AFFECTIVE LEARNING COMPETENCIES
 Besides students’ academic performance,
there are other dimensions of learners that
need to be assessed also. These are
aptitudes and attitudes that are related to
the academic achievement of learners
(Tanner, 2001).
 Information about learners’ experiences
with a subject or an activity is only part of
what is needed as input in order to explain
their performance. In class, it would be
obvious evidence that experience appear to
be consistent from student to student
(since they belong to the same class and
were given the same activity), still some
perform better than the others. And this
difference among students needs to be part
of the information to assess students
better.
 The learners’ attitudes toward academic
tasks influence achievements (Harter, 1988;
Lefrancios, 1994).
 Attitude is associated with what is called
the individual’s affective domain, and affect
adds a significant dimension to assessment.
If there is a relationship between how
students feel about a task and their
performance, it is but necessary for
teachers to assess affect and then do
something to influence affect. It is not just
to help the students like the activities they
do but to do it better.
 Attitude measures are part of the broader
category of personality measures. This area
of assessment is significant since
information about personality
characteristics gives more information that
will help in predicting how a particular set
of learners will likely respond to certain
learning situation.
 In general psychology course, a more
detailed study about personality is covered,
but in this course reference the focus is its
connection to school and learners’
achievement.
IMPORTANCE OF AFFECTIVE TARGETS
 Researches have established the clear link
between affect and cognitive learning (Ormrod,
2004). Students are more proficient in problem-
solving if they enjoy what they do.
 Students who are in good mood and
emotionally involved are more likely to pay
attention to information, remember it
meaningfully and apply it.
 Too much anxiety obstructs learning, and
greater motivation is necessary for maximum
performance.
 A more positive environment fosters good
student engagement and learning than in a
classroom with negative climate (Fraser, 1994).
 Though the linkage of affect and learning of
students has been well-established, there
remains very little systematic assessment of
affect that is applied in classroom instruction.
 Motivation and involvement of students in
learning activities are affected by students’
attitude toward learning, respect for others,
and concern for others.
AFFECTIVE TRAITS AND LEARNING TARGETS
The word affective refers to a variety of traits
and dispositions that are different from knowledge,
reasoning and skills (Hohn, 1995).
Technically, this term means the emotions or
feelings that one has toward someone or
something.
Nevertheless, attitudes, values, self-concept,
citizenship, and other traits are usually considered
to be non-cognitive, include more than emotions or
feelings. Most kinds of students affect involve both
emotion and cognitive beliefs.
Shown in the table are the different affective traits
and its corresponding description:
TRAIT DESCRIPTION
Predisposition to respond
favorably or unfavorably to
ATTITUDES specified situations,
concepts, objects,
institutions, or persons
Personal preference for
INTERESTS
certain kinds of activities
Importance, worth, or
usefulness of modes or
VALUES
conduct and end states of
existence
Beliefs about specific
OPINIONS
occurrences and situations
Desire to select one object
PREFERENCES
over the other
Desire and willingness to be
engaged in behavior
MOTIVATION
including intensity of
involvement
Self-perception of
ACADEMIC SELF-
competence in school and
CONCEPT
learning
Attitude toward oneself;
degree of self-respect,
SELF-ESTEEM
worthiness, or desirability of
self-concept
Self-perception of whether
success and failure is
LOCUS OF CONTROL
controlled by the student or
by external influences
Growth, change, and
EMOTIONAL awareness of emotions and
DEVELOPMENT ability to regulate emotional
expression
Nature of interpersonal
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS interactions and functioning
in group setting
Willingness and propensity to
ALTRUISM
help others
Attainment of ethical
principles that guide
MORAL DEVELOPMENT
decision-making and
behavior
Nature of feeling tones and
CLASSROOM
interpersonal relationship in
DEVELOPMENT
a class
McMillan 2007
ATTITUDE TARGETS
 McMillan 1980 defines attitudes as internal
states that influence what students are likely to
do.
 The internal state can in some degree
determine positive or negative or favorable or
unfavorable reaction toward and object,
situation, person or group of objects, general
environment, or group or persons.
 It does not refer to behaviors, what a student
knows, right or wrong in a moral or ethical
sense, or characteristics such as race, age or
socio-economic status.
 In a learning institution, attitude is contingent
on subjects, teachers, other students,
homework, and other objects or persons.
