The mission of "Communication Education" is to publish the best research on communication and learning. Researchers study the communication-learning interface in many ways, but a common approach is to explore how instructor and student communication can lead to better learning outcomes. Although scholars have long classified learning into three domains--cognitive, affective, and behavioral--it is not often that behavioral learning is investigated in instructional communication research. Thus, the focus of most of the research in instructional communication is on cognitive and affective learning. This forum explores the study of affective learning by addressing two critical questions that define the field's exploration of the topic: (1) What is affective learning?; and (2) How should we measure affective learning in instructional communication research? This forum initiates conversation on this topic. The essay presented is one of seven in this forum on the topic of affective learning. Affective learning is often measured using some form of the assessment first published by Scott and Wheeless (1977) which used bipolar adjectives such as "good/bad" and "valuable/worthless" to assess attitudes toward instructional strategies. Though these authors originally described their measures as assessing general attitudes toward specific areas of instruction, the bipolar adjectives have since been co-opted to measure attitudes toward a course and an instructor in order to represent the more specific notion of affective learning. In this volume, there will no doubt be several calls to align the measurement of affective learning more closely with its conceptual definition and thus the author will not do so in this essay. Instead, the author would to use the space provided to make an argument for the utility and continued use of the current form of assessment, which may be more accurately described as capturing students' affective experience (e.g., liking, satisfaction, contentment). [For the other essays in this forum: (1) FORUM: Affective Learning. Affective Learning: Evolving from Values and Planned Behaviors to Internalization and Pervasive Behavioral Change, see EJ1083005; (2) FORUM: Affective Learning. Pursuing and Measuring Affective Learning Objectives, see EJ1083008; (3) FORUM: Affective Learning. Reclaiming Affective Learning, see EJ1083012; (4) FORUM: Affective Learning. The Instructional Communication Affective Learning Paradox, see EJ1082997; (5) FORUM: Affective Learning. Affective Learning from a Cognitive Neuroscientific Perspective, see EJ1082999; and (6) FORUM: Affective Learning. Reconsidering the Conceptualization and Operationalization of Affective Learning, see EJ1083010.]