- Cognitive | Intellectual Skills
- Psychomotor | Manual Skills
- Metacognitive | Personal Epistemology
- Interpersonal | Communication Skills
My circular representation of the affective domain of educational ‘objectives’ is based on Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia’s 1964 articulation. An explanation of why I have chosen to use the circular design and to use ‘active’ verbs is on the main taxonomy page.
See Courseware pages for High Resolution versions
Often described in terms of feelings or emotions, I think it is more useful to regard the affective as a question of the degree of acceptance or rejection of values, and of the evolution of value structures. It is certainly true that having one’s values challenged can result in emotional disturbance (Mezirow, 2000). Still, I think there is a danger to using language that describes the domain in terms of emotions, not least because it scares off academics! I intend to encourage academics to design in the widest possible range of skills and to assess them.
In my interpretation of the affective domain, I have retained Krathwohl’s five divisions but choose to use active verbs rather than the passive. So receiving becomes to receive, responding becomes to respond, valuing becomes to value, organisation becomes to organise, and the final division, originally entitled characterisation, becomes to internalise.
| Original | Atkinson | Descriptor |
| Receiving | Receive | Ability to learn from others |
| Responding | Respond | Ability to participate responsibly, respectively, as appropriate to the context |
| Valuing | Value | Ability to associate personal and collective values with contextual experiences and express value judgements |
| Organization | Organize | Ability to structure, prioritize and reconcile personal and others’ value systems |
| Characterization | Internalize | Ability to articulate one’s own values and belief systems and operate consistently within them |
The reason I think it helps to think about values rather than emotions is that clearly most of higher and professional education is concerned about changing not just how much students know and whether they can apply that knowledge (cognitive), or even how they know (metacognitive), but about their personal and professional values. At its simplest, from a discipline perspective we seek to instil a love of learning and a passion for the subject, in professional education we also seek to instil our professional values into the learning process. Future employers expect graduates who are well-rounded, grounded, and emotionally capable of handling the tasks at hand. Whilst it is clearly very difficult to evaluate the emotional impact that learning has on students, there are ways of providing formative assessment to support affective developments.
For those in the Academy who seek merely to perpetuate their academic DNA in their students, changes in students’ values may mean little to them. For those of us who teach to make the next generation better than we are, better able to adapt to the ever-changing world they face outside the Academy, having an interest in our students’ affective development is extremely important.
I have argued elsewhere that the relative weighting given to the domains in learning design depends largely on the subject and the learning context. Clearly, there will be foundational modules in a degree programme in which knowledge domain learning will be dominant. I would expect much of what is done in an undergraduate degree to be concerned with the cognitive domain; the ability to analyse, evaluate, and synthesise represents the higher-order skills we expect from graduates. I have also argued elsewhere that psychomotor skills are worthy of inclusion in higher education. But it occurs to me that much of the learning opportunity offered in our current universities neglects an equally important set of skills. All domains should be represented somewhere in a student’s programme.
Almost all employers agree that they want to attract applicants who share their values. These oft-cited idealised values are in fact widely held: the ability to work well with others, to be an effective communicator, to be an effective listener (interpersonal), to work independently, and to take the initiative (affective). It seems unrealistic to expect students to necessarily acquire such skills without being guided through the learning process and taught to identify their own development. And it is fair to say that, certainly in the United Kingdom, a huge amount has been added to the curriculum, with employability strategies and planning for personal development (PDP) initiatives, so that students do not want for opportunities.
But I maintain that we should instil in our students the values we expect them to demonstrate through the disciplines themselves, not bolt them on and relieve the academics from their responsibility. To my mind, it makes sense to write intended learning outcomes that encapsulate a range of affective outcomes, and to align learning and teaching activities to rehearse those skills with our students.
Why not include alongside an intellectual skills outcome (cognitive) that states:
“By the end of this course, you will be able – to critique at least three different perspectives on (whatever the subject is)”
another outcome, this time an affective one that says:
“By the end of this course, you will be able – to reconcile two contrasting and contentious perspectives on (whatever the subject is)”.
There is nothing touchy-feely about the second outcome. Still, it focuses on students’ value structures, supporting their ability to structure and reconcile their personal value systems with those held by others. Critiquing sounds very higher education, but to be able ‘to reconcile’ is a much needed skill in the workplace.
References