CHAPTER Affective Learning Competencies Overview person’s attitude, interests and values. Student affect is important and teachers can help their students acquire positive attitudes, According to William James Popham (2003), the reasons why it is important to assess affect are: (1) educators should be interested in assessing affective variables because these variables are excellent predictors of students’ future behavior; (2) teachers should assess affect to remind themselves that there's more to being a successful teacher than helping students obtain high scores on achievement tests; and (3) Information regarding students’ affect can help teachers teach more effectively on a day-to-day basis. In this chapter, the importance of affective targets, affective traits and learning targets as well as affective domain of the taxonomy of educational objectives will be discussed, Section Intended Learning Outcome At the outset of this section, you are expected to be able to develop instruments for assessing affective learning. Chapter Intended Learning Outcome At the end of this chapter, you should be able to craft affective learning outcome for the different levels in the affective domain.Assessment of Learni ENGAGE —_ Besides students’ academi, ‘emic performance, there are other dimensions of learners that need to be assessed also. These are aptitudes i 5 and a achievement of learners (Tanner, 2001), attitudes that are related to the academic Me edie learners’ experiences with a subject or an activity is only part of what i e put in order to explain their performance. In a class, it would be an obvious evidence that experience appears to be consistent from student to student (since they belong to the same class and were given the same activity), still some perform better than the others. And this difference among students needs to be part of the information to assess students better. The learners’ attitudes toward academic tasks influence their achievements (Harter, 1988; Lefrancois, 1994). Attitude is associated with what is called the individual's affective domain, and affect adds a significant dimension to assessment. If there is a relationship between how students feel about a task and their performance, it is but necessary for teachers to assess affect and then do something to influence affect. It is not just to help the students like the activities they do but to do it better. Attitude measures are part of the broader category of personality measures. This area of assessment is significant since information about personality characteristics gives more information that will help in predicting how a particular set of learners will likely respond to certain learning situation. Inthe general psychology course, a more detailed study about personality is covered, but in this book the focus is its connection to school and learners’ achievement. The relevance of affective targets as rej learning, are discussed in the succeeding paragraphs. gards assessment of learners’ and facilitation of 1. Importance of Affective Targets e clear link between affect and cognitive learning (Ormrod, 2004). Students are more proficient in problem-solving if they enjoy what they do. Students che coe in good mood and emotionally involved are more likely to pay attention to information, remember it meaningfully and apply it. Too much anxiety obstructs learning, and greater motivation is necessary for maximum performance. {A more positive environment fosters good student engagement and learning than in a classroom with negative climate (Fraser, 1994). Though the linkage of affect an Researches have established th d learning of students has been well-established, there Li i i ment of affect that is applied in classroom instruction. Ye Hl an “To98, Stiggins & Conklin, 1992), Motivation and involvement mratilan, Workman & Matos are affected by student’ atitude tovard learning respect ‘or others, and concern for others. ‘Though these factors are known te teachers, vet ns teachers do not utilize any Kind of formal affective assessment. Possible reasons are: (1)Assessment of Learning 2 ffectivi ! ” assessment of al e tare school routines are organized based on subject areas; and (2) ‘ is fraught with difficulties. (McMillan, 2007) i . Il students. This Cognitive subject matter targets are agreed on as desirable fr jearning, It also a affect in a position of importance but still secondary to —e all students. Itis simply,° difficult to determine which affective targets are appropriate for Yu easy to define attitudes, values, and interests. b The second possible reason is that many potential sources of reducers. Stat affective traits often result in low reliability. Motivation is of DE tt still many need to take such assessments seriously to provide accurate results, ae Many na restrain from giving honest answer if the responses are not treated witl is ifthe ean Confidentiality. It would be easier to fake responses to self-report instruments if the resus are to be used for grading or some other purpose. Students may want to please the teach with positive responses. Other possible source of error is that some affective traits are eas influenced by momentary or temporary moods. This is true