Selected Literature on the Affective Domain

This summary was compiled by Karin Kirk, SERC.

Methods for teaching : Evaluation of affective outcomes : Science and the Affective Domain : Some Geoscience Examples : Submit your own example

General goals of teaching to the affective domain

• Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Book II Affective Domain

  citation and bibliographic information (out of print, but available from used booksellers)
  This landmark book outlines the need for and basis of the affective domain in education, presents a detailed classification scheme for the affective domain, describes each level in the taxonomy, and offers methods for assessment.

• A Structure for the Affective Domain in Relation to Science Education

  citation and bibliographic information
  This paper establishes a system for considering the affective domain while teaching science. The author presents a detailed matrix that integrates affective behaviors with scientific activities, events and inquiry.

• Learning and Teaching in the Affective Domain (more info)

  This article addresses attitudes and attitude change in students, with a discussion of several theories of attitude change. The article also features sections on instructional design for attitude change, with examples and links to lesson plans.

• The Art of Possibility

  citation and bibliographic information
  This is the book chosen at 'Boot camp for Profs' to help faculty become aware of the effects of the imagination and affective domain on their own choices in career and practice. Many situations in the book are case studies that concern teaching and learning. All offer rich insights into the awareness of how our affective domain determines actions, outcomes, and satisfaction that emerge from challenges to achieve.

Methods for teaching in ways that address the affective domain

• A Checklist for Designing Instruction in the Affective Domain

  citation and bibliographic information
  This paper presents a simple model for accomplishing the often complex and nebulous task of developing instruction for the affective domain.

• Increasing Enrollment in Higher-Level Mathematics Classes through the Affective Domain

  citation and bibliographic information
  The author presents 10 teaching strategies that give attention to affective variables to increase the likelihood that high school students will continue to enroll in higher level mathematics courses. Strategies focus on frustration, vocabulary use, anxiety, confidence, cooperative learning, creativity, remediation, and promoting mathematics courses.

• The Relationship between Teacher Management Communication Style and Affective Learning

  citation and bibliographic information
  This statistical study measured students' responses to a survey to determine the amount of affective learning that took place in their class. The factors that had the most influence on affective learning were nonverbal immediacy, a student-centered classroom management style, and regular class attendance by the students themselves.

• De Bono's Red Hat on Krathwohl's Head: Irrational Means to Rational Ends (Microsoft Word 71kB Feb7 07)

  by Edward B. Nuhfer, Center for Teaching and Learning, Idaho State University
  This article provides useful background on the relationship between the cognitive and affective domains and encourages faculty to recognize that the affective domain is "legitimate, powerful, and even useful." The paper describes several examples of how one's affective teaching can be improved, which may result in increased self-awareness, a more positive classroom environment and a better connection with students. This article is from The National Teaching & Learning Forum, Volume 14, Number 5, September 2005.

• Students' View of Intelligence Can Help Grades

  This news feature from National Public Radio discusses a new study in the scientific journal Child Development. The study shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school. The study was carried out by research psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University. This website contains an interview with Dweck and an audio file of the news feature that aired on NPR.

Evaluation of affective outcomes

Also see Assessment tools for the affective domain

• Techniques for Evaluating Affective Objectives

  citation and bibliographic information
  The paper presents three tools for evaluating the affective domain and gives some brief examples of how to use each type of evaluation. The assessment tools are the attitude checklist, the attitude questionnaire, and the projective indicator.

• The Affective Domain Related to Science Education and its Evaluation

  citation and bibliographic information
  This review paper discusses several approaches to measuring student outcomes in the affective domain. Several different authors' representations of attitudes in science are discussed, and the paper addresses methods to evaluate affective outcomes and attitudes, pitfalls and recommendations.

• Science Motivation Questionnaire

  The 30-item questionnaire by Shawn M. Glynn and Thomas R. Koballa, Jr. assesses six components of students' motivation to learn science in college or high school courses. The questions assess students' motivation, confidence, and anxiety along with the relevance of science and the responsibility for learning. This website includes the questionnaire, scoring keys, and links to references.

• Development of an Assessment of Student Conception of the Nature of Science

  By Julie Libarkin, Arizona State University
  This JGE paper describes a method to determine the effectiveness of science courses for non-majors using a Likert-scale instrument. Results from 991 students permitted a statistical analysis of this instrument's validity and reliability. This evaluation prompted the removal of a number of non-correlated items and indicated that the test consists of three scales: Attitude towards Learning Science, Attitude towards Science, and Conception of Science. Examples from two courses, one laboratory-based and the other grounded in collaborative learning, are provided to demonstrate the utility of these types of scales in assessing both prior knowledge and course outcomes.

