A Quantitative Exploration of Two Teachers with Contrasting Emotions: Intra-Individual Process Analyses of Physiology and Interpersonal Behavior

Abstract

Although the association between teacher-student relations, teacher emotions, and burnout has been proven on a general level, we do not know the exact processes underlying these associations. Recently there has been a call for intra-individual process measures that assess what happens from moment-to-moment in class in order to better understand inter-individual differences in emotions and burnout between teachers. This paper explored the use of process measures of teachers' heart rate and their interpersonal behavior during teaching. Our aim was to illustrate different ways of analyzing and combining physiological and observational time-series data and to explore their potential for understanding between-teacher differences. In this illustration, we focused on two teachers who represented contrasting cases in terms of their self-reported teaching-related emotions (i.e., anxiety and relaxation) and burnout. We discuss both univariate process analyses (i.e., trend, autocorrelation, stability) as well as state-of-the-art multivariate process analyses (i.e., cross-correlations, dynamic structural equation modeling). Results illustrate how the two teachers differed in the nature of their physiological responses, their interpersonal behavior, and the association between these two process measures over time. Along implications and suggestions for further research, it is discussed how the process-based, dynamic assessment of physiology and interpersonal behavior may ultimately help to understand differences in more general teaching-related emotions and burnout.

Teachers’ Emotional Exhaustion: Associations With Their Typical Use of and Implicit Attitudes Toward Emotion Regulation Strategies

“…It might be worthwhile for teacher training and professional development programs for teachers to develop a training program focused on practicing cognitive reappraisal. Recent studies in other fields have shown positive effects of such trainings on well-being and stress reduction (Denny and Ochsner, 2014;Ranney et al, 2017). In contrast to findings from other studies (mainly outside the educational context), we did not find a significant positive relationship between expressive suppression and emotional exhaustion.…”

“…Other aspects of teacher burnout-such as depersonalization or personal accomplishment-should be investigated to see if their association with emotion regulation differs from the findings with regard to emotional exhaustion. Also, future studies could integrate more diverse implicit measures of emotion regulation, such as physiological measures (e.g., Donker et al, 2018) or student ratings of teachers' emotion regulation (e.g., Jiang et al, 2016) to get a more integrative view of implicit processes in teachers' emotion regulation.…”

“…The teacher-student relationship has often been postulated as an important factor for teacher emotions and well-being (Hargreaves, 2000;Chang, 2009Chang, , 2013Spilt et al, 2011;Van Droogenbroeck et al, 2014). Especially teachers who are both warm (high in communion) and demanding (high in agency) might be less vulnerable for emotional exhaustion (Wubbels et al, 2006;Bondy et al, 2013), but even teachers who have overall favorable and positive relationships with their students may sometimes report negative emotions and burnout symptoms (Donker et al, 2018). Research suggests that also teaching experience needs to be taken into account to understand teachers' feelings of emotional exhaustion (Grandey, 2000;Troy et al, 2013).…”

Teachers’ experienced classroom demands and autonomic stress reactions: results of a pilot study and implications for process-oriented research in vocational education and training

“…Lack of social appreciation due to problematic teacher-student relationships (Donker et al 2018;Grimm 1993;Kaerner 2015;Seiboth 2015;Seifried 2009;Seifried and Sembill 2005;Sembill 1987Sembill , 2004Wulk 1988) 7…”

“…Thus, future studies should use video-based observations of what is going on in the classroom and use established coding systems such as the "Instrument to Identify Regulation Hindrances in Industrial Work" (RHIA) to identify regulation barriers and capacity-overtaxing factors in classroom teaching (Meder et al 2008). Combining information about "objective" situational context conditions with information on self-reports along with physiological measures (e.g., Kaerner and Koegler 2016;Kaerner et al 2017) seems to be fruitful and would give us better insights about teachers' stress in the classroom (for a good methodological example, see Donker et al 2018).…”