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Chapter 6 Assessing Attitudes Attitudes influence learning, as attitude predisposes the mind. Students who are positive about learning; like school; feel safe, physically and emotionally; and nurtured, learn more readily and deeply than those who don‘t. Instructors, who are positive about their subject matter, believe students can learn, and who exhibit reasonable student affirmingbehavior are the most effective knowledge transmitters and learning facilitators. Assessing attitudes and then constructively acting on that data is critical to creating a productive learning environment. Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia (1964, pp. 35-37) advanced the Affective Domain Taxonomy, in a similar manner as Bloom‘s (1956) intellectual skill taxonomy. The Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia (1964) taxonomyserves as our application framework in this chapter. First, we will examine Kerlinger‘s (1986) definitions of attitudes and traits. Following that, the Affective Domain Taxonomy is reviewed. Next, specific measurement tools are presented. I. Introduction A. Attitudes and Traits 1. Measuring an attitude or attitudes is a difficult task, as any attitude is a construct which may be unidimensionalor multidimensional. The existence of an attitude is inferred by a person‘s words and behaviors. a. Kerlinger (1986, p. 453) defines an attitude as, ―an organized predisposition to think, feel, perceive, and behave toward a referent or cognitive object. It is an enduring structure of beliefs that predisposes the individual to behave selectively toward attitude referents. A referent is a category[political party], class [social or academic], or set of phenomena: physical objects [tall buildings], events [Martin Luther King Day], behaviors [smoking], or even constructs [patriotism].‖ b. Kerlinger (1986, p. 453) differentiates between an attitude and a trait. He defines a trait to be, ―a relatively enduring characteristic of the individual to respond in a certain manner in all situations.‖A person who dislikes math is likely to only dislike math (an attitude). A person who dislikes learning, most probably dislikes all academic subjects (a trait). Personality measurement is almost always trait measurement and is very clinical in nature. Trait measurement is beyond the scope of the present discussion. 2. By measuring attitudes, which are indicators of motives and intentions, we gaininsight (e.g., explanation and prediction) as to possible or probable individual or group behavior. B. The Affective (i.e., Attitude) Domain Taxonomy: An Overview 1. Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia (1964, pp. 35-37) have advanced a five level taxonomy for framing attitudinal objectives and which is also useful in guiding the measurement decisions as to educational, social, managerial and

114marketing attitudinal research. First we‘ll examine an overview of the taxonomy and then view it from an alternative perspective. Detailed explication will then follow. 2. The Attitudinal Taxonomy a. Receiving (or attending) is the first level of the taxonomy relates to the examinee‘s sensitivity to affective stimuli or phenomena, i.e., his or her willingness to attend to each. There are threegradients to receiving or attending: awareness, willingness to receive, and controlled or selected attention. b. Responding involves a response which passes merely attending to a stimuli or phenomena so that the examinee or respondent is at least in a very small way is committing himself or herself to the stimuli or phenomena. Such commitment must not be confused with a value or attitude. There arethree levels of responding (acquiescence in responding, willingness to respond and satisfaction in response) each of which is characterized by increasing degree of internalization and voluntary action. c. Valuing refers to the fact that an object, behavior, or phenomenon has worth. Each of the three level of valuing within the taxonomy represents a deeper degree of internalization. Behavior is...