Emotional Regulation in the Workplace: A Qualitative Study With Teachers

Abstract

This study aimed to characterize the emotional labor of the professional and technological education teacher by examining the emotions and the emotion regulation strategies teachers adopt. Eight focus groups were held, with the participation of forty-one teachers to collect the data. For the data analysis, we adopted the inductive and deductive categorization methods. The results showed that different emotions are activated in the face of specific emotional demands and that teachers use a variety of strategies, either in isolation or in chains, to regulate them. However, cognitive change strategies and situation modification of the procedural model of emotional regulation were more frequently reported. The results suggest differences in the regulatory preferences of the teachers based on the career period and the training /performance area. Future research could use varied methods (e.g., observation diary) to investigate the regulation’s dynamic, context, and outcomes and develop a contextual scale of teacher emotion regulation. The findings have implications for teacher training programs, educational management, and future research.