ABSTRACT
In his editor’s introduction to a special forum to explore the study and measurement of affective learning in instructional communication research, Hess (2015) asserted that in the past five years, more than a third of all articles published in Communication Education had collected data on affective learning. It is common in the literature published throughout the late 20th century and into the early 21st century to substitute the terms “affect” and “affective learning”—two concepts that are clearly related but meant to be different. Affective learning refers to the purposeful internalization of values that are evident in the various types of human reactions and responses to the content, subject matter, problems, or areas of human experience (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia, 1964). Affect is distinct from affective learning in that affect can include any general attitudes toward specific areas of instruction, affect for the teacher, affect for the course, and other feelings, beliefs, attitudes, and values that constitute affective experiences. In other words, affective learning occurs when students experience a 224systematic change in their values, preferences, or attitudes, whereas affect is primarily concerned with the more fleeting experiences of liking and satisfaction.
