Leveraging Affective Learning for Developing Future Airmen: Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor Domains, Instructional Design Process, Online and Technology Learning Environments

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The mission of Air Education and Training Command (AETC) is to empower our nation's Airmen to fly, fight, and win by "delivering unrivaled air, space, and cyberspace education and training." However, realizing this vision in today's highly interactive, information-saturated, and global environment is tougher than ever. Mission success requires knowledge-enabled Airmen who understand, appreciate, trust, and internalize the tactics, techniques, processes, and procedures necessary to succeed in any number of complex situations.

As leaders at all levels, our Airmen must be able to anticipate and appropriately respond to a complicated and fluid national security environment. Developing such Airmen will require stronger commitments to education and training on the part of the learner to the point where learning never stops. Fostering this highly favorable attitude toward learning is possible only if Air Force education and training programs address learners' goals, motivations, social interactions, and individual learning styles. This means the Air Force needs a stronger focus on affective learning during the instructional design (ID) process for education and training.

The ability to handle complex problems across a wide spectrum of missions is not acquired through traditional rote-learning practices that merely assess an individual's ability to memorize facts in the short term. Air Force learning processes must facilitate intuitive understanding and personal internalization of often conflicting concepts, applications, and decision-making models. Effective education and training methods must recognize the filters and perceptions individuals will employ to frame a solution to any number of problem sets. Relying solely on a cognitive learning approach for leadership development is quickly being eclipsed by a drive to understand and employ affective methods to enhance learning and internalize decision-making skills