 Most often, one can identify the positive or
negative attitudes that a person intends to
foster or at least keep track of because these
attitudes are related to current and future
behavior.
Some of these attitudes are listed in the table
below:
A positive attitude toward A negative attitude toward
Learning Cheating
Math, Science, English and
Drug use
other subjects
Assignments Bullying
Classroom rules Cutting classes
Teachers Dropping out
In researches conducted by social psychologists,
they found that attitudes consist of three
components or contributing factors (Forsyth, 1999):
1. An affective component of positive or
negative feelings.
 This consists of the emotion or
feeling associated with an object or
a person (good or bad feelings,
enjoyment, likes, comfort, anxiety,
etc.). When the teacher describes
students as liking math or enjoying
art, the teacher is focusing on the
affective component.
2. A cognitive component describing worth or
value.
 The cognitive component is an
evaluative belief (such as thinking
something as valuable, useful,
worthless, etc.). In school, students
can think history is useless and
science is valuable.
3. A behavioral component indicating a
willingness or desire to engage in particular
actions.
 The behavioral component is
actually responding in a positive
way. A strong and stable attitude is
manifested when all three
components are consistent. This
means that, if a student like
science, the student thinks its
valuable, and reads science related
materials at home, it translates that
the student has a very strong
positive attitude.
 On the other hand, it is likely that
for many students, these
components will contradict one
other.
o Example: Juana may not
like English very much but
thinks that English is
important. The question is,
what would her attitude be,
in general sense, towards
English? That would depend
on what component of the
attitude is being measured.
If it is only affective
component then the
attitude will be negative;
but if it is the cognitive
component, it would
translate to a positive
attitude.
VALUE TARGETS
 Values refer to either to end states of existence
or to modes of conduct that are desirable or
sought (Rokeach, 1973).
 End states of existence refer to conditions and
aspects of oneself and the kind of world that a
person wants such as a safe life, world peace,
freedom, happiness, social acceptance and
wisdom.
 Modes of conduct are manifested in what a
person believe is appropriate and needed in
everyday existence such as being honest,
cheerful, ambitious, loving, responsible and
helpful.
 Each of these values can be placed into
categories consistent with different areas of
persons’ lives. Hence, the aspects of moral,
political, social, aesthetic, economic,
technological, and religious values.
McMillan 2007 suggested that in setting value
targets, it is necessary to stick to non-controversial
and those that are clearly related to academic
learning and school and department of education
goals.
Some values that are commendable and non-
controversial are described in the table below:
VALUE SAMPLE VALUE TARGET
Students should learn to value honesty in
HONESTY
their dealing with others.
Students should firmly observe their own
INTEGRITY
code of values.
Students should support the view that all
citizens should be the recipients of equal
JUSTICE
justice from government law
enforcement agencies.
Students should believe that democratic
FREEDOM countries must provide the maximum
level of freedom to their citizens.
McMillan 2007 and Popham 2005 suggested
other non-controversial values (aside from those
mentioned in the table) like kindness, generosity,
perseverance, loyalty, respect, courage,
compassion, and tolerance.
Both of them believed that there should be a
limit to the number of affective traits targeted and
assessed. It is better to do an excellent job assessing
a few important traits than to try to assess many
traits casually.
MOTIVATION TARGETS
 In education, motivation can be defined as
the extent to which students are involved in
trying to learn (McMillan 2007).
 This includes students’ initiation of learning,
the intensity of effort exerted, the student’s
commitment, and the students’ persistence.
 In other words, motivation is the
determined engagement in learning in
order to gain mastery of knowledge or
skills, students take learning seriously and
give importance to opportunities to learn.
 Researches on motivation can be organized
according to the Expectancy X Value
Framework (Brophy, 2004; Pintrich &
Schunk, 2002). This model implies that
motivation is determined by students’
expectations, their beliefs about whether
they are likely to be successful, and the
relevance of the outcome.
 Expectations refer to the self-efficacy of the
student. Self-efficacy is the student’s self-
perception of his or her capability to
perform successfully. Values are self-
perception of the importance of the
performance. That is, the students see
relevance of the activity.
o Example: The students evaluate the
activity they engage in if it is
enjoyable or satisfying; will it meet
some social and psychological
need? (Such as self-worth,
competence, or belonging); Will it
help the student meet an important
goal?
