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“We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock-exchange market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of the character of the educated.” -Mohandas K. Gandhi

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The Other Taxonomy: Using Bloom’s Affective Domain to Create Student Learning Outcomes

Michele Wolff

Hannah Schmitz

The Shriver Center at UMBC

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Background

UMBC
The Shriver Center
Campus-wide Workgroup
Project Goals:

Identify
Track
Assess
Enhance
Reward

Assessment

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Student Learning Outcomes

Desired outcomes by Faculty/Staff involved in ALEs did not match up with the outcomes being assessed
Desired outcomes were more social-emotional or affective but outcomes assessed were cognitive

ACTIVITY!

Think of a student learning outcome for a SLCE course or experience. Write it out.

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�� Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy

How we acquire knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses

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Bloom’s Affective Taxonomy

How we develop our attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors towards internalization/characterization

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Cognitive & Affective Learning

Higher Education

Academic Affairs (Cognitive)
Student Affairs (Affective)

Neurological Research

Emotion and cognition are interrelated
Sum is greater than the parts

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SLCE: Applied & Affective

K-12 approach to integrating SLCE and Affective (Social-Emotional) Learning
Maryland is the only state with a SLCE high school graduation requirement
Higher Education- some evidence of synergy but lacking in intentionality and assessment tools

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Cognitive Competencies

UMBC’s General Education “Functional Competencies”

Oral and Written Communication
Scientific and Quantitative Reasoning
Critical Analysis and Reasoning
Technological Competency
Information Literacy

Cognitive themes
Cognitive outcomes
Other examples (VALUE)

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Affective Functional Competencies

AFCs

Critical Agency
Empathy
Ethics and Integrity
Innovative Leadership
Intercultural Development and Perspective
Resilience and Adaptability
Self-awareness
Social Responsibility
Teamwork

Other examples- VALUE, letitripple (Character Strengths)

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Elements (Outcomes)

If affective outcomes were stated they were often assessed cognitively
Cognitive is intuitive
Teamwork example

ACTIVITY:

Pair off. Take a look at your SLOs. Were they describing cognitive outcomes or affective outcomes? Is there a way to rewrite it so it gets at measuring the outcome affectively?

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Examples

Civic Knowledge

Possession of:

Knowledge of government structures and processes
Factual information on institutions and processes

Ability to:

Relate national to international or historical to current

Understanding of:

Fundamental principles (e.g., democratic processes)
Legal aspects (e.g., voting, citizenship)

Analytic Skills

Application of political and civic knowledge to identify perspectives and to recognize, interpret and respond to issues presented in text scenarios and graphics.

Participatory Skills

Ability to make reasoned judgements about political and civic situations or problem solving processes, especially in group and/or community contexts.

Motivations, Attitudes, Efficacy

Interest, involvement, or engagement in attending to political information

Democratic Norms & Values

Belief in basic principles of democracy; sense of civic responsibility; valuing pluralism and diversity

Participation & Activities

Civic and political behavior and actions (face-to-face and on-line)

Educational Testing Services (ETS), 2015

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Mapping affective outcomes to our interpretation of Bloom’s Affective Taxonomy

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Assessing Outcomes

Lacking tools that effectively assess our affective outcomes
Some existing resources we found

VALUE Rubrics
BTtoP
Pericles Project

Developed a “Pilot” assessment

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Likert-style questions

Clarity of purpose: Understands and can articulate clearly intended impact while appreciating that complexities, conflicts and ambiguities will inevitably be encountered

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“Pilot” Findings

Cognitive Interviews/ETS Seminar
We are not even close to the pilot stage
Issues with questions

Inauthentic/socially desirable responses
Motivation
Survey fatigue
Cultural discrepancies
Misunderstanding/interpretations of words
Self-awareness changes
Self-report

Scenario-based/situational judgment questions

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Scenario-based questions

ACTIVITY!

In pairs develop a scenario-based question that represents one or both of your affective outcomes.

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Engaging survey techniques

People love online quizzes!
Project Implicit

Assesses implicit biases one holds
Uses pictures and response times
Optional self-report on your attitudes towards or beliefs about

Mind behind the eyes test

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2013/10/03/well-quiz-the-mind-behind-the-eyes/?referer=

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INDS 430: Creative Survey Techniques

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Creating Interactive Assessment Tools
Students as co-creators
8 students

Interdisciplinary Studies
Psychology
Graphic Design/Art
Statistics
Information Systems
Political Science
Health Administration and Policy

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Next Steps

Continue offering course and refining and developing scenario-based questions
Integrate affective outcomes in courses and experiences
Correlated Assessment

Expert observers to assess students change in behavior over time

Seeking funding to move from prototyping to piloting to full implementation and dissemination of a reliable and valid tool.

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Next Steps

Identifying ALEs will allow us to catalog and more widely promote the wide-range of opportunities that are available to students, faculty, staff, and community partners
Tracking ALE participation will allow us to report more accurately on the number of students, faculty, staff, and community partners engaged in ALEs and the scope of their impact
Enhancing ALEs will allow us to ensure that we’re addressing community needs more effectively, while ensuring that ALEs are of the highest quality based on promising practices and a community of those interested in this work
Reward Participation in ALEs, will allow us to incentivize students, faculty, staff, and community partners to engage as co-creators of ALEs

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Questions?

What are we missing? Are there tools or resources out there that you know of/are using? Any ideas?

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