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The Cognitive and Affective Domain in Assessing the Life-Long Learning Objective

Abstract

The success of the engineering profession requires students to be educated in the technical practices and inspired to develop the traits of life-long learning. The authors’ objective is to demonstrate the use of the cognitive and affective domains in assessing life-long learning in a program’s mission to inspire students and to achieve the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Body of Knowledge 2 (BOK2) Outcome. Recent published works will be integrated in the proposed process, which rely upon the well established Bloom’s Taxonomy for the cognitive and affective domains. The authors believe that multiple domains used in the process will be repeated across similar assessments and beneficial in moving forward the ASCE BOK2.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of the cognitive and affective domains to assess an outcome: life-long learning. This outcome is inherent to the first two authors program’s mission to inspire students, and is required in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Body of Knowledge 2 (BOK2) 1. The development of life-long learning is an objective in many education programs and efforts to develop these skills are frequently reported. Reports include, but are not limited to: Briedis (1998) used a written report exercise to get students excited about life-long learning 2, Wells and Langenfeld (1999) created an environment through industry- university dialogue to foster the desire for life-long learning 3, Litzinger et. al. (2000, 2001, 2004, 2007) conducted extensive research through a Self-directed Learning Readiness Scale to assess student’s readiness to receive and value life-long learning skills 4-8, Todd (2002) created a teaching module to develop in the students an appreciation for life-long learning 9, Cress (2002) implemented an exam review process in an effort to get students to value their self-assessment and learning processes 10, Waters (2007) assessed on-line techniques to measure student’s motivation for life-long learning 11, and Murray and Raper (2007) instituted several activities across multiple courses to inspire students to continue developing life-long learning skills 12. Studies such as these have similar descriptors to describe the learning objectives associated with their proposed activities. It is proposed in this paper that the commonality of these descriptors is encompassed in a taxonomy; that is, Bloom’s Taxonomy for the affective domain. Although not as widely used as the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Committee work, the affective domain has been proposed to assess specific courses 13, to assess programs 14, and to advance the ASCE BOK2 15. The authors of this paper believe there is an opportunity to utilize both the cognitive and affective domains in assessing program and BOK objectives; for example, life-long learning.

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Hanus, J., & Hamilton, S., & Russell, J. (2008, June), The Cognitive And Affective Domain In Assessing The Life Long Learning Objective Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3104