Teachers’ mood and emotions from the perspective of 9- to 11-year-olds: an exploration into the understanding of communication of teachers’ feelings in primary schools

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Edwards, Ceris (2021) Teachers’ mood and emotions from the perspective of 9- to 11-year-olds: an exploration into the understanding of communication of teachers’ feelings in primary schools. Doctoral thesis, University of West London.

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Abstract

This research set out to explore children’s perceptions of their teachers’ emotions, and the impact that those emotions have on children that they teach.
A group of 10 child co-researchers were recruited from parallel Year 5 classes in one English Primary school to mirror the age range participating and providing data. These co-researchers were key participants in the research process, meeting regularly until the end of their primary school career, and contributed to all but the final stages of the analysis of the data.
14 children aged between 9- and 11-years-old, and five teachers who were not known to the children, were interviewed. This exploratory research was analysed using principles of constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006).
Five categories were developed from the children’s data, reflecting the children’s acute perception and ability to identify, and attribute, their teacher’s emotions, and to discern whether emotional expressions were genuine. Children demonstrated their awareness of the impact that teacher emotional behaviour had on children directly as well as on classroom practice. Lastly, the children demonstrated that they were complex social actors within the classroom, planning and executing interventions to alter the emotional environment if they deemed it necessary. Analysis of teacher data revealed ambivalence about children’s emotional competency and specifically about their knowledge of teacher emotions, along with awareness of the impact of their emotional states on the efficacy of their role in the classroom.
The implications of this research are discussed, and it is hoped that it will address gaps in knowledge and understanding of children’s perception and understanding of teacher emotions and providing a basis for further research.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	Education
Depositing User:	Ceris Edwards
Date Deposited:	22 Dec 2021 10:45
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2024 12:32
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/8509