Evaluating the Affective Dimension in Chemistry Education - Affective Dimensions in Chemistry Education - page 29

2.1 Attitude

Attitude has a wide range of definitions. However, it is generally agreed that
attitude is a tendency to think, feel, or act positively or negatively toward objects
in our environment (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993 ). Regardless of the origin of attitudes,
the term attitudes is reserved for evaluative tendencies which can both be inferred
from and have an influence on belief, affect, and behavior (Albarracin, Johnson,
Zanna, & Kumkale, 2005 ). Social psychologists have viewed attitudes as having
three components, namely, the cognitive, the affective, and the behavioral compo-
nents (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993 ). These components best represent the type of
responses that allow researchers to diagnose attitudes. The cognitive component
is a set of beliefs about the attributes of the attitudes

object, and its assessment is
performed using self-report or paper-and-pencil tests (i.e., questionnaires). The
affective component includes feelings about objects; and its assessment is
performed using psychological indices, for example, heart rate, sweaty palms,
constricted breathing, dry mouth, and other symptoms that describe the body

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reaction to an affective, emotional experience. Finally, the behavioral component
pertains to the way people act toward the object, and its assessment is performed
with directly observed behaviors. For example, in a chemistry lesson incorporating
an inquiry activity, a teacher can observe students

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behaviors. If students have
positive attitudes toward the learning activity, the teacher can observe their behav-
iors through (a) students

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efforts in doing such an activity, (b) students looking very

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enthusiastic during the activity, and/or (c) students spending time to read the

textbook for formulating their hypothesis in the activity. Students with more
positive attitudes toward science show increased attention to classroom instruction
and participate with greater interest in science activities (Germann, 1988 ).

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2.2 Interest

Interest plays an important part in the learning process, determining, in part, what
someone chooses to learn and how well he/she learns information (Garner, 1992 ).
Interest has been conceptualized by researchers both as an individual predisposition
and as a psychological state. The psychological state is characterized by focused
attention, increased cognitive and affective functioning, and persistent effort.
Moreover, interest affects the use of specific learning strategies and how a person
allocates his/her attention (Hidi, 1990 ). It also affects his/her emotional engagement
in a task and the extent to which he/she engages in deeper processing (Schiefele,
1999 ).
Based on how it has been viewed and researched, interest is separated into
individual interest and situational interest. Psychologists conceptualize individual
interest as: