Emotional regulation goals and strategies of teachers

Abstract

This study addresses two questions: what goals do teachers have for their own emotional regulation, and what strategies do teachers report they use to regulate their own emotions. Data were collected from middle school teachers in North East Ohio, USA through a semistructured interview. All but one of the teachers reported regulating their emotions and there were no gender or experience differences in spontaneously discussing emotional regulation. Teachers believed that regulating their emotions helped their teaching effectiveness goals and/or conformed to their idealized emotion image of a teacher. Teachers used a variety of preventative and responsive emotional regulation strategies to help them regulate their emotions. Future research on teachers' emotional regulation goals and strategies should examine the role of culture and the relationship of emotional regulation goals with teachers' other goals, stress, and coping."Don't show them, don't show them" said a second year teacher when asked "When you think about emotions and classroom teaching, what comes to mind?" A teacher with seven years of experience answering the same question for this study said, "Even if I'm not interested, I have to pretend. I have to put up a front that I'm extremely interested in what I'm doing." For these teachers, emotional expression, a component of emotional regulation, is crucial to their teaching.While there is a voluminous theoretical and empirical literature on self regulated learning, this has limited application to teachers' emotional regulation where the focus is on emotions in a work, not learning, environment. However, recent work in social psychology has focused on emotional regulation and from this perspective emotional regulation refers to the unconscious and conscious processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they express these emotions (Gross, 1998a). Teachers, like other individuals, do not experience the same emotion under the same external conditions. For example, a child who does no work may trigger anger in one teacher and sadness in another (Sutton, 2000). When teachers feel an emotion also varies. For example, a teacher may experience surprise at a student's

Teachers’ Emotional Labour and Burnout: Does Perceived Organizational Support Matter?

“…As such, given that surface acting has to do with acting in bad faith because it involves simply putting on an inauthentic act (Grandey, 2000), a positive association between surface acting and emotional exhaustion was expected. Nevertheless, as it has been indicated that teachers deem emotional labour to be an intrinsic part of their work (Sutton, 2004), negative association between deep acting and emotional exhaustion was expected, since deep acting involves conscious adjustment of feelings so that they are in concurrence with the desired emotional expression. The findings provide empirical support for previous observations that suggest that not all dimensions of emotional labour have potentially adverse consequences for employees.…”

The Role of Teachers’ Self- and Collective-Efficacy Beliefs on Their Job Satisfaction and Experienced Emotions in School

“…A teacher has to regulate his/her cognitive, emotional and motivational processes in various situations that are related to his/her professional career (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005;Carson & Templin, 2007;Efklides & Volet, 2005;Hargreaves, 1998;Sutton, 2004;Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). However, although recent research on teachers' cognition, beliefs and conceptions about themselves has grown and expanded, the area remains unexplored (Hoy, Davis, & Pape, 2006).…”

Emotional Aspects of Learning and Teaching: Reviewing the Field − Discussing the Issues

“…Teachers may experience happiness when an instructional objective is met or students follow directions, frustration when students cannot grasp a concept, anger with misbehavior, disappointment with lack of effort and anxiety when their competence is challenged . Teachers report that these emotions often arise from management and disciplinary classroom interactions and that they try to regulate these emotions frequently because they believe it helps them achieve their goals (Sutton, 2004).…”

“…On the other hand, teachers who thought that students who were lacking adequate abilities felt compassionate (Butler, 1994;Rustemeyer, 1984). Furthermore, teachers' enthusiasm and engagement were revealed as conditions for effective and successful instruction (Sutton, 2004;Witcher, Onwuegbuzie, & Minor, 2001).…”