Download Affective Domain

Affective Domain and Key Issues
Tom Koballa
Department of Mathematics and Science Education
University of Georgia
“There can be little doubt that affect is the most
important yet least understood influence on the
way people think and behave in social situations.”
Joseph P. Forgas, Affect and Social Cognition (2001)
Affective domain
I. Affect and its origins
II. Attitude
III. Motivation
IV. Controversial issues
Contemporary thinking
The affective domain (from the
Latin affectus, meaning
“feelings”) includes a host of
constructs, such as attitudes,
values, beliefs, opinions,
interests, and motivation.
It describes learning objectives
that emphasize a feeling tone,
an emotion, or a degree of
acceptance or rejection.
Affect is not just a simple
catalyst, but a necessary
condition for learning to occur.
I. Affect and its origins
 Classic philosophers viewed affect as a primitive,
animalistic mode of responding that is incompatible with
reason. (Elser, 1985)
 Empirical psychology’s fundamental assumption that
feeling, knowing, and willing can be studied in separation.
(Hilgard, 1980)
 Christian Wolff - facultas cognoscivita and facultas appetiva
 Moses Mendelssohn - three fold classification of mental faculties
 Immanuel Kant - tripartite division into his philosophical system
In Science Education
 Classification of mental faculties led to cognitive domain,
affective domain, and psychomotor domain.
 Reasons for imbalanced attention to affective domain
include:
 Archetypal image of science itself, where reason is separated from
feeling
 Long-standing cognitive tradition of science education
 Confusing definitions of affective constructs
 Underdeveloped affective assessment practices
Cognitive paradigm in psychology
1960s
Emergence of a cognitive paradigm as the mainstream
orientation accepted by most psychologists. Affect was
considered a disruptive influence on thinking (Hilgard
1980).
1980s
Research began to link affect and social cognition--feeling
and thinking (Forgas, 2001).
Affect in contemporary psychology
Affect encompasses the broad range of experiences referred
to as emotions and moods. (Forgas, 1991; Petty, DeSteno,
Rucker, 2001)
• Emotions – specific and short-lived internal feeling states
• Moods – global and enduing feeling states
(Schwarz &Clore, 1996)
II. Attitude
 Attitude– a general evaluation regarding some person,
object or issue (Fazio, 1986; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981).
 Attitudes refer to valenced reactions to specific attitude
objects and do not represent a global affective
experience on the part of the individual.
 A happy or sad person can possess both positive and
negative attitudes.
Affective factors in attitude change
 Cognitive-thoughts or
ideas, expressed as
beliefs
 Behavioral-intentions to
act or observable
behaviors
 Affect-emotions related
to the attitude object
III. Motivation
 Motivation is an internal state that arouses,
directs, and sustains behavior.
 The study of motivation attempts to
-explain why students strive for particular goals
when learning science,
-how intensively they strive,
-how long they strive, and
-what moods and emotions characterize them in
the process. (Glynn & Koballa, 2006)
Important motivation constructs
 Intrinsic and Extrinsic
Motivation
 Goal Orientation
 Self-determination
 Self-efficacy
 Assessment Anxiety
IV. Controversial issues and problems
Issue - an idea about which people hold
different beliefs
 mandatory recycling
 strip mining
 Evolution
Problem - a situation that places a population at risk
 Fishing industry and people’s health placed in
jeopardy due to industrial waste
Instructional approaches for dealing
with controversy
 Issue and Problem Awareness
 Four-corners
 Vignette
 Issue and Problem Investigation
 Analytical decision-making (Oliver & Newman,
1967)
 Structured controversy (Johnson & Johnson, 1988)
Moving forward
 Affect has a past that weaves
though philosophy and
psychology.
 Affect influences learning,
and learning strategies can
play a crucial role in
regulating affect.
 Attitude and motivation are
important constructs of the
affective domain in science
education.