Understanding Emotion-Related Processes in Classroom Activities Through Functional Measurements

Abstract

To improve educational research focusing on such complex phenomenon as the interaction of emotion-related processes (affects) and students’ learning classroom activities, the collaboration between educational studies and neurosciences appears particularly relevant. Stress or “stress response” being an emotion-related psychological process (Gross, 2015) and having a neurobiological origin (Selye, 1956) is mostly studied in neurophysiological research using laboratory controlled objective measurements. One of such methods, heart rate variability (HRV) is considered as a reliable neurobiological correlate of stress response as the heart and the brain are directly and indirectly connected, which is advanced by the neurovisceral integration model (Thayer and Lane, 2000, 2009). This article presents an empirical research that uses a neurophysiological HRV method of wireless measurement of stress response in students of 11–12 years old (N = 12) during real-life classroom (oral and written) assessment activities and in five different lessons. The stress data were confronted to the analysis of the students’ behavior and the nature of classroom events through a video-based classroom observation. The results indicate that cardiovascular correlates of parasympathetic activity are instantaneous markers of stress response and correspond to real contextual elements of classroom assessment activities, among which the most stressful are writing a short test, an oral reply to the question of the teacher, putting up hand to reply, etc. The stressful factors were highlighted, grouped and ranked. The longest stress duration was registered for oral reply at the blackboard. The total stress duration covered 38.8% of time spent in the classroom. This finding suggests that classroom assessment activities are stressful in young students as possibly representing social evaluation.

Identification of stress signs before practical exams in human anatomy

“…Blood and heart rates and oxygen saturation were the signs of (response to) stress analyzed in this study. These are possibly the main biological expressions investigated in neurophysiological studies (Prokofieva, Kostromina, Polevaia, & Fenouillet, 2019). The present study found especial outcomes in the systolic blood rate and oxygen saturationthat were statistically significantly different between females and males.…”

Higher Emotion-Related Distress in Patients with Fibromyalgia versus Chronic Neuropathic Pain and Healthy Controls: Is It a Primary Affective Disorder?

“…Emotion-related processes strongly influence emotional stated such as anxiety and depression, but also mental, behavioral and physical health of the individual (Lumley et al, 2011). There are consistent literature data in cognitive sciences that highlighted the importance of affective state and emotions in learning (Baker et al, 2010;Prokofieva et al, 2019;Woolf et al, 2009). Yet, learning and memory are strongly involved in psychopathology of chronic pain and some authors suggest that "chronic pain is pain that does not extinguish its memory trace" (Mansour et al, 2014).…”

The Relationship Between Assessment‐Related Stress, Performance, and Gender in a Class Test

“…Stress response was measured by changing cardiovascular parameters of HRV (Polevaia et al, 2016; Polevaia, Parin, Polevaia, & Demareva, 2017; Prokofieva et al, 2019). The telemetric wireless ECG was registered in 24 students ( N = 24) while they were doing the same activity as the other students of the class.…”

“…The periods of stress response referred to the following pattern: a simultaneous decrease of a TP of the heart rate and an increase of parasympathetic index ( LF/HF ) corresponding to the sympathetic activation and the parasympathetic withdrawal (Berntson, Quigley, Norman, & Lozano, 2016; Prokofieva et al, 2019).…”