Assessment in the

Affective Domain
The affective domain is a part of a system that was published
in 1965 for identifying understanding and addressing how
people learn. This describes learning objectives that
emphasize a feeling tone, an emotion, or a degree of
acceptance or rejection. It is far more difficult domain to
objectively analyze and assess since affective objectives vary
from simple attention to selected phenomena to complex but
internally consistent qualities of character and conscience.
Nevertheless, much of the educative process needs to deal
with assessment and measurement of students’ abilities in
this domain.
For instance, it is often heard that certain
people are “schooled” but not “educated.”
This simply refers to the fact that much of the
processes in education today are aimed at
developing the cognitive aspects of
development and very little or no time is
spent on the development of the affective
domain.
The taxonomy in the affective domain contains a
large number of objectives in the literature
expresses as interests, attitudes, appreciation,
values, and emotional sets or biases.

The descriptions of step in the taxonomy was

culled from Kratwohl’s Taxonomy of Affective
Domain:
1. Receiving is being aware of or sensitive to the existence of certain ideas,
material, pr phenomena and being willing to tolerate them. Examples: To
differentiate, To accept, To listen, To respond to.

2. Responding is committed in some small measure to the ideas, materials,

or phenomena involved by actively responding to them. Examples: to
comply with, to follow, to commend, to volunteer, to spend leisure time in,
to acclaim

3. valuing is willing to be perceived by others as valuing certain ideas,

materials, or phenomena. Examples: to increase measured proficiency in,
to relinquish, to subsidize, to support, to debate
4. organization is to relate the value to those already held and
bring into a harmonious and internally consistent
philosophy.Examples: To discuss, To theorize, To formulate, To
balance, To examine

5. characterization by value or value set is to act consistently

in accordance with the values he or she has
internalized.Examples: To revise, To require, To be rated high
in the value, To avoid, To resist, To manage, To resolve
Affective Learning
Competencies
Affective learning competencies are often
stated in the form of instructional objectives.

Instructional objectives are specific,

measurable, short-term, observable student
behaviors.
Objectives are the foundation upon which you can build
lessons and assessments that you can prove meet your over-
all course or lesson goals.

Think of objectives as tools used to make sure you reach your

goals; arrows you shoot towards your target (goal).

The purpose of objectives is to ensure that learning is focused

clearly enough that both students and teachers know what is
going on, and so learning can be objectively measured.
Learning in the affective domain is assessed and measured in
schools but not used as grade of students in this domain.
The Taxonomy in the
Affective Domain
Behavioral objectives focus on observable behaviors which can then be easily
translated in quantitative terms:

1. Receiving - Accept, Attend, Develop, Recognize

2. Responding - Complete, Comply, Cooperate, Discuss, Examine, Obey, Respond

3. Valuing - Accept, Defend, Devote, Pursue, seek

4. Organization - Codify, Discriminate, Display, Order, Organize, Systematize,

Weight

5. Characterization - Internalize, Verify

In the affective domain, and in particular,, when
we consider learning competencies, we also
consider the following focal concepts:

1. Attitudes:
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.
Attitudes are defined as a mental predisposition
to act that is expressed by evaluating a particular
entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.

Individuals generally have attitudes that focus on

objects, people or institutions. Attitudes are also
attached to mental categories. Mental
orientations towards concepts are generally
referred to as values.
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
Attitudes are comprised of four components:
1. Cognitions – beliefs, theories, expectations, cause-and-effect
beliefs, perceptions relative to the focal point; statement of beliefs
and expectations which vary from one individual to the next

2. Affect – refers to feelings with respect to the focal object – fear,

liking, anger; color blue refers to loneliness); others as calm or peace
Attitudes are comprised of four components:
3. Behavioral intentions – our goals, aspirations, and our expected
responses to the attitude object

4. Evaluation – central component of attitudes; imputations of some

degree of goodness or badness to an attitude object; positive or
negative attitude toward an object; functions of cognitive, affect and
behavioral intentions of the object; stored in memory
In the affective domain, and in particular,, when
we consider learning competencies, we also
consider the following focal concepts:

2. Motivation
Motivation is a reason or set of reasons fore
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.
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
There are many theories that explain human motivation. The Need
Theory is one of these theories. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of
Human Needs Theory is the most widely discussed theory of
motivation. The theory can be summarized as thus:

- human needs have wants and desires which influence behavior: only
unsatisfied needs can influence behavior, satisfied needs cannot.

- needs are arranged in order of importance, from basic to complex.

(physiological, safety and security, social, self esteem, self
actualization
- the person advances to the next level of needs
only after the lower need is at least minimally
satisfied.

- the further the progress up the hierarchy, the

more individuality, humanness and psychological
health a person will show.
Frederick Herzberg presents another need theory : the two factor theory, the
“Motivation-Hygiene Theory”. It concludes that certain factors in the workplace
result in job satisfaction, while others do not, but if absent lead to dissatisfaction.
Herzberg distinguished between:

o Motivators – challenging work, recognition, responsibility,

which give positive satisfaction

o Hygiene factors – status, job security, salary and fringe

benefits – do not motivate if present, but if absent will result
in demotivation
Two kinds of motivation

1. Intrinsic motivation brings pleasure, or make feel

people feel what they are learning is morally significant.

2. Extrinsic motivation which comes when a student

compelled to do something because of factors external
to him
In the affective domain, and in particular,, when
we consider learning competencies, we also
consider the following focal concepts:

2. Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is an impression that one is capable of performing in a
certain manner or attaining certain goals. It is a belief that one has the
capabilities to execute the courses of actions required to manage
prospective situations. It is also a belief (whether or not accurate) that
one has the power to produce that effect.

Self efficacy relates to person’s perception of their ability to reach a

goal, Research shows that over-efficaciousness negatively affected
student motivation, while under-efficaciousness increased motivation
to study.
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. This the most common measurement tool in the affective

domain. It essentially requires an individual to provide an account of his
attitude or feelings toward a concept or idea or people. It is also called
“written reflections” (“Why I Like or Dislike Mathematics”. The teacher
ensures that the students write something which would demonstrate the
various levels of the taxonomy (receiving to characterization)
2. Rating Scales refers to a set of categories designed to elicit
information about a quantitative attribute in social science.
Common examples are the Likert scale and 1-10 rating scales
for which a person selects the number which is considered to
reflects the perceived quality of a product. The basic feature
of any rating scale is that it consists of a number of categories.
These are usually assigned integers.
3. Semantic Differential (SD) Scales tries to assess 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 – extreme; 2 – quite; 0 - neutral)

A number of basic considerations are involved in SD methodology.

a. Bipolar adjectives are a simple, economical means for obtaining

data on people’s reactions

b. Ratings on bipolar adjective scales tend to be correlated, and three

basic dimensions of response account for most of the co-variation in
ratings
c. Some adjective scales are almost pure measures of the EPA
dimensions: good-bad (Evaluation), powerful-powerless (Potency),
and fast-slow (Activity)

d. EPA measurement are appropriate when one is interested in an

effective domain responses; multi-variate approach to affect
measurement; generalized approach applicable to any concept or
stimulus, and thus permits comparisons of affective reactions on
widely disparate things.
4. Thurstone Scale

Thurstone is considered the father of attitude measurement

and addressed the issue of how favorable an individual is with
regard to a given issue. He developed an attitude continuum
to determine the position of favorability on the issue.
5. Likert Scales

In 1932, Likert developed the method of summated

ratings (or Likert scale), which is widely used. 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.