Social functions of Chinese university teachers’ positive emotions in teacher-student relationships /

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Student Theses

2023

Lei, Wen

Thesis

Teaching is an emotional profession. In recent years, teacher emotions have become an increasingly hot topic in the field of education. Researchers have examined teacher emotions from diverse perspectives, such as psychology, social constructionism, interactionism, integrated perspectives, and social functions. Some researchers have focused on the influence of teacher emotions, while others focused on the complexity of and the functions of teacher emotions. Emotions have functions in interpersonal relationships including those between teachers and students. Since the end of the 1990s, researchers have explored the social functions of emotions. Fredrickson and her associates proposed the “broaden-and-build” theory of positive emotions. Although there is a growing body of research on teacher emotions, most of it is about teachers’ negative emotions, such as burnout, while research on teachers’ positive emotions is limited. Scholars have found that the social functions of emotions involve intra- and inter-personal levels. Emotions are also context-dependent, and teacher emotions present different characteristics in Western and Chinese cultures. In China, research on teacher emotions has been mainly about emotional labor. Even though some researchers have studied teacher emotions in the classroom, they have focused more on primary and secondary school teachers than on university teachers. Therefore, based on a framework of the social functioning of positive emotions at intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, the present study explores the social functions of Chinese teachers’ positive emotions in teacher-student relationships among 10 teachers at a university in China. Data was collected mainly via semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. Nvivo 12.0 was used to code the transcripts. Findings revealed three main social functions of teachers’ positive emotions in teacher-student relationships: broadening, building, and undoing, which is consistent with Fredrickson’s findings. Positive emotions were found to help teachers broaden their attention, cognition, and social cognition, which can give them pedagogical inspiration and more ideas about how to handle interactions and relationships with students. Positive emotions also helped teachers build physical, intellectual, and social resources. Thus, positive emotions not only accumulated teaching strategies for teachers, but also helped them build intimate and lasting teacher-student relationships as well as prosocial thoughts and behaviors. Teachers can also develop social skills and make an impact on their students. Finally, positive emotions can eliminate the effects of negative emotions and build teachers’ resilience, which is also one of the psychological resources for teachers.The highlights of the study are as follows: first, it incorporates intra- and inter-personal dimensions when examining the social functions of positive emotions; second, it provides additional evidence for the “undoing effect” of positive emotions. In addition, the findings alert teachers, teacher educators and educational institutions to the significance of positive emotions. Teachers can use positive emotions to enhance teaching effectiveness, develop social intelligence and build positive teacher-student relationships. Finally, the social functions of positive emotions should become a part of teacher education

LG51.H43 Dr 2023eb Leiw

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/9Xdysyv4