Antecedents of teachers’ emotions in the classroom: an intraindividual approach

Abstract

Using a preexisting, but as yet empirically untested theoretical model, the present study investigated antecedents of teachers’ emotions in the classroom. More specifically, the relationships between students’ motivation and discipline and teachers’ enjoyment and anger were explored, as well as if these relationships are mediated by teachers’ subjective appraisals (goal conduciveness and coping potential). The study employed an intraindividual approach by collecting data through a diary. The sample consisted of 39 teachers who each participated with one of their 9th or 10th grade mathematics classes (N = 758 students). Both teachers and students filled out diaries for 2–3 weeks pertaining to 8.10 lessons on average (N = 316 lessons). Multilevel structural equation modeling revealed that students’ motivation and discipline explained 24% of variance in teachers’ enjoyment and 26% of variance in teachers’ anger. In line with theoretical assumptions, after introducing teachers’ subjective appraisals as a mediating mechanism into the model, the explained variance systematically increased to 65 and 61%, for teachers’ enjoyment and anger respectively. The effects of students’ motivation and discipline level on teachers’ emotions were partially mediated by teachers’ appraisals of goal conduciveness and coping potential. The findings imply that since teachers’ emotions depend to a large extent on subjective evaluations of a situation, teachers should be able to directly modify their emotional experiences during a lesson through cognitive reappraisals.

Teacher Demoralization, Disempowerment and School Administration

“…To some extent, this observation is supported by the studies conducted by Frenzel and her colleagues (Beck, Keller, Goetz, Frenzel, & Taxer, 2015;Frenzel, 2014;Frenzel, Goetz, Lüdtke, Pekrun, & Sutton, 2009). According to their studies, teachers' emotional experiences are determined by whether the teachers preceive their teaching environemnts or outcomes match with their instructional goals.…”

Revising and Validating Achievement Emotions Questionnaire - Teachers (AEQ-T)

“…Teacher emotion research has been dominantly conducted with American or European teachers. In particular, three existing studies that used AEQ-T are based on German teachers (Becker, Keller, Goetz, Frenzel, & Taxer, 2015;Frenzel, Goetz, Stephens, & Jacob, 2009) and Canadian teachers (Klassen, Perry, & Frenzel, 2012). Although there are several cross-cultural studies for students' emotions measured by Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) (e.g., Frenzel, Thrash, Pekrun, & Goetz, 2007;Yamac, 2014), crosscultural studies to establish the construct comparability of teacher emotions across samples from different cultural backgrounds are scarce.…”

At-Risk Teachers: The Association Between Burnout Levels and Emotional Appraisal Processes

“…There appears to be a key link between how teachers feel about their daily work and the intensity of their own negative emotions. Specifically, teachers' perceptions of student discipline can be related to their levels of emotional exhaustion and overall burnout [3,8,59,86,87]. In a study with 1,939 German teachers, Klusmann and colleagues [88] found that student discipline, as perceived by both teachers and principals, was inversely related to teachers' emotional exhaustion.…”