AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENTOF THE AFFECTIVE TARGETS

(Group 1)

INTRODUCTION
In this lesson, we shall discuss how to assess the affective domain. The affective
Domain covers behaviors about attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. Networks of attitudes, beliefs,
and feelings from the student's values. Values are perceptions or ideas of worth, while beliefs
are perceptions of fact. It also emphasizes feelings, emotions, and degree of acceptance or
rejection.

According to Hohn (1995), as cited by McMillan (2001), the term affective refers to a
wide variety of traits and dispositions that are different from knowledge, reasoning, and skills.
The term "affect" is general in nature, it is better for teachers to use specific behavior when
developing learning targets.

According to William James Popham (2003), the reasons why it is important to assess affect
are:

1) educators should be interested in assessing affective variables because these

variables are excellent predictors of students' future behavior;
2) teachers should assess affect to remind themselves that there's more to be a
successful teacher than helping students to obtain higher scores on
achievement tests, and
3) information regarding student's effect can help teachers teach more effectively
on a day-to-day basis.

1. Attitude targets
McMillan (1980) defines attitude as an internal state that influences what students are
likely to do. The internal state can to some degree determine positive or negative or
favorable or unfavorable reactions toward an object, situation, person, or group of objects,
or the general environment of a group of persons. It does not refer to behaviors, when a
student knows, right or wrong, in a moral or ethical sense or characteristics such as age, race,
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 and negative attitudes that a person intends to foster or at least keep
track of because of these attitudes are related to correct and future behavior. The following
examples of positive and negative attitudes are shown in the table below:

A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD A NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD

Learning Cheating
Math, Science, English and other subjects Drug use
Assignments Bullying
Classroom rules Cutting classes
Teachers Dropping out
 In research conducted by research psychologists, they found that attitudes consist of
three components or contributing factors (Forsyth, 1999):

1. An affective component of positive and negative feelings

2. A cognitive component describing worth or value
3. A behavioral component indicating a willingness or desire to engage in particular
actions

The affective component consists of the emotion or feeling associated with an object or a
person (good or bad feelings, enjoyment, likes, comfort, anxiety, etc.) the cognitive
component is an evaluative belief ((such as thinking something valuable, useful, worthless,
etc.). the behavioral component is 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 it’s 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 another. For example, Juana
may not like English very much but thinks that English is important. The question is, what
would her attitude be in a general sense toward English? That would depend on what
component of the attitude is being measured. If it is only the affective component, then the
attitude would be negative but if it is the cognitive component it would translate to a
positive attitude.

USING QUESTIONNAIRES TO SURVEY STUDENTS

Questionnaires are amongst the most common forms of determining students’
attitudes or opinions. They are used frequently in research and in the course or teaching
evaluations. Questionnaires tend to be overused with older students and adults and in many
instances have become an intrusion.

They are not widely used in classrooms, possibly because of the close interaction and
opportunities for feedback between teacher and learner. The questionnaire, however, can
provide standardized data at a group level that can be useful for instruction. It allows you to
take an anonymous sample of student opinions on issues that may be of importance to you
or your students. A distinction needs to be made, however, between an opinion
questionnaire and an attitude scale. The latter aims to indicate the degree of attitude. Not all
questionnaires are attitude scales.

An example of an opinion questionnaire developed by a classroom teacher to assess

apprentice responses to estimating in a printing course is shown in Figure 59. There was a
general view that students failed to approach the task of estimating costs appropriately and
did not value the need to assess costs for different printing processes. The questionnaire was
given to students to answer anonymously and the results were used to sample opinions
about the task of estimating. In analyzing the results of this questionnaire, you would be
interested in knowing how many students strongly agreed, agreed, were undecided,
disagreed, or strongly disagreed with each statement. This would be a valid use of
questionnaires in assessing specific attitudes and opinions. It would not be an attitude scale.
(An attitude scale groups questions in some way and adds together the responses to give a
total score that locates someone along a scale.
 Some helpful criteria for writing such attitude or opinion statements are summarized
below:

 avoid statements that may be interpreted in more than one way;

 avoid statements likely to be endorsed by almost everyone or no one;
 select statements believed to cover the entire range of feelings;
 statements should be short, rarely exceeding 20 words;
 each statement should contain only one complete thought; and
 terms such as ‘all, always, none, never ...’ should be avoided.

