Affective Domain: Student Perceptions And Motivation

This chapter will explore ways for assessing and measuring student perceptions of teacher practices. It will also examine students’ motivational experiences that can be used to meet their motivational, social, and emotional needs. This review will, in turn, provide teachers with suggestions about how to help their students identify the thoughts that interfere with maintaining positive motivation for learning. These thoughts often produce the emotional or affective responses that teachers see in students’ negative behavior in and outside the classroom. Knowing how to identify the thoughts that lead to the feelings and subsequent behaviors that students exhibit – both positive and negative – can provide teachers with important clues for how to handle the situation and use the situation to teach students important skills for regulating their own thinking, motivation, emotional, and learning skills. The key is to focus on student strengths – in whatever form they may take – and help students regain the positive motivation that can enhance their learning and achievement.