Let’s understand affect-based learning…

What is affect? Affect is the scientific term that denotes emotional states, and emotionality. The term is widely used in psychology to construct precise categorisations of human emotion. Thus, terms like “positive affect” (e.g., happiness, joy, euphoria), “negative affect” (e.g., sadness, grief, anger), “communal affect” (e.g., sense of “we-feeling” in a group), are all useful in specifying particular dimensions within the broad spectrum of human emotion. “Affect” as a social science concept helps us to record emotional states more precisely, as we work towards a more rigorous understanding of human psychology and behaviour.

How does affect influence learning? For our traditional social mechanisms of formal learning (school, university, and so on), the silent premise is of an environment of emotional neutrality, where information is handed over to be absorbed and tested at routinised intervals. Since this premise consciously and/or subconsciously spills over to most of our childhood learning environments, all affect that occurs during the learning process in a classroom environment largely goes unacknowledged. This is far from ideal and contributes to an insecure learning environment. Thus, learning is usually a more stressful process than most children and teenagers would wish for.

Unfortunately, this is not where it ends. Empirical research and adult teaching practitioners have observed and acknowledged that negative learning experiences in childhood also adversely impact an adult’s ability to learn new skills and cause them anxiety about engaging in new learning experiences. When we associate learning with unacknowledged peer and hierarchical pressure, tension, unresolved confusion, peer insecurity, and mechanical repetition, we are less likely to engage in life-long and self-directed learning when we are adults, and a lot more likely to face more anxiety during the learning process.

In learning, affect is meant to be acknowledged as a key driver and companion in the learning process, not seen as an impediment to be shoved under the carpet. But which emotions underpin learning processes and how?

Optimally, we should strive for “flow”, an environment where there is an optimal balance between skills and challenges. While the flow concept is typically used to describe immersion in activities such as music and sport, it is possible to engage learners of any domain with practices and materials at a level marginally higher than their present skill level, making learning an exciting process.

We can confidently generalise to say that constructing learning environments has a lot in common with game design: the environment needs to keep hitting the sweet spot between difficulty and ease, add meaningfulness to the practices, and test skills at different “levels”, from simple, to increasingly complex contexts. However, the relatively well-known concept of flow is not the only source of affect that has utility in the pursuit of learning. In our next post, we will discuss other forms of affect that are also significant sources of learning behaviour. We will also emphasise the importance of harnessing affect for organisations, how hiperlearn is modelled upon affect-based learning principles, and how organisations can use the platform for kickstarting and sustainably energising their learning – improving their performance, and contributing to individual, and organisational goals.