Experience with questionnaires quickly indicates that people are tired of completing
surveys. People may settle for generating any response that is merely reasonable. This can
take many forms: – selecting any option that seems to be satisfactory;

 agreeing with complex statements;

 responding in a way that ensures privacy;
 answering conservatively;
 saying “don’t know” etc. when the question is complex;
 making some random choices; and
 making indiscriminate choices.
 If you are considering the use of a questionnaire, then we would recommend that you
keep the questionnaire as short as possible and preferably to one page. Check that only the
most essential questions are asked. Do not include questions just because you might want to
know something. Also, ask yourself how you are going to process the data once it is
collected. This could alert you to any unnecessary questions.

We have noted that it is important not to ask adult students for both age and gender
because this can identify them, especially in a small group. Typically, age was one of the
questions most omitted in surveys of technical and further education students until we
started to use broader age groups; but there can still be problems. We recommend that you
offer people a reward for completing the questionnaire –sometimes we have used movie
tickets for adults, stickers or a pencil and eraser for primary school pupils – just to ensure
that there is some reward for participating, giving up their time and volunteering and to
increase attention to the task. If rewards are not possible then at least try to offer people a
summary of the results or some feedback.

We also advise you to distribute and collect questionnaires yourself rather than rely
upon others because it gives you a feel for how people responded to your questionnaire, the
conditions under which it was completed, whether any particular questions were
misunderstood, whether they took it seriously and whether the data maybe valid. Certainly,
there are researchers who have never seen the people that completed their surveys and
sometimes did not even see the questionnaires but only a statistical summary of the results.

OBSERVATIONAL FORMS OF ASSESSING ATTITUDES

Direct observation of students at work or on placement can provide an important
assessment of attitudinal achievement that is not available in any other way. Certain attitudes
and work habits can best be assessed by observing the student at work in typical situations.
Observations also overcome the limitations of the questionnaire which involves interpreting
people’s perceptions of situations and circumstances.

The strength of observational methods lies in the natural and firsthand quality of the
data provided. A key aspect of observation is the potential to describe the context within
which activities occur. Observations can be recorded in checklists, such as the following:

There are a number of choices available to you in the way you can conduct
observations. Any covert observation raises questions of ethics and these issues should be
clarified. We are aware that people will behave differently when they know that they are
being observed but in free and democratic education systems, we do not think that there is
any scope for covert assessments.

To summarize, the two basic guidelines for the observational assessment of attitudes are:

 that both the student and the observer should know the characteristics being
observed; and
 that standards (e., observational checklists) are used as an aid to consistent
evaluation.

2. Interest Targets
Interest is a personal preference for certain kinds of activities. According to Kelly, the
interests of an individual are really important information about the make-up of
hispersonality. Interests are one of the determinants of individual differences.

An interest is a tendency to become absorbed in an experience and to continue it

(Bingham, W.V).

The following are the main characteristics of Interest

1. Interests are not necessarily related to ability or aptitude.

2. Interest can be hereditary as well as acquired from the environment, through the
interests are mainly acquired.
3. Interests are fairly stable, and cannot be changed easily.
4. Interests of an individual resemble his parent’s or family’s interests.
5. Interests are the aspects of the personality of an individual.
6. Interests are related to aptitudes and achievements

ASSESSING INTERESTS IN FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

We would like to emphasize that there is a major role in the assessment of interests
as a guide for teaching and learning. Formative assessments of interests can be used to
direct teaching and learning to those aspects of a subject that students find relevant and
rewarding.

The ranking is preferable to rating scales as a means of establishing preferences and

the personal order of importance. The number of items to be ranked, however, should be
limited otherwise the task becomes onerous. Sometimes we only ask people to list their
three most important preferences as a shortcut means of assessment.
A second basis is to use pair comparisons, where students are instructed to mark the object
that they most prefer. A tally of the preferences for each item will indicate a student’s relative
preference.

Other ways in which attitudes can be used in formative ways are the assessment of the same
attitudes at different points in a semester. For instance, behavior changes can be observed
and recorded in order to chart a student’s progress in a subject.

3. Motivation Targets
Motivation is a condition inside us that desires a change, either in the self or the
environment. When we tap into this well of energy, motivation endows the person with the
drive and direction needed to engage with the environment in an adaptive, open-ended, and
problem-solving sort of way (Reeve, 2018).

In education, motivation is defined as the extent to which the students are involved in
trying to learn (McMillan, 2007). This includes the student’s initiation of learning, the intensity
of effort exerted on the student’s commitment, and the student’s persistence. In other words,
motivation is the determined engagement in learning in order to gain mastery of knowledge
and skills; students take learning seriously and give importance to opportunities to learn.

