UNIT IV

ASSESSMENT IN THE AFFECTIVE DOMAIN

In this unit, you will acquaint yourself in the concepts of Assessment in the Affective Domain. It describes
a number of non-cognitive variables such as person’s attitude, interests, and values. The importance of
affective targets, affective traits, and learning targets as well as affective domain of the taxonomy of
educational objectives will also be discussed.

Objectives:
At the end of this module, you should be able to:
a. recognize the affective taxonomy in the educational objectives;
b. craft affective learning outcomes for the different levels in the affective domain; and
c. develop instruments for assessing affective learning.

The Taxonomy in the Affective Domain

In 1964, David R. Krathwohl, together with his colleagues, extended Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives by publishing the second taxonomy of objectives, this time giving emphasis on the affective
domain. The affective domain refers to the way in which we deal with situations emotionally such as
feelings, appreciation, enthusiasm, motivation, values, and attitudes.

The categories/levels, definition, and example are given as follows:

Category/ Level Definition Examples

Receiving Concerned with student’s sensitivity to Student does mathematics
the existence of certain phenomena and stimuli, activities for grade.
that is, with student’s willingness to receive or to
attend to the
stimuli.

It is categorized in 3 subdivisions that

show the different levels of attending the
phenomena:

1. Awareness of the phenomena

2. Willingness to receive the phenomena
3. Controlled or selected attention to phenomena

Responding Concerned with responses that go beyond merely Student gives special
attending to phenomena. Students are sufficiently attention to the discussion of
motivated that they are not just “willing to attend” mathematics lesson to be
but are actively attending. able to answer the activities.

Valuing Reflects the student’s holding of a particular Student actively and

importance or value. Students display behavior consistently participated in
with sufficient consistency in appropriate the discussion.
situations that are perceived as holding this value.

Organizing Students successively internalize values; they Student integrates the

encounter situations in which more than one value lessons learned in math with
is relevant. This requires the necessity of science.
organizing their values into a system such that
certain values exercise greater control.

Characterization Internalization has taken place in an individual’s Student applies the lessons
by Value value hierarchy to the extent that he or she can be learned in mathematics in
characterized as holding a particular value or set of daily activities/real-life
values. scenario.
Below are the sample behavioral verbs appropriate for the affective domain.

Category/ Level Behavioral Verbs

Receiving attend, accept, develop, recognize
Responding complete, comply, cooperate, discuss, examine, obey, respond
Valuing accept, defend, devote, pursue, seek
Organizing codify, discriminate, display, order, organize, systematize, weigh
Characterization by Value internalize, verify

As teachers, you should encourage students to not just receive information at the bottom of the affective
hierarchy. Instead, encourage them to respond to what they learn, to value it, to organize it, and even to
characterize it.

The affective domain is the least studied and most often overlooked domain in educational literature despite
the fact that almost every researcher or author begins with a premise on the importance of the affective
domain in the teaching-learning process. The reason, perhaps, is the fact that affective domain is the most
imprecise and the hardest to evaluate among Bloom’s three domains. Traditional assessment procedures,
for instance, concentrate on the cognitive aspects of learning and as teachers, majority of us typically focus
our efforts on the development of tasks and instruments for measuring cognitive learning. However, it is
important to realize that by tapping the potentials of the affective domain in enhancing learning, we increase
the likelihood of real and authentic learning among our students.

Similarly, students may experience affective roadblocks to learning that can neither be recognized nor
solved with using a purely cognitive approach.

Affective Learning Competencies

Affective desired 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 overall course or lesson goals.
 Think of objectives as tools you use to make sure you reach your goals. They are the arrows you shoot
towards your target (goal).

 The purpose of objectives is not to restrict spontaneity or constraint the vision of education in the
discipline; but to ensure that learning is focused clearly enough that both students and teacher know
what is going on, and so learning can be objectively measured. Different archers have different styles,
so do different teachers. Thus, you can shoot your arrows (objectives) in many ways. The important
thing is that they reach your target (goals) score the bulls eye!

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

1. 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. Attitudes are comprised of four components:

a. Cognitions - beliefs, theories, expectancies, cause-and effect beliefs, and perceptions relative to the
focal object; not the same as “feelings”
b. Affect - refers to our feelings with respect to the focal object such as fear, liking, or anger.
c. Behavioral Intentions – refers to goals, aspirations, and our expected response to the attitude object.
d. Evaluation – central component of attitudes; consists of the imputation of some degree of goodness or
badness to an attitude object.
2. Motivation. A reason or set of reasons for engaging in a particular behavior, especially human behavior
as studied in psychology and neuropsychology. According to Geen, R.G. (1995), motivation refers to
the initiation, direction, intensity, and persistence of human behavior.

