Kratwohl’s Taxonomy of Affective Domain.

    I know that most of us are all familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy of Objectives. These objectives are more applicable to the cognitive domain. There is also the taxonomy for psychomotor domain by Harlow which focuses on skills. This post however, will discuss the least focused domain among the CPA- the affective domain.

     Actually as a teacher, if I were asked to which domain I would like my students to develop more, I would not second guess but to choose the affective domain. Why? I do believe that as a teacher, the affective domain gives the heart to our teaching. I know we need to make our students competent and smart as to compete with the rest of the world, but I think the affective domain makes us and our students remain humans. I am a fan of dystopian fiction and perhaps one of the unifying themes of all this literature is the idea that society has developed its intellect at the maximum, yet it has lost its humanity. Try to read novels like Hunger Games, Divergent or The Giver, all of these have societies with advanced level of technology, yet the values and the character which make us all humans were all gone. As a teacher, I dread this future for my students and perhaps for humanity.

          Before I go too far, here is Kratwohl’s Taxonomy of Affective Domain that can help teachers in preparing instructional objectives, learning experiences and assessment tools especially in developing the affective domain of our students.

Receiving. This refers to the awareness, the attention and the willingness to receive certain ideas, concepts and beliefs

Objectives: to differentiate, to separate, to set apart, to share, to accumulate, to select, to combine, to accept, to listen

Example: Students should be able to accept the value of caring for the environment

Responding. This includes openness, willingness to respond and to find satisfaction in responding to the given idea, materials or phenomena.

Objectives: to comply, to follow, to commend, to volunteer, to discuss, to play, to practice, to acclaim, to augment

Example: Students are expected to discuss the importance of caring for the environment

Valuing. This involves acceptance, preference and commitment to a given idea, value or belief.

Objectives: to relinquish, to specify, to assist, to subsidize, to help, to support, to deny, to protest, to argue

Example: Students should be able to support organizations that help care for the environment

Organization. This denotes conceptualization and organization of a value system, relating this to the ones already held.

Objectives: to theorize, to abstract, to compare, to balance, to organize, to formulate

Example: Students should be able to formulate ways in caring for the environment

Characterization. This relates to consistently acting out internalized set of values or philosophy in life

Objectives: to revise, to change, to complete, to require, to avoid, to manage, to resist, to resolve

Example: Students should be able to avoid practices that can harm the environment

    Affective domain is important in our learning process. We tend to just overlook this amidst the trend of academic learning which is primarily focused on knowledge and skills based on numerical ratings and achievement scores.

    We must also remember that as teachers, we are developing well-rounded persons- persons who have a sharp brain, skilled hands and most of all, a human heart.

image source: http://cehdclass.gmu.edu/ndabbagh/Resources/IDKB/images/kraths_tax.jpg