Multidoeltaken

Multidoeltaken is a concept used in task design to describe activities that pursue multiple objectives simultaneously. Such tasks require participants to achieve several outcomes within a single activity, often balancing competing requirements such as speed, accuracy, completeness, and usability.

The term is Dutch, built from multi- (many), doel (goal), and taken (tasks). In Dutch educational and professional literature it is used to refer to assignments or activities designed to assess or develop several learning or performance objectives at once. In English-language texts the idea is sometimes described as “multi-objective tasks.”

Key features of multidoeltaken include the presence of several simultaneous goals, the need to manage trade-offs between those goals, and the use of diverse criteria or metrics to assess performance. They can introduce feedback complexity because success depends on multiple dimensions rather than a single measure.

Contexts in which multidoeltaken appear include education, corporate training and performance evaluation, human-computer interaction, and software testing. An example might be a capstone project that must demonstrate technical proficiency, clear communication, and ethical considerations within one deliverable.

Pros and challenges accompany multidoeltaken. They can improve realism and efficiency by integrating multiple objectives, but they also require careful design to avoid cognitive overload and ambiguous assessment. Effective implementation relies on clear objectives, aligned rubrics, and manageable scope.

See also: multi-objective optimization, task design, educational assessment.