Teachers' Emotion Regulation and Classroom Management

Abstract

Abstract This article describes a series of studies on teachers' attempts to modify the intensity and duration of their emotions, and how their emotions are expressed in the classroom. Among the important findings is that teachers practice emotion regulation because they believe it makes them more effective in management, discipline, and their relationships with students. Further, teachers are much more confident that they can communicate their positive emotions than reduce their negative emotions, and they use a variety of emotion regulation strategies, including preventive and reactive methods. These results stand in contrast to the fact that most pre-service programs give little emphasis to relationships among teachers' emotions, classroom management, and teaching practice. Notes aIt was often difficult to determine if the cognitive change/strategy was preventive or responsive. 1. Surveys: The findings in this section are drawn from three separate surveys, all conducted in North East Ohio. In the first survey (CitationSutton & Knight 2006a), questionnaires developed by CitationGross and John (2003) were adapted for teaching situation and administered to 413 early childhood, middle school, and high school classroom teachers. Nearly 80% of the teachers were female, and over half were in their 20s and had one to five years experience. In the second survey (CitationSutton & Knight 2006b), development of a new questionnaire was based on findings from earlier studies focusing on emotion regulation of teachers (e.g., CitationSutton 2004) and social psychological research on emotion regulation (e.g., CitationBandura et al., 2003). Data were collected from 157 teachers during 2005. The teachers were predominantly female (82%), and 45% were in their 20s and had one to five years experience. Just over half the teachers taught in suburban school districts, and one-quarter taught in urban districts. The third questionnaire (CitationSutton, Knight, Bebek & Mudrey, 2008), based on relatively minor modifications of the second questionnaire, was administered to a total of 205 practicing teachers during the 2005–2006 academic year. More than 70% of the participants were female, more than half were in their 20s and had one to five years of experience. The majority (61%) were teaching in suburban districts. 2. Numbers add up to more than 30, as some teachers reported more than one strategy.