• Instrument Development in the Affective Domain

  By Betsy McCoach (UCONN), Robert Gable (SUNY Albany) and John Madura (UCONN)
  This book is a good overview of various instruments which can be used to develop specific measurements of affect or change in affect in various educational settings.

Science and the Affective Domain

• Research on the affective dimensions of science learning

  Simpson, R. D., Koballa, T. R., Oliver, J. S., & Crawley, F. E. (1994)
  This paper is one chapter in the Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning citation and bibliographic information .
  This volume contains a comprehensive survey of the research in science education. The content of this volume provides an assessment of the significance of research, evaluates new developments, and examines current conflicts, controversies and issues in science pedagogy.

• Attitudinal and motivational constructs in science learning

  Koballa, T. R., & Glynn, S. M. (in press). Chapter 5 in S. K. Abell & N. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook for research in science education. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.


• Americans fear decline in US performance in math and science
  This press release discusses a February 2007 poll about how science and scientists are perceived by the American public. Selected results show that more than half of Americans (52%) don't believe the U.S. is performing well in science and math education compared to other nations, but they know science is very important (85%). Most (87%) rate being a scientist as one of the most prestigious careers, yet 75% can't name a living scientist. Sixty-four percent don't think average Americans are knowledgeable about science, and 76% think it is very important that young people are encouraged to pursue scientific careers, and that more opportunities for these careers are created. The poll was conducted by Research!America.

Some Geoscience Examples

• Katrien J van der Hoeven Kraft, LeeAnn Srogi, Jenefer Husman, Steven Semken & Miriam Fuhrman (2011) Engaging Students to Learn Through the Affective Domain: A new Framework for Teaching in the Geosciences, Journal of Geoscience Education, 59:2, 71-84, DOI: 10.5408/1.3543934a
• Journal of Geoscience Education special issue on Student Thinking about the Earth
  citation and bibliographic information
  A wide range of methodologies that can be used to study learning are represented here, from case studies to interviews to quantitative approaches. These papers provide a basis for continued communication between workers in different disciplines striving to answer the question: "What works in the geoscience classroom?"
• Qualitative Analysis of College Students' Ideas about the Earth: Interviews and Open-Ended Questionnaires
  citation and bibliographic information
  This study addresses student conceptual understanding and conceptual changes in college science courses. Analysis of students' interview responses indicates that students hold a number of non-scientific ideas about the Earth. Additionally, students apply a range of ontological categories to geologic phenomena, with significant implications for teaching geosciences.
• How Students Think: Implications for Learning in Introductory Geoscience Courses
  citation and bibliographic information
  This paper discusses the way that students in introductory geology courses think and how this can influence what they learn. Approximately half the students in an introductory course do not have the skills to understand the abstract scientific concepts that are traditionally discussed. Many geological concepts will remain unlearned without appropriate activities that build on a foundation of concrete examples.
• Developing Geoscience Student-Learning Centered Courses
  citation and bibliographic information
  This article discusses the development of courses that were designed with a focus on how students learn new content. Specific strategies include establishing clear objectives for the course, using questionnaires, surveys and discussions throughout the course, and assigning a variety of different assignments, such as writing papers, group posters and data analysis projects.
• Fieldwork is Good? The Student Experience of Field Courses (more info)
  This site describes the results of a research project that was conducted across geography, earth science and environmental science disciplines to examine the effect of fieldwork on students' affective domain. The project aimed to monitor changes in student's attitudes to learning that occurred as a result of attending residential field courses. In addition, the changes in how students value the fieldwork experience were examined and differences in attitudes and values between different groups of students (for example age and gender) were explored.
• Sense of Place and Place-Based Introductory Geoscience Teaching for American Indian and Alaska Native Undergraduates (by Steve Semken)
  citation and bibliographic information
  A student's "sense of place" incorporates their affective as well as cognitive responses to physical places. Students with strong cultural bonds to homelands, many of whom are underrepresented minorities (such as American Indian students) may be dissuaded by geoscience teaching that affronts their senses of place. Place-based geoscience teaching could potentially enhance science literacy among American Indian, Alaska Native, and other underrepresented minority students, and bring more of them into the geoscience profession. Five characteristics of place-based geoscience teaching are identified here and illustrated with suggestions for implementation in diverse educational settings.

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