Empirical Testing of an Affective Learning Paradigm

The investigation studied the effectiveness of a cyclical affective learning paradigm based on the premise that student affect toward a course of instruction will dictate, in part, cognitive performance in the course. The methodology of causal analysis indicated little support for the validity of this paradigm. In determining what relationships existed between the variables, a new learning model was derived. The derived model revealed that students' performance on cognitive tasks was influenced by affective perceptions at the outset of the course. Further into the instructional sequence, cognitive variables were found to be best predicted by performance on other cognitive variables. This suggests that teacher concentration on the development of positive affect toward a course of instruction may not produce student cognitive gains. Teachers would be better advised to concentrate on the development of students' cognitive skills and subject retention.