Intended Learning outcomes

This page is designed to help you:

Understand how to identify short and long-term outcomes
Make a more coherent Change Pathway
Start thinking about the factors that influence outcomes in the short, medium and long-term

Short-term outcomes

Happen in the short-term, often directly after the activity
Can be observed or measured in the short-term
Are likely to be the immediate change experienced by the stakeholder after the activity
May lead to other medium or long-term outcomes
Indicate the success of a project in the short-term - i.e. if the project objectives have been achieved

Medium or long-term outcomes

Are likely to be dependent on certain short-term outcomes to occur
Can only be observed or measured in a long-term timeframe
Are likely to be influenced by other factors (and be found on the right hand side of your accountability line as a result)

Short and long-term outcomes - a quiz

Hypothetical activity

A museum has developed an online learning resource for educators to use before a schools visit to the museum. It uses the museums digital collections, sourced from Europeana. The museum project lead has created a change pathway for the project. This is below.

Would the following outcomes be experienced in the shorter- or longer-term? Are they short or long-term outcomes?

Pupils are more engaged in the museum visit
Educators more likely to use digital heritage in the classroom in future
Pupils have a stronger sense of connection with heritage
Pupils learn more depth about the topic more than a traditional museum visit

See if you’re right!

Click to see the answers!

Pupils are more engaged in the museum visit - SHORT-TERM

This is a short term outcome. You might develop indicators for this like how often pupils ask questions; observed attention paid to the museum guide; whether or not pupils can answer questions posed by the museum guide. Observation might be a methodology to help you measure this, as well as self-reporting by the museum guide.

Educators more likely to use digital heritage in the classroom in future - LONG-TERM

This is a long-term outcome. Although it might also happen in the short-term, seeing proof of this behaviour in the long-term might indicate that it is a sustained behaviour.

For example, it might be some time before an educator has to update their learning resources. They might remember your museum resource, and that online content was freely available on Europeana (alongside EuropeanaEducation's resources). This means that in the longer-term, they may be more likely to embed digital heritage in their learning resources in some way.

Pupils have a stronger sense of connection with heritage - LONG-TERM

We think this is a long-term outcome because a sense of connection is most meaningful if this is sustained and thus observable over time. We think that repeated engagement with heritage is likely to strengthen the likelihood of this outcome occuring, so it is connected to the educator also using more heritage in the classroom as well as more museum visits and other engagement with (digital) heritage. The outcome is also long-term because it is likely to be influenced by other factors other than this activity.

Pupils learn more depth about the topic more than a traditional museum visit - SHORT-TERM

As the museum visit happens at a certain point in time, this is likely to be a short-term outcome because it can only be measured in the short-term. You might measure this through a learning quiz carried out during the museum visit, and compare this to the results of quizzes from more ‘traditional' visits to the museum. At the same time, we might measure something similar, like knowledge retention, by taking a longer-term perspective - but that’s a different outcome!

Click here for a look at the complete change pathway!

Click here!

Next steps

You’re now ready to draw your own Accountability line

Identifying short- and long-term outcomes