The attitudinal content are those elements of a teaching process that have to do with values, norms, beliefs and attitudes. Generally, they are closely related to "moral education", that is, that which is responsible for endowing students with an appropriate morality for the society in which they live..
The attitudinal contents are one of the three types of possible teachings within any educational field. The other two are conceptual (related to pure data and knowledge) and procedural (skills and ways of carrying out some activity).
Traditionally, attitudinal contents have not been as valued as conceptual and procedural ones. However, they are just as important as the other two types; and in many cases they can produce much more important results than the other content classes.
The attitudinal contents are formed by norms, values, attitudes and beliefs. These contents cannot be taught in the same way as skills or pure data, but they can also be worked on in a formal educational context. In this article we will see exactly what they consist of.
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Robert Gagné, one of the first psychologists to examine the different types of content present in learning, defined an attitude as the state of mind that predisposes a learner to choose to behave in a certain way. For this and other authors, the attitude is formed by emotions, behaviors and beliefs.
At a practical level, then, attitudinal contents in education have the objective of influencing students to behave in a certain way in different situations. The exact contents that will be worked on in this area will be determined by the age of the student and by the context in which they are..
For example, the attitudinal contents to work will not be the same in a Catholic environment as in a Buddhist or Muslim one; nor will they have the same characteristics in a small Spanish city as in a large city in the United States. In this way, this educational component is one of the ones that changes the most depending on the environment..
However, attitudinal contents share a series of characteristics regardless of what exactly is taught or what ideas are tried to instill in students. Next we will see which are the most important.
Although there are some differences of opinion in this regard, there are basically four types of attitudinal content: norms, attitudes, values and beliefs. Each of them represents a fundamental aspect of ethical and moral teaching, in addition to helping students to function adequately in their society..
A norm is any pattern of behavior accepted by the different members of a social group, and which is considered the appropriate way to act. The rules implicitly regulate what is considered correct and incorrect, and direct the way people act at an implicit or explicit level.
On the other hand, an attitude is the predisposition of a person with respect to certain phenomena, individuals, situations or objects. They are what lead someone to act consistently in the face of similar scenarios. They can be both positive and negative or neutral, depending on the reaction caused by an element in the individual.
Values are principles and standards of behavior, which point to what is important to an individual in his life. They have their origin both in the society in which the person lives and in their own individual characteristics; and they are essential when directing the activity of the person.
Finally, beliefs are thoughts (often unconscious) that serve to evaluate different situations, objects, behaviors and phenomena, and to form a mental model of how the world works. They can cause both positive and negative effects, depending on which ones the person has.
Attitudinal content can be instilled in students both directly and indirectly. The first way usually occurs in contexts such as ethics and philosophy subjects, in which students have to reflect directly on what is important in their life, how they behave and their beliefs.
However, the direct approach is not the only one available to work on attitudinal content; and it is often not the most effective either. Indirectly, there are a large number of tools that can be used to modify the values, beliefs, attitudes and norms internalized by students.
Some of the most used tools in this sense are behavior modeling, role plays, the use of stories, the creation of cognitive dissonances showing data inconsistent with the beliefs of the students, or the sample of the negative results of a behavior what do you want to delete.
Traditionally, it was considered that the teaching of attitudinal content should be carried out by the family of the students, the religion they professed, and in general the culture in which they were immersed. However, it is increasingly important to place direct emphasis on this type of content at the level of formal education..
Of the three types of possible educational content that exist, the attitudinal ones are often the worst understood and the least worked on. Next we will see two examples to illustrate what exactly they consist of and in what contexts they can be developed.
While studying Aristotle's work on ethics, a philosophy teacher makes his students reflect on what happiness means to them, how they think they can achieve it, and what it is they give the most importance to in their lives. In this way, you are making them think about their values..
A group of drug experts come to an institute to give a talk about the harmful effects of these substances. By talking to them about their dangers and showing data and images about the consequences of consuming them, students acquire a negative attitude towards them, and internalize the social norm that prohibits consuming them.
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