Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

A–116

the induced behavior not because he believes in its content but because he expects to gain specific rewards or approval and avoid specific punishments or disapproval by conforming. [2] Identification can be said to occur when an individual accepts influence because he wants to establish or maintain a satisfying relationship to another person or group (e.g., teacher or other school authority)…. The individual naturally believes in the response which he adopts through identification…. The satisfaction from identification is due to the act of conforming as such. [3] Internalization can be said to occur when an individual accepts influence because the content of the induced behavior—the ideas and actions of which it is composed—is intrinsically rewarding. He adopts the induced behavior because it is congruent with his value system…. Behavior adopted in this fashion tends to be integrated with the individual’s existing values. Thus, the satisfaction derived from internalization is due to the content of the new behavior. …The Taxonomy uses the term “internalization” to encompass all three of Kelman’s terms, recognizing them as different stages in the internalization process. A NEW LOOK AT CURRICULUM, EVALUATION, AND RESEARCH (Chapter 6) …The Taxonomy has been used by teachers, curriculum builders, and educational research workers as one device to attack the problems of specifying in detail the expected outcomes of the learning process. When educational objectives are stated in operational and detailed form, it is possible to make appropriate evaluation instruments and to determine, with some precision, which learning experiences are likely to be of value in promoting the development of the objective and which are likely to be of little or no value. It is this increased specificity which we hope will be prompted by the Affective Domain part of the Taxonomy… . If affective objectives can be defined with appropriate precision, we believe it may be no more difficult to produce changes in students in this domain than in the cognitive domain. …The securing of the appropriate responses from the individual… requires that the new cues and stimuli be received under conditions that make it easy for the individual to respond and give him satisfaction from the act of responding…. However, as we turn to the objectives which go beyond merely receiving or responding to stimuli and cues, we find that the development of learning experiences that are appropriate requires far more effort and far more complex sets of arrangements than are usually provided in particular classroom lessons and sessions…. …It is to be expected that some objectives may take several years to be reached to a significant degree…. The ordering of objectives is of importance in both domains, but we regard it as of prime importance in the affective domain. …Some objectives, particularly the complex ones at the top of the affective continuum, are probably attained as the product of all, or at least a major portion, of a student’s years in school. Thus, measures of a semester’s or year’s growth would reveal little change. This suggests that an evaluation plan covering at least several grades and involving the coordinated efforts of several teachers is probably a necessity. A plan involving all the grades in a system is likely to be even more effective. Such efforts would permit gathering longitudinal data on the same students so that gains in complex objectives would be measurable…. If we are serious about attaining complex affective objectives, we shall have to build coordinated evaluation programs that trace the successes and failures of our efforts to achieve them.

Achievement of Affective Objectives and Behaviors