 Students who believe that they have the
capability to be successful and that the
activity they engage in themselves are
important for them and relevant, they will
be highly motivated to learn.
 Even if they value the outcome, and yet the
students believe that they don’t have the
capability to attain success, their motivation
will be weak.
 Similarly, there are many students capable
but are unmotivated because the activity
that they are asked to do hold no
importance for these students.
Like attitudes, motivation is too ambiguous to
use the general definition as to outcome
because it is difficult to pinpoint the source of
lack of effort and involvement.
McMillan 2007 suggests that motivation targets
should focus on self-efficacy and values, distinct
by academic subject and type of learning (like
knowledge, understanding, reasoning).
Below are some examples of motivation
targets:
 Students will believe that they are
capable of learning how to write simple
computer programs using Java. (Self-
efficacy)
 Students will believe that it is important
to know how to write simple computer
programs using Java. (Value)
In assessing motivation, it is important to
consider why students are learning, the reasons
students’ give for their actions.
When students do something or engage
themselves in activities because they find the
activities interesting, enjoyable, or challenging,
they are intrinsically motivated.
Extrinsic motivation is doing something because
it leads to a reward or punishment.
Likewise, it has been shown that students who
are motivated by a need to understand and
master the task (mastery orientation) show
more positive behavior and thinking as
compared to those who are doing something
for the result or outcome (performance
operation).
Students who are for mastery orientation are
more engaged, have in general, inclination to
generate solutions to difficulties, and generate
more positive credits to success and failure
(success attributed to ability and moderate
effort; failure to lack of effort).
ACADEMIC SELF-CONCEPT TARGETS
 In setting targets, it is helpful to remember
that self-concepts and self-esteem are
multidimensional (March & Craven, 1997).
 There is a bodily self, an athletic self, a
mathematical self, a social self, and others.
 Each person has a self-description in each
area, that form one’s self-concept or self-
image. Moreover, individual have a sense of
self-regard, self-affirmation, and self-worth
in each area (self-esteem).
 Hence, a student can have a self-concept
that he is tall and thin, but feel very
comfortable with it and accept the
description. On the contrary, there can be
another student who has the same self-
concept but feel inferior or inadequate,
thus, have a low self-esteem.
 In assessing the academic self-concept,
universal self-concept, and self-esteem
targets must be avoided including self-
description and an evaluation of that
description.
 General self-concept measured through
attitudes and motivations is not beneficial
since general self-concept is from areas not
directly related to academic learning.
 Through specifying academic self-concept
or self-concept in academic ability to a
more valid indication of what students’
think of themselves as learners will be
known.
 Targets that are specific to subject areas
will yield to more useful information. In
addition, it is also helpful to know where
students draw the line between
descriptions of themselves and if they like
those descriptions.
 For cases of more serious mental or
emotional problems, a general measure
may be needed, however, it is best to leave
those kinds of assessments for such cases to
school psychologist or counselor.
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP TARGETS
 A complex set of interaction skills, including
identification of and appropriate responses
to social indications, defines social
relationships.
The table below contains examples of the
nature of social relationships that can be used
as targets.
Peer relations Friendship
Cooperation Collaboration
Conflict
Taking a stand
resolutions
Functioning in groups Assertiveness
Prosocial behavior
 Behaviors that
Empathy
are intended
to help others.
The examples cited in the table are mostly
relevant in basic education, specifically in the
elementary level as these social traits are
needed skills in their academic achievement.
At the secondary level, social traits that
enhance interpersonal abilities are becoming
more important as the schools work with the
business community to assess the need,
specifically those needs pertaining to skills
necessary to be successful in the workplace.
Social interaction is a key element of knowledge
construction, active learning and deep
understanding (Borich & Tombari, 2004).
As long as there are interactions that happen,
students need to make necessary adjustments
in their thinking and actions so as to
accommodate others’ viewpoints, to defend
their ideas to others, and to share their
opinions.
These exercises encourage a deep
understanding and keep student involved. In
addition, interaction can help promote good
reasoning, and problem-solving skills through
observation and engagement in such activities.
 Presented in the table below are some As affective target, learning should seek to
examples of social relationship areas and corresponding establish student feelings, relationships, and
targets. beliefs that promote positive classroom
environment.
