The Recursive Knowledge Development Model for Virtual Environments - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 19

Affective Theories (Personal
Likes and Needs)

plane of self. Students ultimately become 'own-
ers' of their knowledge because they are highly
participant in its construction.

Bloom's Taxonomy: the
Affective Domain Bruner's Discovery Learning Theory

Bruner (1966) proposed Discovery Learning
Theory as a constructivist learning theory based
in personal inquiry. Bruner describes learning
as an active process in which learners construct
new ideas or concepts based upon their current/
past knowledge. Knowledge structures are used
to provide meaning and organization to experi-
ences and are intended to allow the learner to go
beyond the information given. Bruner suggests the
instructor should encourage students to construct
hypotheses, makes decisions, and discover prin-
ciples by themselves; in effect they should pres-
ent information in such a way that students may
build new knowledge on existing knowledge to
facilitate a recursive learning process. It is assumed
that students may be more likely to remember
concepts and knowledge discovered on their own.
This approach assumes that if learning activities
foster student ownership of the knowledge, this
knowledge will be meaningful to the learner.
Bruner's constructivist theory may be applied
to instructional practice, as Kearsley (1994)
surmises, by applying the following principles:

A committee of scholars led by Benjamin Bloom
(1956) identified three domains of educational
activities: the Cognitive domain which focuses
on mental skills, the Affective domain which
focuses on affect or likes and dislikes and the
Psychomotor domain which focuses on the
physical skills. Bloom and others (1956, 1973)
developed taxonomies for the Cognitive and Af-
fective domains; taxonomy for the Psychomotor
domain was never developed. These taxonomies
suggest a basically sequential model for dealing
with tasks in each domain.
Bloom's taxonomy is widely accepted and
universally employed when developing instruc-
tional materials. Because this inquiry seeks to
describe strategies for internalizing knowledge
through ownership, Bloom's Affective Domain
is considered for use within this model rather
than the more commonly used Cognitive Domain
Taxonomy. The Affective Domain Taxonomy is
concerned with perception of value issues and
ranges from mere awareness (receiving), through
to being able to distinguish implicit values through
analysis (Krathwohl, Bloom & Masia, 1973). The
model includes the following levels of affect, from
least engaged to most engaged:

1. Instruction must be concerned with the ex-
periences and contexts that make the student
willing and able to learn ( readiness ).
2. Instruction must be structured such that it
may be easily grasped by the student ( spiral
organization ).
3. Instruction should be designed to facilitate
extrapolation and or fill in the gaps ( going
beyond the information given ).

• Receiving Phenomena : Learners are

aware, willing to hear and receiving
information.

• Responding to Phenomena : Learners are

active participants with engaged responses
that reflect personal motivation.

• Valuing : Learners begin to attach value or

worth to a particular object, phenomenon,
or behavior. This worth ranges from simple
acceptance to the more complex state of
commitment.