The purpose of this study was to determine whether adding affective objectives to the primarily cognitive syllabus objectives of a college freshman literature-composition course would generate data to indicate change in self-identity, relationship, and control.Affective objectives included attending to: (1) students' verbal and written response to literature and other experiences--to the central concerns of self-identity, relationship, and control; (2) students' involvement with "engagement" in literature shown in expressed response to the literary work (discussion or writing about the response) and in the re-creative response (re-creation of the work in some oral, dramatic, or artistic form).The central concerns referred to three broad areas of psychological and social importance to the maturing individual. Self-identity was seen as the student's awareness of both his uniqueness and his common humanity revealed by statements of open-mindedness, understanding of self, good self-concept, creativity, a firm sense of the here and now, not fearing to be wrong, free personal style, confidence, spontaniety, and wholeness. Relationship was seen as the student's awareness of relationship with other people, revealed by statements of democratic character structure, freedom from social pressure, clearer, more open sense of reality, thinking well of others, seeing self and others as interdependent, ability to love, and desire to love. Control was seen as the student's growing mastery of the "what" and "how" of interpersonal communication revealed by statements of or indications of tolerance, seeing the value of mistakes, sense of power, not fearing to be wrong, increased objectivity, responsible choice, facile language functioning, resourcefulness, choosing freely, prizing, acting in relation to values, self-direction, and ascending strength in cognitive functioning.The study was limited to two freshman literature-composition courses with a combined population of forty-one randomly grouped students during the Winter Quarter of 1971-72 at Ball State University. It was preceded by a pilot study.Data considered as acceptable evidence of hypothesized change were generated from statements of self-identity, relationship, and control--of increasing number, or complexity, or both--from four sources: (1) student writing (themes and journals); (2) student-completed evaluation forms (two at mid-term and two at the end of the course); (3) pre- and post-inventories (a value survey and a personal profile); and (4) student interviews (mid-term and final).Student writing showed that a majority of the students showed change in complexity in statements toward which the criteria of self-identity, relationship, and control applied. The following proportions were evident: In first and last themes, six out of seven students-taken alternately from a group of every third student of the population--showed change. In themes 2-6, five out of seven students--taken alternately from another group of every third student--showed change. In journals, four out of seven students--taken alternately from yet another group of every third student--showed change.Student-completed evaluation forms (two at mid-term and two at the end of the course) showed that a majority of the students' statements showed change--either in quantity or complexity or both--in self-identity, relationship, and control.Data from students' pre- and post-inventories neither verified nor negated change in self-identity, relationship, and control.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/175402 |
| Date | January 1972 |
| Creators | Campana, Joan M. |
| Contributors | McElhinney, James H. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | v, 142 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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