for younger students who mg) report more negative affect after a bad day or session. Teachers’ bias may also contribu significantly on what may be recorded or perceived. Though a lot of demotivating instances were mentioned in the previous paragraphs these discouraging instances should not hinder the assessment of the students’ affec Positive affective traits and skills are essential for: * Effective learning * Being an involved and productive member of our society * Preparing for occupational and vocational satisfaction an work habits, willingness to learn, interpersonal skills) Maximizing the motivation to learn at present and in the future + Preventing students from dropping out of school d productivity (example Various ways by which teachers can signal to studer affect is important than just simply systematically assessi appropriate affect targets. In the next paragraph this actiot nts that clearly defined posit ing it. It begins with identifying n will be explained more. 2. Affective Traits and Learning Targets The word affective refers to a variety of traits and disposition. i i i s that nt fro knowledge, reasoning, and skills (Hohn, 1995). Technically, this term Sine oat or feelings that one has toward someone or something. Neverthel ess, attitudes, values #! concept, citizenship, and other traits are usually considered to be see than emotions or feelings. Most kinds of student affect involve bot son. itiv beliefs. th emotion and cog!shown in the table below are the different affective traits and its corresponding sition: a 7 i Prtyet ate itudes Ps redisposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to Specified situations, concepts, objects, institutions, or Persons rerestS: Titi, Inte Personal preference for certain kinds of activities S value: Importance, worth, or usefulness of modes or conduct and end states of existence Opinions Beliefs about specific occurrences and situations Preferences | Desire to select one object over another Motivation Desire and willingness to be engaged in behavior including intensity of involvement b= Academic Self-Concept Self-perception of competence in school and learning e Self-Esteem | Attitudes toward oneself; degree of self-respect, worthiness, or desirability of self-concept locus of Control Emotional Development Altruism Moral Development Classroom Development fee Willingness and propensity to help others ‘Attainment of ethical principles that guide decision- SS ———————— Nature of interpersonal interactions and functioning Self-perception of whether success and failure is controlled by the student or by external influences. Growth, change, and awareness of emotions and ability to regulate emotional expression in group setting making and behavior _| Nature of feeling tones and interpersonal relationship in a class (McMillan, 2007)HM Assessment of Learning 2 ¢ of these affective traits will be discussey, som In the succeeding parts of this chapter, hese traits have been studied and fy, line with setting of affective targets or outcomes. T! out to be contributory factors in student learning: 21 Attitude Targets McMillan (1980) defines attitudes as internal states that fenuenee ‘what stoden are likely to do. The internal state can in some degree determine p uD of abe favorable or unfavorable reaction toward an object, situation, person or csi Object, general environment, or group of persons. It does not refer to pan d eo 2 Studen, knows, right or wrong in a moral or ethical sense, oF characteristics su a ©, age ¢ socio-economic status. Ina learning institution, attitude is contingent on subjects, teacher; other students, homework, and other objects or persons. Most often, one can identify t Positive or negative attitudes that a person intends to foster or at least keep track of becaus, these attitudes are related to current and future behavior, Some of these attitude are liste: in the table below: SS Te Rete A Negative Attitude Toward Learning Cheating Math, Science, English, and other subjects Drug use Bullying Assignments Cutting classes Classroom rules Dropping out Teachers In researches conducted by social psychologists, they found that attitudes consist three components or contributing factors (Forsyth, 1999). 1. An affective component of positive or negative feelings, | 2. A cognitive component describing worth or value 3. A behavioral component indicating a willin, b ness or desire to engage in particule actions. The affective component consists of the emoti or a person (good or bad feelings, enjoyment, likes, describes students as liking math or enjoying art, component. The cognitive component is an evaluative belief (Such as thin: hing} valuable, useful, worthless, etc.). In school, students thinking something : can think history is useless and scie™| valuable. The behavioral component is actually responding in a positive was A strong at stable attitude is manifested when all three components ate consistent. Which means that! a student like science, the student thinks it is valuable, and reads science related materials home, it translates that the student has a very strong Positive attitude. On the other hand! on or feeling associated with an obie® comfort, anxiety, etc). When the teach | the teacher is focusiAssessment of Learning 2 KM ; these components will contradict one another. For example, one but thinks that English is important. The question : in general sense, toward English? That would depend on 8 Measured. If it is only affective component then is the cognitive component, it would translate to a ynely that for many students, ba may not like English ye, what would her attitude b, what components of the attitude is bein, ire attitude would be negative; but if it tive attitude. an post This trifocal conceptualization has Significant implications for identifying attitude targets. Does the assessment need to focus on feelings, thoughts, or behavior? If the jearning target for example is “students will have a positive attitude toward school” then the assessment needs to include all the three components since the general nature of target would need to be Consistent with the assessment. But, if the target is “students will like coming to school,” then it would suffice that the assessment focus only on the affective component. 22 Value Targets Generally, values refer either to end states of existence or to modes of conduct that are desirable or sought (Rokeach, 1973). End states of existence refer to conditions and aspects ofoneself and the kind of world that a person wants such as safe life, world peace, freedom, happiness, social acceptance, and wisdom. And modes of conduct are manifested in what aperson believe is appropriate and needed in everyday existence such as being honest, cheerful, ambitious, loving, responsible, and helpful. Each of these values can be placed into categories consistent with different areas of persons’ lives. Hence, the aspects of moral, political, social, aesthetic, economic, technological, and religious values. McMillan (2007) suggested that in setting value targets, it is necessary to stick to non-controversial and those that are clearly related to academic learning and school and department of education goals. Some values that are commendable and non-controversial are described in the table below: PCA omc Students should learn to value honesty in their dealing with others. Integrity Students should firmly observe their own code of values. ‘Students should support the view that all citizens should be the recipients Justice stice from government law enforcement agencies. of equal ju: Students should believe that democratic countries must provide the maximum level of freedom to their citizens. Freedom (Popham, 2005)ie Assessment of Learning 2 ———~ non-controversial Values (ay, perseverance, loyalty, rey hat there should be a limit, excellent job agg, her MeMillan (2007) and Popham (2005) see ON, trom those mentioned above) like kindness, BenerO™ courage, compassion, and tolerance. Both of them bell better to do an number of affective traits targeted and assessed: Its DERE! a few important traits than to try to assess many traits ny, es, 23 Motivation Target: areess nt to which students are inyo}, In education, motivation can be defined as the exte of learning 4, ts’ initiation in trying to learn, (McMillan, 2007) This includes the aa aeadents persistence. Ing, intensity of effort exerted, the students’ commitment, and thé in order to gain mastery, words, motivation is the determined engagement in learning i . ive i tance to opporti knowledge or skills; students take learning seriously and give impo portunity to learn. Researches on motivation can be organized according to the Expectancy X Valu Framework (Brophy, 2004; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). The model implies that motivat, is determined by students’ expectations, their beliefs about whether they are likely to}, Successful, and the relevance of the outcome. Expectations refers to the self-efficacy the student. Self-efficacy is the student's self-perception of his or her capability to perfon| successfully. Values are self-perception of the importance of the performance. That is, ts student see the relevance of the activity. For example, the students evaluate the activity ts engage in if it is enjoyable or satisfying; Will it meet some social and psychological need! (such as self-worth, competence, or belonging); Will it help the student meet an importa goal? Students who believe that they have the capability to be successful and that the activi they engage in themselves are important for them and relevant, they will be highly motivate to learn. Even if they value the outcome, and yet the students believe that they don't har the capability to attain success, their motivation will be weak. Similarly, there are man students capable but are unmotivated because the activity that they are asked to do holé no importance for these students. Like attitudes, motivation is too ambiguous to use the general definition as an outeo because it is difficult to pinpoint the source of lack of eftert and involvement. McMi (2007) suggests that motivation targets should focus on self-efficacy and value, distinct academic subject and type of learning (like knowledge, understandin fai Ba are some examples of motivation targets; 8 reasoning). * Students will believe that they are capable of learni | computer programs using Java, (self-efficacy) "@ NOW to write simple + Students will believe that it is important to programs using Java, (value) Know how to write simple comp In assessing motivation, it is important to reasons students’ give for their actions, Whey in activities because they find the activities interesting, eniganne or engage thems?! intrinsically motivated, While extrinsic motivation doing ae or challenging thes ing because it lea' Consider w) n students do hy students are learning. !a Assessment of Learning 2 EE rd or punishment. Likewise, it hash to understand and master the tasie een shown that students who are motivated by a my thinking aS Compared to thos (mastery orientation) show more positive behavior a formance operation). Students 7 pee are doing something for the result or outcome eneral, inclination to generat ‘0 are for mastery orientation are more engaged, have ind’ ‘ te solutions to di a " ess and failure (si F (0 difficulties, and generate more positive credits eos (Success attributed to ability and moderate effort; failure to lack of stort) 24 Academic Self-Concept Targets Sefer a {ature on self-concept and self-esteem are available for references. Most educal Weed *¢ characteristics when dealing with students who have problems with school and learning (eg, “Juan has a low self-concept” “Juana has a low opinion of herself”). itis accepted that these beliefs are important even when controversy over whether self- concept and self-esteem proceed or result from academic learning, Some level of positive safefficacy is needed for achievement (McMillan, 2007). Itis likely that the said aspect of self-concept is formed, at least in part, when children experience meaningful success with moderate effort. In setting targets, it is helpful to remember that self-concept and self-esteem are multidimensional (Marsh & Craven, 1997). There is bodily self, an athletic self, a mathematical self, a social self, and others. Each person has a self-description in each area, that form one’s self-concept or self-image. Moreover, individuals have a sense of self-regard, sel-affirmation, and self-worth in each area (self-esteem). Hence, a student can have a self- concept that he is tall and thin, but feel very comfortable with it and accept the description. On the contrary there can be another student who has the same self-concept but feel inferior or inadequate, thus, have a low self-esteem. ic self-concept, universal self-concept, and self-esteem targets |f-description and an evaluation of that description. General self-concept measured through attitudes and motivations is not beneficial since general self-concept are from areas not directly related to academic learning. Through specifying xademic self concept or self-concept in academic ability a more valid indication of what students think of themselves as learners will be known. Targets that are specific to subject areas will yield to a more useful information. In addition, itis also helpful to know where students draw the line between descriptions of themselves and if they like those descriptions. For cases of more serious mental or emotional problems, a general measure may be needed, however, it is best to leave those kind of assessments for such cases to school psychologist "counselor. In assessing the academi must be avoided including selHIE assessmene of Learning 22 $< 2.5 Social Relationship Targets fication of and appropriate respo A complex set of interaction skills, including identi ‘below contains examples ofa to social indications, defines social relationships. The tal nature of social relationships that can be used as targets. iendshii peer relations friendship collaboration cooperation taking a stand conflict resolution functioning in groups assertiveness prosocial behavior* empathy “Behaviors that are intended to help others. The examples cited in the table are mostly relevant in basic education, specifically the elementary level as these social traits are needed skills in their academic achievemer: And at the secondary level, social traits that enhances interpersonal abilities are becomixy more important as the schools work with the business community to assess the nee specifically those needs pertaining to skills necessary to be successful in the workplae Moreover, social interaction is a key element of knowledge construction, active learnitg and deep understanding (Borich & Tombari, 2004). As long as there are interactions thz happen, students need to make necessary adjustments in their thinking and actions so as‘ accommodate others’ viewpoints, to defend their ideas to others, and to share their opiniors, These exercises encourage a deep understanding and keep student involved. In addict interaction can help promote good reasoning, and problem-solving skills through observat! and engagement in such activities. Presented in the table below are some examples of s corresponding targets. ‘ocial relationship areas at! errr y| BT omelet) ay EET) sia Peer Showing interest in others : Stud i seiteettigs-|Tectiterosee ie ents will share their Sharing to a group discuss) a-small group Contributing to group activities a Sharing rative Listening Conper Sicturtecrine(d Students will demonstrate Skills lunteering ideas and suggestions | shar ie others | Taking turns compromise Criticizing constructivelydd ti 2) eect in small groups may include four components *) Betting along; (3) coaching; and (4) fulfiling particular loy & Greg, 1994), Jy: (2) basic interaction; ( pame (Borich & Tombari, 2004; | roles Ageneral target regarding “ js" does not provide speci hg “improved social relationships” or “improved collaboration sl Pecifics to focus instruction and assessment. 