The construction and classification of educational objectives to develop selling competencies needed by workers in the general merchandise category of distribution

Abstract

The Problem. The study was made to provide a basis for distributive education curriculums at the high school, post high school, and adult levels. Purposes. The purposes of the study were: (1) to construct educational objectives that should assure the development of technical competencies needed by distributive workers in the selling area of the general merchandise category of distribution; (2) to classify the identified educational objectives into the cognitive and affective domains; and (3) to construct illustrations of specific objectives in order to provide a basis for constructing test items and to suggest evaluation devices. Procedure. Educational objectives were constructed for the competencies in the research study, "A Competency Pattern Approach to Curriculum Construction in Distributive Teacher Education," identified as those needed by distributive workers in the selling area of the general merchandise category of distribution. The writer then classified the educational objectives into one of the six broad categories of the cognitive domain or one of four broad categories of the affective domain. Illustrations of specific objectives, based on selected educational objectives, that would provide a basis for constructing test items and suggesting evaluation devices were also constructed. An illustrative test item or an evaluation device was proposed for each of the specific objectives. Conclusions. Two conclusions were drawn from this research study: (1) the educational objectives based on competencies needed by workers in the selling area of the general merchandise category of distribution are usable in curriculum guides; (2) the classification of educational objectives for the selling area according to levels of complexity or degrees of internalization makes possible the incorporation of the objectives into the various levels of instruction in the distributive education curriculum.