Analysis of Pre-Service Teachers' Emotions During a Stem Online Escape Room

Abstract

Students' emotions are important in the teaching and learning process but becomes more essential in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education because, traditionally, STEM disciplines cause a negative emotions and disinterest to students from an early age. In the context of active learning, the use of gamification and games in class can improve factors like satisfaction and interest to STEM disciplines. The Escape Rooms are games that can increase the positive emotions and motivation of the participants with multiple benefits such as student´s motivation or engagement. In this study, the objectives are to analyze the effect on pre-service teachers' emotions produced by the implementation of an online Escape Room used to teach science contents in a STEM course. A total of 42 students participated for this study in a general science course of the primary education bachelor's degree in Spain during 2020/2021 course. According to results the online Escape Room had a significant difference in 6 of the 10 emotions studied through the questionnaire validated by Cronbach Alpha test. It is observed that there is an increase in positive emotions "joy", "satisfaction" and "fun" after the intervention. However, there is also an increase of negative emotions "nervousness", "frustration" and "worry". According to the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), pre-test answers were grouped in the positive emotions and the post-test answers were grouped in the negative emotions. Although having difficulties of an online environment reflecting negative emotions in the activity, it was an effective instruction methodology and can be motivating for students.

Emociones y adquisición de conocimiento sobre la luz y los colores mediante un aprendizaje basado en proyectos en educación primaria

“…A este respecto, Del indican que los estudiantes de 5.º y 6.º de Educación Primaria experimentan un mayor porcentaje de emociones positivas (diversión y alegría) para contenidos de tecnología y seres vivos y de emociones negativas, para contenidos de física y química. Si bien las emociones de los estudiantes hacia las ciencias de la naturaleza en educación primaria son positivas, estas van desapareciendo a medida que el alumnado progresa en el sistema educativo (Bravo et al, 2022), por lo que se observa un desinterés decreciente por la ciencia y, en concreto, la expresión de emociones negativas como el rechazo y el aburrimiento (Yllana-Prieto et al, 2021).…”

“…Sin embargo, la enseñanza de las ciencias tiene como inconveniente la gran desmotivación que genera, debido al uso de un lenguaje científico complejo y a la abundancia de conceptos abstractos (Yllana-Prieto et al, 2021). Asimismo, los estudiantes cometen errores conceptuales que vienen respaldados por concepciones alternativas (Carrascosa, 2005).…”