The Need Theory (Abraham Maslow Hierarchy of Human Needs). One of the theories that explain human
motivation. It can be summarized as follows:

 Human beings have wants and desires which influence their behavior; only unsatisfied needs can
influence behavior, satisfied needs cannot.
 Arranged in order of importance, from the basic to the complex.
 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.

The Two-Factor Theory by Frederick Herzberg. One of the theories that explain human motivation. He
stated that certain factors in the workplace result in job satisfaction while others do not, but if absent lead
to dissatisfaction. He distinguished between:
 Motivators (challenging work, recognition, responsibility- positive satisfaction
 Hygiene factors (status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) which do not motivate if present, but
if absent will result in demotivation.

The ERG Theory (Existence, Relatedness, and Growth) by Clayton Alderfer. He expanded the Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs.

concerned about the desire for

personal development

concerned about the desire for

maintaining important interpersonal
relationships

concerned with the need for

providing the basic material
existence requirements of humans
3. Self-efficacy. 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.
Affective Traits and Learning Targets
The word affective refers to a variety of traits and dispositions that are different from knowledge, reasoning,
and skills. This term means the emotions or feelings that one has toward someone or something. Shown in
the table below are the different affective traits and its corresponding description:

Trait Description
Attitudes Predisposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to specific
situations, concepts, objects, institutions, or persons

Interests Personal preference for certain kinds of activities

Values Importance, worth, or usefulness of modes or conduct and end

states of existence

Opinions Beliefs about specific occurrences and situations

Preferences Desire to select one object over another

Motivation Desire and willingness to be engaged in behavior including

intensity of involvement

Academic self-concept Self-perception of competence in school and learning

Self-esteem Attitudes toward oneself; degree of self-respect, worthiness, or

desirability of self-concept

Locus of control Self-perception of whether success and failure is controlled by the

student or by external influences

Emotional development Growth, change, and awareness of emotions and ability to

regulate emotional expression

Social relationships Nature of interpersonal interactions and functioning in group

setting

Altruism Willingness and propensity to help others

Moral development Attainment of ethical principles that guide decision-making and

behavior

Classroom development Nature of feeling tones and interpersonal relationship in a class

Development of Affective Assessment Tools

Assessment tools in the affective domain, in particular, those which are used to assess attitudes, interests,
motivations, and self-efficacy, have been developed.

Three feasible methods of assessing affective traits and dispositions:

1. teacher observation;
2. student self-report; and
3. peer ratings

Three considerations in assessing affect:

1. Emotions and feelings change quickly most especially for young children and during early adolescence.
2. Use varied approaches in measuring the same affective trait as possible.
3. Decide what type of data or results are needed: individual or group data.
Teacher Observation
This is often used when the teacher wants to observe the approach behaviors (positive) and
avoidance behaviors (negative). There are two types of this kind of observation: the unstructured and
structured observation.
 Unstructured observation- normally open-ended, no checklists or rating scale is used. Everything
that is observed is just simply recorded.
 Structured observation- checklist or rating forms are to be made since it will be used to record
observations.

Student self-report
 Student interview- there is an opportunity that teachers may have direct involvement with the
students wherein teachers can probe and respond for better understanding.
 Surveys and questionnaires- there are two types of using survey and questionnaires: the
constructed response, in which is a straightforward approach asking the students about their affect
by responding to simple statement of question; the selected-response, in which students can choose
from options, thus ensuring anonymity.

Peer Ratings
It is the least common method in assessing affect because students may not take this seriously. However,
the teachers can accurately have observed what is being assessed in peer ratings since teachers also engage
with the students.

Sample of Affective Assessment Tools

a. Checklist - contain criteria that focus on the intended outcome or target. It helps students in
organizing the tasks assigned to them into logically sequenced steps that will lead to successful
completion of the task.

b. Rating Scale - helps students understand the learning target/outcomes and to focus students’
attention to performance. It gives feedback to students as far as their strengths and weaknesses with
respect to the targets to which they are measured. Students not only learn the standards but also
may internalize the set standards. In addition, ratings help to show each student’s growth and
progress.
 c. Likert Scale - It is a list of clearly favorable and unfavorable attitude statements. The students are
tasked to respond to each of the statement that usually uses a five-point scale: Strongly Agree,
Agree, Undecided, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.

d. Semantic Differential Scale - This uses adjective pairs that provide anchors for feelings or beliefs
that are opposite in direction and intensity. Students would place a check between each pair of
adjectives that describes positive or negative aspects of the trait.

e. Sentence Completion - It captures whatever comes to mind from each student.

References
Cajigal, R. and Mantuano, M.L. (2014). Assessment of Learning 2. Quezon City: Adriana Publishing Co.
Inc.
Navarro, R. and Santos, R. (2013). Authentic Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment 2
(2nd Edition). Quezon City: Lorimar Publishing Inc.

** For Classroom use only**

KFP