Attitudes and affect of the learner (KAB)
From The Learning Engineer's Knowledgebase
The attitudes and affect of a learner are the beliefs, emotions, and psychological factors held by an individual learner that can affect their participation and learning outcomes.
Definition
The attitude of a learner are the emotions, dispositions, beliefs, or affective stances that the learner has, particularly toward the learning activities and content of an educational product. These psychological considerations are a key part of how a learner interacts with and chooses to engage with educational experiences.
Attitude is a part of the knowledge-attitude-behavior (KAB) evaluation framework for evaluating a learner's whole self. It is theoretically aligned with constructivist and social learning theories that suggest that a learner has attitudinal and emotional factors that influence their behavior, as well as social and environmental factors.
Additional Information
Over the last three decades, research has repeatedly shown that a learner's affective state or attitudes toward learning activities can greatly influence how the learner will interact or achieve the desired learning objectives.
The attitude of a learner does not mean that they have a bad mood, but instead describes a family of individual psychological factors that have been known to influence how a learner participates in educational experiences.
Types of attitudinal and psychological factors and concepts that are considered in educational design:
- The affect or emotional state of the learner
- Motivation, interest, engagement level
- Self-efficacy and confidence with activities/tasks and content topic
- Beliefs and values held by the learner
- Perceptions by learners about the educational experience
- Level of fun, enjoyment, satisfaction
It has become common practice for designers and evaluators to assess the attitudes of learners as they participate in an educational activity. This can be done before and after the learner uses the product, such as through pre-post testing or summative assessment. It can also be done in the middle of the activity through formative assessment. Most modern learning theories predict that the attitudes of learners may play a mediational role between the learning activity and the achievement of learning outcomes, so it is important to identify the attitudes of learners while they use the educational product. Such attitudinal factors can also be used in evaluation to establish links or relationships between behaviors and attitudinal positions.
Tips and Tricks
- Consider how learners may feel while using your product. The emotion and perceptions of learners play a large role in how people participate in educational exercises. Think about how you may survey or inquire as to how your learners are feeling about and perceptions related to the learning activities that they are doing.
- A learner's confidence or self-efficacy is positively related to their continued participation and success in an educational program. How might you identify the learner's self-efficacy or confidence in the activities and content? How might you support a person with lower levels of confidence and self efficacy?
- When considering the audience for your design, it is useful to think about what common beliefs or values may be held by people who use your product. Beliefs and values, especially commonly held ones, can dramatically influence how a person will interact within an educational setting.
- Brainstorm how you might identify what your learner's interests, motivations or level of engagement with the material might be. Finding ways to align activities with what your learners find interesting can be valuable in improving their attitudinal stance and give more reason to participate with the product.
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