Like attitudes, motivation is too ambiguous to use in the general definition as an

outcome because it is difficult to pinpoint the source of the lack of effort and involvement.
McMillan (2007) suggests that motivation targets should focus on self-efficacy and value,
distinct by academic subjects and type of learning (like knowledge, understanding, and
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 a simple computer
program using Java. (value)

In assessing motivation, it is important to consider why students are learning, and the
reasons students' give their actions. When students do something or engaged themselves in
activities because they find the activities interesting, enjoyable, or challenging, they are
intrinsically motivated. While 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
a 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).

MOTIVATION ASSESSMENT SCALE

4. Values Target
Values are characteristics or traits that a person holds in high importance.
This includes principles that one considers to be right, and consequently which guide
the person's future actions and decisions. Beliefs emanate from multiple sources,
from what one hears, sees, reads, and experiences. Values are developed from beliefs.
Beliefs, as well as values, can change over time from learned experiences.
 Another definition of values is that it refers to either the end state of existence
or to modes of conduct that are desirable or sought (Rokeach, 1973). The end state
of existence refers to conditions and aspects of oneself and the kind of world that a
person wants such as safe life, world peace, freedom, happiness, social acceptance,
and wisdom. Modes of conduct are manifested in what a person believes 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 a person's life. Hence the aspect of moral,
political, social, aesthetic, economic, technological, and religious values.

McMillan (2008) 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 below

McMillian and Popham (2005) suggested other non-controversial values 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.

5. Self-Concept Target

One's self-concept (also called self-construction, self-identity, self-perspective or self-

structure) is a collection of beliefs about oneself that includes elements such as academic
performance, gender roles, sexuality and racial identity. Generally, self-concept embodies the
98 answer to "Who am I?". Self-concept is a cognitive or descriptive component of one's self
(eg. "I am a fast runner"),

Extensive literature on self-concept and self-esteem are available for references. Most
educators refer to these characteristics when dealing with students who have problems with
school and learning. It is accepted that these beliefs are important event when controversy
over whether self-concept and self-esteem proceed or result from academic learning. Some
level of positive self-efficacy is needed for achievement (McMillan, 2007). It is likely that the
said aspect self-concept is formed, at least in part, when children experience meaningful
success with moderate effort.

In setting targets, it is helpful to remember that self-concept and self-esteem are

multidimensional (Marsh & Craven, 1997). There is bodily self, an athletic self, a
mathematical self, a social self, and others. Each person has a self-description in exact area
that form one's self concept of self-image. Moreover, individuals 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 is 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 feels
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-concepts are from areas not directly related to
academic learning. Through specifying academic self-concept or self-concept in academic
ability 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 a 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 counsellor.

THE PERSONAL SELF-CONCEPT QUESTIONNAIRE (PSQ)

The Personal Self-Concept Questionnaire (PSQ) was developed by Goñi, Madariaga,
Axpe & Goñi (2011) in response to the plethora of self-concept tools available. There
searchers wanted to create a shorter measurement that provided an accurate representation
of self-concept overall.

The questionnaire is made up of 22 statements, divided into four subcategories:

 Self-fulfillment
 Autonomy
 Honesty
 Emotional self-concept

Example statements from the questionnaire include:

 To do anything, I first need other people’s approval. (Autonomy)

 I consider myself to be a very uptight and highly strung person. (Emotional
Self- Concept)
 I have yet to achieve anything I consider to be important in my life. (Self-
Fulfilment)
 I am a man/woman of my word. (Honesty)

Participants use a scale of one to five to respond to the statements, with one being
‘Totally Disagree’ and five being ‘Totally Agree.’

THE SELF-CONCEPT QUESTIONNAIRE (SCQ)

Initially developed by Saraswat (1984), the Self Concept Questionnaire is one of the
more popular questionnaires when it comes to measuring self-concept.

The questionnaire itself contains 48 statements that aim to measure self-concept

acrosssix different aspects:
  Physical
 Social
 Temperamental
 Educational
 Moral
 Intellectual

Example statements include:

 I feel different from most people and wish I was more like them. (Social)
 I only partially believe in myself. (Temperamental)
 I feel I am a person of worth. (Moral)
 I have trouble taking criticism from other people. (Temperamental)

Participants rate their answers to the statements on a scale from 1 to 5, with one being
‘very unlike me’ and five being ‘very true of me.’ A higher score indicates a high sense of self-
concept, with a lower score indicating a lower sense of self-concept.

6. Locus of Control
Locus of control (Rotter 1966) refers to an individual's beliefs about the extent of
control that they have over things that happen to them. The more anxious or depressed a
person is, the more external their locus of control tends to be and a greater external locus of
control is associated with a greater vulnerability to physical illness. Locus of control is a
psychological concept that refers to how strongly people believe they have control over the
situations and experiences that affect their lives. In education, locus of control typically
refers to how students perceive the causes of their academic success or failure in school.