26 Classroom Environment Targets eer edtreme there is a unique climate that is felt at every point in time. Some rani rable atmosphere, others have relaxed and productive ambiance. As a result, there are classes that are happy and content while others are serious and tensed due tothe effect of the classroom climate. It follows that students behave differently as dictated aso by the classroom climate, some shows warm and supportive class while others register scold and rejecting. All these situations are what is known as classroom environment, dassroom climate, or classroom culture. As affective target, learning should seek to establish student feelings, relationships, and beliefs that promote positive classroom environment. CHARACTERISTIC DESCRIPTION e and accept each other Affiliation ‘ The extent to which student The extent to which students are interested in and engaged in learning Involvement The extent to which classroom activities are focused on the Task Orientation completion of academic tasks Cohesiveness The extent to which students share norms and expectations The emphasis on competition between students Competition Favoritism Whether each student enjoys the same privileges Influence The extent to which each student influences classroom decisions Friction The extent to which students bicker with one another ‘on imposing rules Formality The emphasis posing t to which communication among students and The extent © ‘ munication with teacher is honest and authentic The extent to which students care about each other and show concern Warmth (McMillan, 2007)HIE ssessmene of Learning 2 ——— TN ronment is to co, kad one as far as classroom ambiance” rspect establish a more Positive class hy 4 ee that the classroom environ f the students and the teachers," ent is a good source of informay, as to maximize styj, room envi One of the relevant inputs to improve students’ perspectives with those of teachers Be example, the students perceive that there is a nee environment while on the other hand, the teachers 's more positive. The difference on the perceptions of M respect to the level of positivity of the classroom enviro! ironment sO to identify what areas to improve in the classroom envi learning. ional Objecti 3. Affective Domain of the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives In 1964, David R. Krathwohl, together with his colleagues, Sean rate of Educational Objectives by publishing the second taxonomy of obj Seam ads sue’ emphasis on the affective domain. Krathwohl and his collaborators a fatectinn ica the affective realm into relatively distinct divisions. Five different level so) ferfoll Objective: were described in the affective taxonomy. These levels are described in the following tay, rea] Deer Ce Receiving Concerned with student's sensitivity | Student does mathematics (Attending) to the existence of certain | activities for grade. phenomena and stimuli, that is, with student’s willingness to receive or to attend to this stimuli. It is categorized in three subdivisions | that shows the different levels of attending to phenomena: 1. Awareness of the phenomena 2. Willingness to receive the phenomena } 3. Controlled or selected } attention to phenomena Responding Concerned with responses that | student gives special 80 beyond merely attending to attention to the discussion | phenomena. of Mathematics lessons Students are sufficiently motivated | to be able to answer the that they are not just “willing to | activities, | attend” but are actively attending. Valuing Reflects the student’s holding of a| Student actively and Particular importance oF value, consistently participate! scents display behavior with | in the discussion 2” cituane Consistency in appropriate interestingly answe”® i rs that are perceived as | all the activities '" jolding this value, cs. Mathematics,Assessmene of Learning 2 KM fev Derren thy dad St valves anes eesevaly internalize | Student integrates the habe ‘counter situations | lessons learned in Math sities ‘ore than one value is | with Science. nt. This requires the necessity of Organizing their values into a system such that certain values exercise greater control. Characterizing by| Internalization has taken place in | Student applies the lessons a Value or Value|an individual’s value hierarchy to | learned in Mathematics in complex the extent that he or she can be | daily activities such buying, characterized as holding a particular | cooking, and others. value or set of values. The aforementioned affective taxonomy serves as a valuable part of assessment of affect, Through them, standard or level of affect that is part of the target is determined. In addition, it also provides good suggestions for using student behaviors as indicators of affect ateach of the levels.