The affective domain – report on a workshop at Carleton College

Most academics are familiar with the cognitive domain through the wide use of Bloom’s taxonomy to help set appropriate levels of attainment in higher education programmes. However, the group of college and university examiners that developed the cognitive domain concept commonly associated with Bloom recognised two other domains important for understanding educational goals and how they may be evaluated in student performance: the psychomotor domain and the affective domain. These have received less attention in higher education, mainly because they are less obviously related to knowledge and thinking and few assessment tools have been developed to evaluate them. The handbook for the cognitive domain was published in 1956 (Bloom et al. 1956, Bloom 1965) and the affective domain handbook in 1964 (Krathwohl et al. 1964, 1973). Table 1 summarises Krathwohl’s suggested affective domain taxonomy, which provides a structure that can be used to develop students’ personal relationships and value systems. How can learning opportunities be organised so that students get to the “Characterisation by Value” level?

No handbook was published for the psychomotor domain, though others have attempted a taxonomy (e.g. Simpson 1972). The affective domain is beginning to be more comprehensively studied because it involves constructs such as feelings, attitudes, values, beliefs, opinions, interests, and motivation, and it is increasingly apparent that success in the affective domain is associated with success in the cognitive domain. Students who feel good about their study and have positive attitudes are more likely to be successful. The GEES Subject Centre has supported some work in this area (e.g. Boyle et al. 2007), but this short article is intended to raise awareness of an affective domain programme of research currently underway in North America under the auspices of the NSF-funded and NAGT-sponsored On the Cutting Edge programme.

The programme commenced with a three day workshop on Student Motivations and Attitudes: The Role of the Affective Domain in Geoscience Learning held 11–13 February 2007 and convened by Cathryn Manduca (Carleton College), David McConnell (University of Akron), Thomas Koballa. (University of Georgia) and David Mogk (Montana State University). The workshop was part of a series designed to move critical ideas and concepts into the mainstream of geoscience education in North American Universities and Colleges, but I had the pleasure of attending. About two thirds of the 31 attendees were geoscience staff, the other third being either from related disciplines (e.g. physics, biology, mathematics) with an interest in the affective domain or from disciplines such as education and cognitive psychology with a research interest in the affective domain. The workshop was held at Carleton College in Northridge, Minnesota and, despite the freezing conditions outside (highs of −20 °C, see Fig. 1), proved a lively and stimulating experience.

The goals of the workshop were to:

1. Develop a more sophisticated understanding of the specific roles that the affective domain plays in geoscience learning including circumstances where cognitive learning, is helped or hindered.

2. Consider ways in which teaching can address the role of the affective domain and collect examples of current practice

3. Explore the interplay of student values and perceptions in two case studies: teaching evolution and teaching environmental issues.

4. Collect examples of assessments and observation protocols that shed light on the affective domain.

5. Create a network of leaders in geoscience education and cognitive science who can increase the geoscience communities’ understanding of the roles of the affective domain in teaching and learning.

Table 1 Taxonomy of the Affective Domain, adapted from Kraftwohl et al. (1964).

Level	Definition	Example
Receiving	Student is aware of or attending to something in the environment.	Student would listen to a lecture or presentation about a structural model related to human behaviour. Teacher is the stimulus.
Responding	Students show some new behaviours as a result of their experience. They gain satisfaction from participation.	The student would answer questions about the model or might rewrite lecture notes the next day. The student wants to be involved in activities.
Valuing	Students show some definite involvement or commitment, valuing what they are involved in.	The student has to use judgement to make a choice, and on acceptance of a value, may seek to sway others to their chosen value.
Organisation	Students integrate a new value into their general set of values, attitude or beliefs, giving it some ranking within their overall set of values.	This is the level at which a student begins to make longrange commitments to organising his or her instruction and assessment.
Characterisation by Value	Acting consistently with any new value.	At this highest level, students have internalised and organised values into a system and can now apply these values as a philosophy of life to a broader range of situations

Figure 1 Ice sculpture in Northfield, Minnesota, USA.

The first day started late afternoon with an ice-breaker and a gallery session in which participants recorded responses to three teaching dilemmas with affective domain issues: mineralogy (perceived to be boring; close to my own heart); trilobites (the problem of belief systems contradicting science - how do you know trilobites and humans never co-existed?) and field trips (anxiety, see Boyle et al. 2007). After an excellent dinner, Thomas Koballa gave an opening plenary talk on the “Affective Domain and Key Issues” pointing out that affect is not just a simple catalyst, but a necessary condition for learning to occur (http://serc.carleton.edu/files/NAGTWorkshops/affective/workshop07/koballa.ppt).

The second day was very full, with more gallery sessions, keynote and panel talks, and break-out small group discussion teams dealing with Understanding and Improving Student Motivation in the morning and Understanding and Improving Student Attitudes in the afternoon. One highlight for me was Kelly Rocca’s presentation on immediacy in the classroom (http://serc.carleton.edu/files/NAGTWorkshops/affective/workshop07/rocca.ppt). This presentation contains many of useful tips for improving the communication of learning material.

The third day took a similar format to day two. In the morning the Teaching of Controversial Topics was investigated, with particular regard to the US problem of widespread literal belief in the Bible, coupled with the advance of Intelligent Design as an alternative science. The afternoon session reflected on the previous days to identify themes that could be taken forward as research projects. One theme is the development of a concept map for the affective domain in geosciences (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/workshop07/conceptmap.html). The other theme is to measure affective outcomes in geoscience classes. About half of the participants agreed to collaborate on a project to assess the affective effects of taking introductory geoscience courses (usually designated 101 in the USA). The project is seeking funding and will generate a set of tools that can be used to measure affective changes and relate these to other metadata (e.g. student performance, student course choices). Day three ended with an excellent Indian dinner at Chapati’s restaurant followed by a number of beers at the Contented Cow.

There is an excellent web resource for the workshop and the affective domain in general at http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/index.html. Past and future workshops in the On the Cutting Edge series can be seen at http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/workshops.html. If you have the chance, I strongly recommend trying to attend one of these workshops.