater levels of
acceptance and adoption of the approach and
enthusiasm for the various curriculum developments
required to implement fully an outcomes-based
approach.
Experience of teaching using outcomes-based
approaches
It is common for classroom teachers who
encounter religious education guidelines documents
which have adopted an outcomes-based approach to
be pleased with the greater clarity they provide.
Teachers respond positively to the clarity offered in
the sequencing of material, the goals described and
the nature of the material to be presented. Such
lucidity comes to many teachers as a relief from
previous religious education curriculum guidelines
which have concentrated on affective and faith
outcomes and provided fewer indicators of the
content and teaching approaches most appropriate for
particular topics. In some instances, the new
guidelines also provide comprehensive units of work
which can be adapted and modified to suit particular
teaching needs. When classroom teaching materials
are provided to a greater extent than before and
regimes for assessment of students' achievements are
described in greater detail, teachers often report high
satisfaction with an outcomes-based approach.
One of the most common responses of
teachers when asked about the difference in using an
outcomes-based approach is the burdensome nature
of the assessment and reporting phases of classroom
teaching. This should perhaps be expected in an
approach which places great emphasis on accounting
for the products of classroom teaching and learning.
For teachers and students to account for their
classroom work, a considerable amount of
documentation is required which describes and
analyses the learning which has occurred. This need
for documentation mirrors experience in the business
world where much paper work is generated in an
effort to demonstrate the quality of the standards that
have been achieved. For many classroom teachers,
this attention to assessment and reporting is excessive
and shifts their available resources of time and
energy away from the processes of planning and
teaching. Some say that they can spend more time
assessing and writing reports than they do in
classroom teaching (Accountability, 1996, pp. 7-8).
Advocates of outcomes-based education admit that it
represents a realignment of a teacher's work practices
and job profile. Hannan and Ashenden (1996)
concede that it requires more and different
assessment and recording which imposes an ongoing
demand on teacher's time. This can mean a ‘change
in the teacher's work profile, with relatively more
time on planning, preparing, monitoring and
reporting, and relatively less in up-front
performance’ (1996, p. 14). This can lead to less
discretion on the part of the individual teacher on
what and how they teach and more time working and
discussing with colleagues. An effective outcomesbased approach requires coherence and cooperation
across a whole school.
Another characteristic of an outcomesbased approach is the possibility it offers for
comparing results or outcomes between two or more
groups; uniformity of teaching approach and learning
outcomes allows for easier comparison within and
between groups of students on levels of achievement.
In the business world, an almost essential
requirement is comparison with competitors to assess
relative performance: ‘League ladders’ or
comparison tables based upon various performance
criteria are closely scrutinised by corporations and
their competitors in the quest for improvement and
quality enhancement. This is an aspect of the stress
on accountability, albeit a negative one for schools
for a number of reasons. Most importantly, the basis
of comparison of student groups cannot be equal
even if they are broadly similar. The differences
between student groups, teachers, and the kinds of
teaching provided is necessarily idiosyncratic and
variable. To attempt to standardise such ‘inputs’ is
fanciful. Comparison of results and performance
between and within groups can lead to unhealthy
responses such as reticence among students to
cooperate with each other. The issue of comparison
of results highlights one of the ongoing issues of
significance for religious education, indeed for all
educational efforts which are conducted in schools:
how to achieve common accomplishments and
cultivate communal commitments, at the same time
as encouraging individual talents and differences.
A New Reform?
Word in Life: Journal of Religious Education 46(1) 1998 19
In many respects, the introduction of
outcomes-based approaches to classroom religion
programs is not more than a sophisticated
repackaging of ideas which have been tried and
found wanting in past attempts to improve religious
education. The stress on observable competencies,
tight, centralised bureaucratic direction and control
of the curriculum, and close supervision of teachers
and students have failed in the past to bring about
desired improvements to religious education in
schools. Elliot Eisner (1995) considers that such
reforms not only cannot bring about necessary
improvements, but that ‘they distract us from the
deeper, seemingly intractable problems which beset
our schools’.
It distracts us from paying attention to the
importance of building a culture of
schooling that is genuinely intellectual in
character, that values questions and ideas at
least as much as getting right answers. It
distracts us from trying to understand how
we can provide teachers with the kind of
professional opportunities that will afford
the best among them opportunities to
continue to grow through a life time of
work. It distracts us from attending to the
inevitable array of interactions between
teaching, curriculum, evaluation, school
organization, and the often deleterious
expectations and pressures from universities
(p. 764).
If market forces foster specific types of
developments and penalise others, religious
educators ought to be on their guard about what is
lost and gained when the language of the market is
used to describe and control the conduct of their
discipline in schools. The potential for greater
specificity and accountability may be at the cost of
creativity, personal freedom and the creation of a true
intellectual quality to classroom religion programs.
education curriculum. Word in Life, 43(2),
15-20.
Eisner, E. (1995). Standards for American schools:
Help or hindrance? Phi Delta Kappan,
76(10), 758-764.
Hannan B., & Ashenden, D. (1996). Teaching for
outcomes: How and why. Carlton:
Curriculum Corporation.
Lovat, T., & Smith, D. (1995). Curriculum: Action
on reflection revisited. Wentworth Falls:
Social Science Press.
Marginson, S.
(1997). Competition and contestability in
Australian higher education, 1987-1997.
Australian Universities Review, 40 (1), 514.
Porter, P., Rizvi, F., Knight, J., & Lingard, . (1992).
Competencies for a clever country:
Building a house of cards?Unicorn, 18 (3),
50-58.
Rossiter, G. (1997). Diocesan guidelines for
Australian Catholic religious education:
Reflections from overseas. Word in Life, 45
(4), 29-32.
References
Accountability Rampant - the Draining of the Human
Soul: Or, Where is Curriculum Heading?
Or, What Happened to Teaching and
Learning? (1996, November). Curriculum
Connections, pp.7-8.
Barry, G. (1996). Meditating on the decades:
Guidelines for religious education. Word in
Life, 44 (4), 3-5.
Bowles, S. (1991, July-August). What markets can and cannot - do. Challenge, pp.11-16.
Catholic Education Office, Sydney. (1996).
Faithful to God, faithful to people:
Secondary religious education guidelines.
Sydney: Sydney Archdiocesan Schools
Board.
Crotty, L., Fletcher, E., & McGrath, J. (1995).
Reflections on an emerging religious
20 Word in Life Journal of Religious Education 46 (1) 1998