Aligning Learning Outcomes and Knowledge

Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) categorised knowledge into four categories considering increasing complexity and abstractness of the subject matter. The first level of knowledge is factual knowledge, which is the basic type of knowledge in every discipline includes knowledge of facts, terminologies, persons, places years etc. Next level of knowledge is conceptual knowledge which includes concepts, principles, theories and generalisations in a discipline. The knowledge of processes and methods of a discipline is the third level of knowledge. The highest level of knowledge is metacognitive knowledge, whcih is the knowledge of regulating one's on cognitive processes and developing learners’ own strategies to learn the subject. Curriculum designers must carefully align educational outcomes with different knowledge categories to ensure attainment of different types of knoiwledge considering the nature of learner, type of educational programme and competencies expected from a learner at the time of exiting a programme.