What is the affective domain?

The affective domain of learning includes how students feel about life, about themselves, about their peers, and about what teachers are trying to teach them.

Researchers like Herbert Simon found that emotions impact our decision-making process by creating certain feelings.

This means that the affective domain also includes actions, values, and attitudes associated with emotions.

So, students’ emotions play a critical role in how they learn since they can affect their motivation, feelings of self-confidence, self-esteem, sense of belonging, perceptions, and learning attitudes.

In the field of education, emotional barriers to learning such as stress, anxiety, or embarrassment have been referred to as the affective filter (Krashen, 1982). The lower the affective filter is, the more students engage in processing information, retaining and engaging in different cognitive processes.

Therefore, besides using Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain, we need to learn about the taxonomy of the affective domain and incorporate it as well when identifying learning goals.

The affective domain taxonomy

The taxonomy of the affective domain, sometimes called Krathwohl’s taxonomy, was produced by Bloom in conjunction with Krathwohl and published later (Krathwohl, Bloom, Masia, 1964).

This taxonomy addresses the way we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasm, motivation, and attitudes.

It includes five major categories of feelings arranged in a hierarchical order, from the simplest to the most complex.

1. Receiving

Receiving is the student’s willingness to receive the information/knowledge related to a given teaching content. This can include, for instance, paying attention to the lesson, showing respect, listening to others’ ideas in discussion, etc.

2. Responding

This is the active participation of the student in his/her learning process. It includes participating in class, and presentations, doing assignments, questioning new concepts to understand more, and complying with school rules.

3. Valuing

Valuing is concerned with the worth or value a student attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behaviour. It is the stage where the internalization of a system of values that directs all behaviour occurs.

Behaviour description can include, for instance, students’ desire to improve group skills, showing commitment to performing their roles within a group, being sensitive to individual and cultural differences, and developing a plan to improve group work.

4. Organisation

It is defined as bringing together different values, resolving conflicts between them, and beginning the building of an internally consistent value system. Examples include recognizing the responsibility of each individual for improving human relations, accepting ethical standards, and prioritizing time effectively to meet goals.

5. Characterisation

At the Characterization level of the affective domain, students act consistently following the set of values they have internalized and their characterization or philosophy about life. So, the student’s behaviour is pervasive, consistent, and predictable.

Instructional objectives focus here on the student’s general patterns of adjustment such as showing self-reliance when working independently, revising judgments, and changing behaviour in light of new evidence, etc.

How to incorporate the affective domain in teaching?

Consider the taxonomy of the affective domain when identifying learning goals. Follow the same order: start with helping students get focused attentive and actively engaged in learning, and move on to making them care, show commitment, and get more self-directed learners with growth mindsets.

Here are some tips to incorporate the affective domain taxonomy effectively into practice.

Goal (1): Developing students’ willingness to listen

Tips

• Grab students’ attention (use attention-getters, cue students on important points, call them by their first names, etc.).
• Be enthusiastic, and show interest in what you are doing.
• Show the value of what you are doing to students’ future careers.
• Teach students social skills such as active listening.

 

Goal (2): Getting students actively engaged in learning

Tips

• Clarify your learning goals.
• Involve students in meaningful tasks that will help them in their future careers.
• Create a positive learning environment in which students feel comfortable, have a sense of rapport with the teacher and their peers, and expect their success.
• Help students develop learning strategies.
• Activate prior knowledge.
• Integrate thought-provoking tasks (problem-solving tasks, HOT questions) that stretch students’ capacities.
• Provide students with a high-quality assessment where they are encouraged to show what they have learned in different ways (ex. performance-based assessment).
• Provide regular constructive feedback that supports students to learn from their mistakes and improve.

 

Goal (3): Helping students care about what you are doing and increasing their commitment

Tips

• Care about their basic needs (ex. Differentiate instruction).
• Rebuild the confidence of discouraged and disengaged students.
• Support students to make an emotional investment through using simulations, role-playing, and journal writing, and relating what they are learning to real-world experiences.
• Help students enjoy learning. Be lighthearted. Use hooks, humour and create moments where students relax, express their thoughts, and laugh.
• Talk to students individually, listen to their issues, and provide your support.
• Recognize and make adjustments for when students feel sad, stressed, or threatened.

 

Goal (4): Fostering students’ autonomy in learning

Tips

• Help students develop the metacognitive strategies that enable them to exert more control over the quality of their learning. Involve them in tasks such as planning how to approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension and evaluating progress towards the completion of a task.
• Incorporate decision-making tasks, and offer them choices, and opportunities to cooperate (ex. Project-based learning).
• Use scaffolding to facilitate students’ learning.
• Use group work effectively.
• Incorporate assessment for learning opportunities.

 

Goal (5): Helping students adopt a growth mindset

Tips

• Provide students with ample opportunities to reflect on their learning.
• Help students develop self-awareness of their learning strengths and weaknesses.
• Encourage students to share mistakes with others and learn from them.
• Support students to understand that feedback is a resource for learning, they need to process it to further improve.
• Encourage students to focus more on the process of doing a task, share their strategies, and reflect on and acknowledge their efforts.
• Praise students’ effort, not personal qualities.

 

To conclude, students need to show interest in learning, be self-directed, and make efforts to learn and improve. So, their motivation, confidence, and attitudes are essential to determine their engagement. Therefore, we teachers should not just focus on helping students develop knowledge and skills but also care about their emotions, the engines that drive learning.

References

Arnold, J. & Brown, H.D.(1999). A map of the terrain. In J. Arnold (Ed.), Affect in language learning (pp.01-24).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals, Handbook II: Affective domain. New York: David Mckay Company Incorporated.