ASSESSMENT IN AFFECTIVE DOMAIN

         Affective domain describes learning objectives that emphasize a feeling tone, an emotion, or a degree of acceptance or rejection.   

David Krathwol’s Taxonomy of Affective domain  

  

Affective Learning Competencies

                 Instructional Objectives – specific, measurable, short-term, observable student behaviors.

-   foundation upon which you can build lessons and assessments that you can prove to meet your over-all course or lesson goals.

-   ensures that learning is focused clearly enough that both students and teachers know what is going on, and so learning can be objectively measure. 

Quantitative terms used in affective domain

1.       Receiving             2. Responding   3. Valuing            4. Organization                  5. Characterization

Attitudes – a mental predisposition to act that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.

Values – generally refers to mental orientations towards concepts.

Affective components of attitude

1.       Cognitions. Statement of beliefs and expectations which vary from one individual to the next.

2.       Affect. Refers to feelings with respect to the focal object.

3.       Behavioral Intentions. Our goals, aspirations, and our expected responses to the attitude object.

4.       Evaluation. Central component of attitude.

Why study attitudes?

                Attitudes influence the way person acts and think in a social communities we belong. They can function as frameworks and references for forming conclusions and interpreting or acting for or against an individual, a concept or an idea. It influences behavior. People will behave in ways consistent with their attitudes.

Motivation – a reason or set of reasons for engaging in a particular behavior. The reasons include basic needs, object, goal, state of being, ideal that is desirable. Motivation also refers to initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of human behavior.

THEORIES IN MOTIVATION

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs theory is the most widely discussed theory of motivation.

 

Frederick Herzberg presents another need theory: the two factor theory, the “Motivation-Hygiene Theory”. It conclude that certain factors in the workplace result in job satisfaction, while others do not, but if absent lead to dissatisfaction.

 

Clayton Alderfer expanded Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He formulated the ERG Theory (existence, relatedness and growth).

 

Why motivate students?

                -it can direct behavior toward particular goals;

                -lead to increase effort and energy;

                -increase initiation of, and persistence in activities;

                -enhance cognitive processing;

                -determine what consequences are reinforcing;

                -lead to improve performance.

2 KINDS OF MOTIVATION

Intrinsic motivation brings pleasure, or make people feel what they are learning is morally significant.

Extrinsic motivation which comes when a student compelled to do something because of factors external to him.

Ø  Self-efficacy- is an impression that one is capable of performing in a certain manner or attaining certain goals.

Self-Efficacy vs. Self-Esteem

o   Efficacy- relates to a person’s perception of their ability to reach a goal.

o   Esteem- relates to a person’s self-worth.

Development of Assessment Tools/Standard Assessment Tools

     Assessment tools in the affective domain are those which are used to assess attitudes, interest, motivations and self-efficacy. These include:

1. Self-report. Most commonly used, essentially requires an individual to provide an account of his attitude or feelings toward a concept or idea or people.

2. Rating Scales refers to a set of categories designed to elicit information about a quantitative attribute in social science.

3. Sematic Differential (SD) Scales tries to access an individual’s reaction to specific words, ideas or concepts in terms of ratings on bipolar scales defined with contrasting adjectives at each end

Good _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Bad

        3 2 10 1 2 3

(3- Extreme; 2- quite; 0- neutral)

4. Thurstone Scale- He developed an attitude continuum to determine the position of favorability on the issue.Thurstoneis considered as the father of attitude measurement and addressed the issue of how favorable an individual is with regard to a given issue.

5. Likert Scales- This requires an individual to tick on a box to report whether they “strongly agree”, “agree”, “undecided”, “disagree” or “strongly disagree” in response to a large number of items concerning attitude object or stimulus. Likert developed the method of summated ratings (or Likert scale) in 1932.

                   E.g. Statement: 

                             I do not like to solve algebraic equation      SD  D  A SA                                                                                                                                               1     2   3   4

                6. Checklists- are the most common and perhaps the easiest instrument in the affective domain. It consist of simple items that the student or teacher marks as “absent” or “present”.

REFLECTION

                Assessing the affective domain of your children will help you understand their behavior. Since their behavior is often affected by their attitude, you will know how to deal with them. This will also help you plan of what activities you should make in order for them to develop their values.

                Assessment of Affective Domain also guides you on what should be your learning objectives.

                Motivation is also important so that your pupils will pay attention on your class, encourage learning things, ideas, and developing skills, exert effort to achieve something and be a competent learner. As an educator, you should initiate and sustain motivation on them.

                You should also let your students evaluate themselves (likes and dislikes). This will be your guide on what techniques or methods of teaching you are going to use to enable them to learn your lessons even if they dislike it. Their evaluations might change based on your effectiveness in teaching. Even their behavior can be affected and change into positive one.