Learning and Emotion: perspectives for theory and research
Hascher,T (2010)
European Educational Research Journal, 9, 1, 13-28.
Comments on the fragmentation of emotion research ( ? as applied to learning) , p13 ‘The presentation gives an overview of the state of the art, developing a general framework for theory and research’
Three characteristics of emotion
Many different definitions of emotion and many similar terms, mood, feeling, affect,
However maybe we can agree on the following 3 characteristics
P14
(i) ‘An emotion is an affective reaction, which can be determined and described relatively precisely and can be attributed to a cause or an incident.
(ii) ‘The experience of an emotion (in a learning context) .is related to situations which are of importance to an individual’
(iii) As soon as an emotion is experienced, this emotion becomes the centre of the awareness for the person also leading to an increased self-awareness. Emotions can hardly be denied. They can be disguised towards others but rarely towards oneself.
i.e. Schulz et al (2006,p345) ‘emotions are ways of being’ ‘holistic episodes that include physiological, psychological and behavioural aspects’ i.e. they are interrelated with cognition & behaviour. Therefore there are 5 components to an emotion namely, affect, related thoughts, expression, motivation ( impulse for action) and physiological.
Measuring emotion should reflect this multicomponent approach therefore at least 8 indicators, valence, arousal level(activating/deactivation), intensity, duration, frequency, time dimension ( e.g retrospective like relief, orientated to another person like sympathy, context) Remember also for some there is a distinction between trait & state emotions.
How does emotion impact on learning?
Most theories based on experimental research on mood induction
Three theoretical approaches
(i) mood-congruence hypothesis ( Bower, 1981). Based ( at the time) on the idea of cognitive networsk, that p15 ‘ architecture of the brain is organized by associations and semantic similarities, the more similar and the stronger the association, the closer the location of the information and the easier the activation ( ? still in date?)
(ii) Schwatz (1990) mood has information potential ‘ a person interprets their mood and reacts positively in a positive mood and aversively in a negative mood’.
(ii) Integration of mood information with cognition ( (ii) implies behaviour) gives mood dependent cognitive styles.
Functions of emotions for school learning
In a school context positive emotions/mood can be counter productive unless attention is focused. On the other hand in the right conditions + emotions can enhance creativity. Negative emotions tend to lead the individual to self focus. Cognitive and motivational factors can impact on the effect of emotion on learning. i.e. they act as mediators. Teachers can impact on these mediating factors. Context and learning material also carry emotional potential.
How to approach the study of emotion on learning
Experimental – about control not analysis
P18 ‘each learner has their own learning history’
P18 ‘ it has to be taken explicitly into account that the same emotion from a different origin serves identical or even similar functions and has an identical or similar impact on school learning ( KRO- what is the evidence for this?)
Therefore author studied ‘ the emotional phenomenology of everyday school life’ based on 1300 diary entries from 58 adolescent students showed attribution of emotion to teacher 38%, subject (26%), peers 15% and school 26/27 %.
P19 ‘ so far , the only emotion that is well investigated is anxiety’ + effect is that people become more activated with anxiety, a negative effect is that they worry. i.e. p20 ‘ different components of one emotion can serve different functions’ however ‘ frequent experience of an emotion can lead to a form of habituation….. these so-called affective tendencies or trait emotions are probably more influential on learning that a sort term emotional episode’ in the case of anxious traits a student can become hyper vigilant to a certain cue’
Author formulates 3 aspects of special importance for future research in the context of school learning.
(i) how can the process of learning and instruction (KRO and also construction) be modelled in an integrative way i.e. flow of the teacher-learner process
(ii) which functions do the different qualities of emotions have for the learning process?
(iii) what are the mediator variables ( KRo also how do they mediate/)
