Affective, Cognitive and Conative Constructs

Students have to know what the various strategies are and how they are used. They should also have conditional knowledge of when to use different strategies and why to use them, depending on their goals and tasks and the context (see Hofer and Pintrich, 1998, p. 66).

According to Ruohotie (1998), it is necessary to differentiate between cognitive, affective and conative constructs to understand differences in learning styles. A construct is a concept which represents a hypothesised psychological function, which can account for regular patterns of observed relations among behavioural measures (Snow et al., 1996, p. 248).

Cognitive constructs are, according to Ruohotie (2000a), processes which help an organism to recognise and obtain information. Cognitive constructs include concepts like perceiving, recognising, conceiving, judging and reasoning (see

COGNITION

Cognition is a generic term for those processes through which an organism recognises and obtains information about a certain object (Ruohotie, 2000a)

METACOGNITION

Metacognition, or ‘thinking about thinking,’ refers to the knowledge and regulation of thinking and learning. It directs the learner’s ability to reflect upon, understand and control his/her learning (Dart 1998)

CONSTRUCT

A construct is a hypothetical, psychological state – an inferred system, structure, process, force or activity that is seen in the regular patterns of observed

behaviour (Ruohotie, 2000a)

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Ruohotie, 1998, 2000a). Pintrich (1989) and Pintrich and De Groot (1990) have shown that the use of some cognitive learning strategies (e.g. rehearsal, elaboration and organisation) is related to academic performance in the classroom.

Affection can be subdivided into temperament and emotion. Temperament often refers to biological and constitutional characteristics (traits of temperament).

Emotion refers to feeling states (characteristic moods) which are more directly situation-dependent (Snow et al., 1996).

Snow et al. (1996) present a taxonomy of individual difference constructs as a summary of affective, cognitive and conative constructs (see Figure 2.3.1.1).

According to them, this kind of ‘taxonomic structure is only a provisional lattice on which to hang theories, hypothesis and findings as research continues’ (Snow et al., 1996, p. 248). In practice, it is impossible to keep many of the concepts in this taxonomy apart from each other.

Figure 2.3.1.1. Taxonomy of individual difference constructs (Snow et al., 1996)

Action-controls General and special mental ability factors

As Snow remarks himself, the everyday constructs of intelligence and personality are shown as super-ordinate but cloudy — both terms are vague and value-laden in

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popular discourse. The concepts of affection, conation and cognition are each divided in two sub-categories. Affection can be divided into temperament and emotion, conation into motivation and volition and cognition into procedural and declarative knowledge. Procedural knowledge can be defined as a set of rules or a recipe, which helps in applying knowledge. Declarative knowledge is a kind of knowledge network where concepts and facts are linked together.

This study focuses on the concept of conation. The motivational structures of conation include internal and external goal-orientation, self-efficacy beliefs, task value interests and different interpretations of attribution (see Ruohotie, 2000a).

Volitional structures include, for example, Kuhl’s (1984; 1985) action-control factors (selective attention control, encoding control, emotion control, motivation control, environment control and parsimony of information processing), different control strategies and the styles of processing knowledge (see Ruohotie, 2000a).

According to Ruohotie (1994, p. 39), volitional processes form part of a larger self-regulating system, which includes motivation and related cognition and emotion.

Volition helps the learner direct and control cognition, motivation and emotion.

Some researchers (see Snow, 1992) prefer the term conation when referring to the combination of motivation and volition which describes the ability of an individual to assume responsibility, to perform his/her duties conscientiously and to accurately predict his/her success. According to Kuhl (1985), volitional processes are ‘post-decisional’ — they come into play after the decision to learn or complete an academic task has been made. In Zimmerman’s (1998) learning cycle model, all volitional processes are preceded by a forethought phase (see Figure 2.2.1).

There is a distinguishing line between volition and motivation. Volition promotes the intent to learn and protects the commitment and concentration from competing action tendencies and other distractions (see Corno, 1989). For example, a student may be motivated to read a book in the evening. He or she is more or less motivated to do so. The student takes the book and starts to read (motivation has done its

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work). Volitional processes (will) keep him or her reading, in spite of the fact that there is an interesting football match on TV.

Figure 2.3.1.2. Schematic representation of conative individual difference constructs in the motivation–volition cycle (Cf. Ruohotie, 1998; Snow, Corno

and Jackson, 1996)

Corno (1993) and Snow et al. (1996) describe the volitional and motivational constructs in the learning situation graphically with ‘dynamic spheres’ (see Figure 2.3.1.2). The relationships conveyed in the Figure are dynamic, non-linear and dependent on context. Corno does not make any distinction between pre- and post-decisional processing, or between metacognitive, motivational and meta-affective (emotion control) activities. According to Corno (1993, p. 17), motiva-tional factors help to determine the goals and the primary role of volition is in the management and implementation of these goals.

Action-controls are used to handle the competing intentions and distractions affecting attention processes or other goal-related actions in which students are engaged and to manage the student’s resources efficiently. According to Snow et al.

(1996) this category includes recent research on self-regulated learning.

Achievement

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In the learning situation, students who are open to external influences have to allow themselves to be open. Students can also make intentional efforts to influence others. For example, certain characteristics - such as empathy, persuadability and social intelligence - can differ depending on the students’ attempts to influence others and on their willingness to be let others influence them (see Snow et al.

1996, p. 265).