Teaching This Class Drives Me Nuts! - Examining the Person and Context Specificity of Teacher Emotions

Teachers' emotions are critically important for the quality of classroom instruction, and they are key components of teachers' psychological well-being. Past research has focused on individual differences between teachers, whereas within-teacher variation across contexts has rarely been co...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 10; no. 6; p. e0129630
Main Authors Frenzel, Anne C., Becker-Kurz, Betty, Pekrun, Reinhard, Goetz, Thomas
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 08.06.2015
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Adult
Anxiety
Child development
Classrooms
Educational psychology
Emotions
Faculty
Female
Humans
Intervention
Male
Middle Aged
Nuts
Personality
Psychological factors
Researchers
Schools
Social psychology
Students
Teacher education
Teachers
Teaching
Well being
Young Adult
New York
United States > US
Germany
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Summary:Teachers' emotions are critically important for the quality of classroom instruction, and they are key components of teachers' psychological well-being. Past research has focused on individual differences between teachers, whereas within-teacher variation across contexts has rarely been considered. As such, the present research addresses the long-standing yet unresolved person-situation debate pertaining to the emotional experiences of teachers. In two diary studies (N = 135, 70% female, and N = 85, 28% female), we examined the role of person, academic subject, and group of students for teacher emotions; focusing on three of the most salient emotions found in teachers: enjoyment, anger, and anxiety. Findings from multi-level analysis confirmed the person specificity of enjoyment, anger, and, in particular, anxiety. In addition, underscoring the existence of within-teacher variability, findings supported that teachers' emotions considerably varied depending on the subject and group of students taught, particularly so for enjoyment and anger. Implications of the person and context specificity of teacher emotions are discussed in relation to assessments and intervention programs aiming to improve teachers' emotional lives in the classroom.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Conceived and designed the experiments: AF RP TG. Performed the experiments: AF BB. Analyzed the data: AF BB. Wrote the paper: AF BB RP TG.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129630