TYPES OF LOCUS OF CONTROL

1. Internal locus of control - Students generally believe that their success or failure
is a result of the effort and hard work they invest in their education. Individual
believes that his/her behavior is guided by his/her personal decisions and efforts
2. External locus of control - Students generally believe that their successes or
failures result from external factors beyond their control, such as luck, fate,
circumstance, injustice, bias, or teachers who are unfair, prejudiced, or unskilled.
Individual believes that his/her behavior is guided by fate, luck, or other external
circumstances

For example, students with an internal locus of control might blame poor
grades on their failure to study, whereas students with an external locus of
control may blame an unfair teacher or test for their poor performance.

Whether a student has an internal or external locus of control is thought to

have a powerful effect on academic motivation, persistence, and achievement in
school. In education, "internals" are considered more likely to work hard to learn,
progress, and succeed, while "externals" are more likely to believe that working
hard is "pointless" because someone or something else is treating them unfairly
 or holding them back. Students with an external locus of control may also believe
that their accomplishments will not be acknowledged, or their effort will not
result in success.

There are questionnaires to measure the locus of control, and we discuss the
following two questionnaires.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL HEALTH LOCUS OF CONTROL SCALES

Despite some concerns regarding the underlying factorial validity, the 18-item
Multidimensional Health Locus of Control scales (MHLC) remain widely used in health
psychology (Kassianos, Symeou, & Ioannou, 2016).

The MHLC comprises three scales – Internal Health Locus of Control, Powerful Others
Health Locus of Control, and Chance Health Locus of Control – and builds on Levenson’s
(1974) IPC scale. Each of the six items per scale is scored on a range between strongly agree
and strongly disagree (Moshki, Ghofranipour, Hajizadeh, & Azadfallah, 2007).

The following sample statements are taken from forms A and B, used for locus of
control regarding general health:

 If I get sick, it is my own behavior that determines how soon I will get well again.
 Most things that affect my health happen to me by accident.

Taken from form C, the following statements are designed to be condition specific:

 As to my condition, what will be will be.

 If I see my doctor regularly, I am less likely to have problems with my condition.

SCHEPERS’S LOCUS OF CONTROL QUESTIONNAIRE

This 80-item questionnaire (extended from 65 items to improve reliability) is based
on the social learning theory and attribution theory. It scores individuals on theirdegree of
internal control, external control, and autonomy (Schepers, 2004; Boshoff &Van Zyl, 2011).

The questionnaire has also proved successful across multiple ethnic groups and offers
a valuable instrument for diverse populations.

Now in its fifth edition, the tool has received widespread confirmation of its reliability
and continues to be widely used (The JVR Africa Group, 2016).

3 POPULAR LOCUS OF CONTROL TESTS

There are several popular locus of control tests and questionnaires available online,
including the following:

Mind Tools – Locus of Control

In this quick-to-complete online questionnaire, the user reads 22 paired statements and
selects the statement they prefer is similar to Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale, with statements
such as (Mind Tools, n.):

1. A) Bad luck is what leads to many of the disappointments in life.

B) Disappointments are usually the result of mistakes you make.

2. A) Political unrest and war normally occur in countries where people don’t get involved or
assert their political rights.
B) No matter how much people get involved, war and political unrest will occur.

When you click Calculate My Total, it returns a value of Internal Locus of

Control(strong), Internal Locus of Control (moderate), or External Locus of Control (Mind
Tools, n.d.).

University of Virginia – Darden School of Business

This handy Locus of Control Instrument contains 20 true-or-false questions.

For example:

 I usually get what I want out of life.

 I need to be kept informed about news events.
 If I do not succeed on a task, I tend to give up.

Once complete, a table helps you calculate your degree of internal versus external locus of
control. The score, between 0 and 100, identifies the individual as having a very strong
external locus of control, external locus of control, both external and internal locus of control,
internal locus of control, or very strong internal locus of control.

Guidance is then provided on interpreting the individual’s score, and advice is given on the
impact of controlling your environment.

National Health Service

Created by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, this downloadable table is
an abbreviated version of the Nicholson McBride Resilience Questionnaire. It contains 10
yes–no questions (which could be modified if required).

The scores are based on the answers given to each question, such as

Add two for a ‘yes’ answer for each of the following questions:

 Do you make your own decisions, regardless of what other people say?
 If something goes wrong, do you usually reckon it’s your own fault rather than just
bad luck?

Add two points for a ‘no’ answer for each of the following questions:
  Do you find it a waste of time to plan ahead because something always causes you to
change direction?
 Are most of the things you do designed to please other people?

An overall score over 20 suggests the person who completes it takes control of their life and
has an internal locus of control.