Four Psychological Perspectives

According to an ancient Chinese proverb which states, “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand” children learn through engaging lessons and involvement.  When deciding how to involve children in lessons you must first take a look at how the child learns. “If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn (Ignacio Estrada).  The four psychological perspectives give teachers insight into the many different ways that students learn and process information.  As stated previously there are four learning domains: cognitive, affective, motor skill, and interpersonal.  Once you figure out which domain your individual students fall into it will be easy to plan lessons around your student’s strengths and weaknesses.

The first domain is the cognitive domain.  Children who learn cognitively fall into two categories; one is material knowledge and one involves the development of intellectual skills. Based on Blooms Taxonomy there are 6 cognitive categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation (Bloom, 1956).  Students begin with simple memorization which is the material knowledge category and progresses to evaluation in the development of intellectual skills category.

The second category is the affective domain.  Children who learn affectively learn using motivations, and their emotions.  These students will respect the rules and values set in place in society.  There are 5 categories in which the affective learner will fall into: Receiving phenomena, responding to phenomena, Valuing, Organization, and Internalizing values (characterization) (Bloom, 1964).  These children will listen and respect others and the rules of the classroom and society. 

The third category is the motor skill domain.  Children in this domain learn through movement and practice.  These students are likely to like sports and classes that involve hands on activities.  There are 7 major categories for this domain: Perception, set, Guided response, Mechanism, Complex Overt Response, Adaptation, and Origination (Bloom, 1964).

The last category is the interpersonal domain.  Children who fall into this domain learn through meeting new people and watching people interact.  These children are very good with people and are often very comfortable in cooperative groups where they are the leader of the group.  These children are good role models for social skills such as listening, having conversations, and being respectful to other peers.

Bloom Benjamin S. and David R. Krathwohl. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, by a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York, Longmans, Green, 1956.

 Bengamin S. Bloom, Bertram B. Mesia, and David R. Krathwohl (1964). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (two vols: The Affective Domain & The Cognitive Domain). New York. David McKay.