Development and validation of a scale to assess affective learning in health professional student reflective journals.

Abstract

Introduction/background: In the 1950s Bloom and colleagues identified three broad domains of learning: cognitive, psychomotor and affective. Learning in the affective domain, which concerns values, motivations and attitudes, has been notoriously difficult to measure. In the 1970s, David Krathwohl identified ‘levels’ of affective learning related to the extent to which new perspectives had been incorporated into the learner’s world view and value system. At last year’s conference, the authors presented on the successful use of a phenomenological technique to assess affective learning in reflective journals in a research context. Purpose/objectives: To describe the development and validation of a scale based on phenomenological analysis and the Krathwohl levels for the practical assessment of affective learning in student reflective journals. Issues/questions for exploration: A seven-point Likert-type scale was developed to allow rating of the extent and quality of affective learning in relation to the Krathwohl levels and trialled for the assessment of reflective journals by facilitators following training in the phenomenological technique. Each journal was then re-rated by a second independent facilitator and discrepancies resolved by an academic with high-level experience in the technique. Results: A high degree of concordance was observed between the numerical ratings of the two assessors in a pilot study. Numerical data on the reliability of the technique in a larger sample of journals will be presented. Discussion/Conclusion: This scale provides a practical and reliable methodology for the assessment of affective learning in health professional students’ reflective journals.