The Need To Establish An Affective Domain Assessment Strategy For Your Program

Several proposed ABET engineering technology criteria have roots in the affective as well as cognitive domain. If these outcomes are assessed wholly as mental activities, measures will be sought which determine the student’s ability to recall, comprehend, apply, synthesize, and evaluate appropriate skills. It is possible to do all of these things without demonstrating that a graduate will either incorporate or accept this knowledge or application of principles as a guide to everyday professional practice or personal conduct. An assessment practice based upon affective domain criteria would examine the student’s state of mind resulting from one or more directed learning experiences as a result of the technology curriculum. Using the same proposed outcomes, measures are needed to detect how successfully the student receives, values, organizes and integrates curricular content into his or her own life style. Unless one can determine if the student’s ability to successfully perform these outcomes when appropriate has been integrated into practice or conduct and it is evidenced in day-to-day behavior, the result has not been effectively measured. This paper introduces the differences between cognitive assessment taxonomy and affective assessment taxonomy, distinctions between an assessment system and an assessment strategy, and identifies various approaches that can be employed to incorporate affective domain assessment into the overall engineering technology assessment plan. Unless this is done, a partial and less than comprehensive assessment program will result.