Social
Target Concern Example
Relationship CHARACTERISTIC DESCRIPTION
-Showing interest in The extent to which student
AFFILIATION
others Students will like and accept each other
Peer -Listening to peers share their ideas The extent to which
Relationship -Sharing to a group in a small group INVOLVEMENT students are interested in
and engaged in learning
-Contributing to discussion.
The extent to which
group activities
classroom activities are
-Sharing TASK ORIENTATION
focused on the completion
-Listening of academic task
-Volunteering ideas Students will The extent to which
and suggestions demonstrate COHESIVENESS students share norms and
Cooperative -Supporting and that they are expectations
Skills accepting others’ able to negotiate The emphasis on
ideas with others and COMPETITION competition between
-Taking turns compromise. students
-Criticizing Whether each students
FAVORITISM
enjoys the same privileges
constructively
The extent to which each
INFLUENCE student influences
Collaborative skills needed to work in small groups classroom decisions
may include four components (Borich & Tombari, The extent to which
2004; Hoy & Greg, 1994) FRICTION students bicker with one
another
1. Basic Interaction The emphasis on imposing
FORMALITY
2. Getting Along rules
3. Coaching The extent to which
4. Fulfilling particular roles communication among
COMMUNICATION
students and with teacher is
honest and authentic
CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT TARGETS
The extent to which
WARMTH students care about each
 In every classroom there is a unique climate other and show concern
that is felt at every point in time. McMillan 2007
 Some manifest a comfortable atmosphere,
others have relaxed and productive One of the relevant inputs to improve the
ambiance. As a result, there are classes that classroom environment is to compare students’
are happy and content while others are perspective with those of teachers’ perspectives as far
serious and tensed due to the effect of the as classroom ambiance.
classroom climate.  Example: The students perceive that there is a
 It follows that students have behave need to establish a more positive classroom
differently as dictated also by the classroom environment while on the other hand; the
climate, some shows warm and supportive teachers see that the classroom environment is
class while others register as cold and more positive.
rejecting. All these situations are what is
known as classroom environment, The difference on the perceptions of the students
classroom climate, or classroom culture. and the teachers with respect to the level of positivity
of the classroom environment is a good sources of
information to identify what areas to improve in the
classroom environment as to maximize student organizing their values into a
learning. system such that certain values Science.
exercise greater control.
AFFECTIVE DOMAIN OF THE TAXONOMY OF
LEVEL DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
Student
applies the
 In 1964, David R. Krathwohl, together with his lessons
Internalization has taken place
colleagues, extended Bloom’s Taxonomy of learned in
CHARACTERIZED in an individual’s value hierarchy
Mathematics
Educational Objectives by publishing the second BY A VALUE OR to the extent that he or she can
in daily
taxonomy of objectives, this time giving VALUE COMPLEX be characterized as holding a
activities such
emphasis on the affective domain. particular value or set of values.
buying,
 Krathwohl and his collaborators attempted to cooking, and
subdivide the affective realm into relatively others.
distinct divisions. Five different levels of
affective objectives were described in the The aforementioned affective taxonomy serves
affective taxonomy. as a valuable part of assessment of affect. Through
them, standard or level of affect that is part of the
These levels are described in the table: target is determined. In addition, it also provides good
suggestions for using student behaviors as indicators of
LEVEL DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE affect at each of the levels.
Concerned with student’s
sensitivity to the existence of
certain phenomena and stimuli,
that is, with student’s
willingness to receive or to
attend to this stimuli.
Student does
RECEIVING It is categorized in three mathematics
(ATTENDING) subdivisions that shows the activities for
different levels of attending to grade.
phenomena:
1. Awareness of the phenomena
2. Willingness to receive the
phenomena
3. Controlled or selected
attention to phenomena
Student gives
Concerned with responses that special
go beyond merely attending to attention to
phenomena. the discussion
of
RESPONDING
Students are sufficiently Mathematics
motivated that they are not just lessons to be
‘’willing to attend’’ but are able to
actively attending. answer the
activities.
Students
Reflects the student’s holding of actively and
a particular importance or consistently
value. participate in
the discussion
VALUING
Students display behavior with and
sufficient consistency in interestingly
appropriate situations that are answer all the
perceived as holding this value. activities in
Mathematics.
Students successively internalize Student
values; they encounter integrates the
ORGANIZING situations in which more than lessons
one value is relevant. This learned in
requires the necessity of Match with