Eventful Learning: Learner Emotions 9789004377882, 9789004377905, 9789004377912

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Eventful Learning

Bold Visions in Educational Research Series Editor Kenneth Tobin (The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA) Carolyne Ali-Khan (College of Education & Human Services, University of North Florida, USA) Co-founding Editor Joe Kincheloe (with Kenneth Tobin) Editorial Board Barry Down (School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia) Daniel L. Dinsmore (University of North Florida, USA) Gene Fellner (College of Staten Island, City University of New York, USA) L. Earle Reybold (College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, USA) Stephen Ritchie (School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia) ඏඈඅඎආൾ 61

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bver

Eventful Learning Learner Emotions Edited by

Stephen M. Ritchie and Kenneth Tobin

අൾංൽൾඇ_ൻඈඌඍඈඇ

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

ISSN 1879-4262 ISBN 978-90-04-37788-2 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-37790-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-37791-2 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

vii

1.

Events in Learning Science Stephen M. Ritchie

1

2.

Emotions in Learning Science James P. Davis and Alberto Bellocchi

9

3.

Methodological Bricolage Kenneth Tobin

31

4.

Science Demonstrations as Mediators of Emotional Experiences Alberto Bellocchi, James P. Davis and Donna King

57

5.

Negative Emotional Events during Science Inquiry Alberto Bellocchi

87

6.

Online and Face-to-Face Learning in Science: Learning Events and Transformation of Understanding James P. Davis and Alberto Bellocchi

7.

8.

9.

The Resolution of Frustration in Middle School Science Classes: The Role of the Classroom Teacher Louisa Tomas, Donna King, Senka Henderson, Donna Rigano and Maryam Sandhu

105

133

“This Is Not a Sex-Education Class, This Is Biology!”: Students’ Regulation of Their Emotions in Science Louisa Tomas and Donna Rigano

157

Cogenerative Dialogue and Classroom Emotional Climate: Engaging with Difficult Students Jennifer L. Oakley

171

10. Managing Emotions: Outcomes of a Breathing Intervention in Year 10 Science Donna King, Maryam Sandhu, Senka Henderson and Stephen M. Ritchie

193

11. Lived Experiences of Social Bonds in Science Classrooms Alberto Bellocchi

217

Index

233

v

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

3.1. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 7.1.

7.2. 7.3.

7.4.

7.5. 7.6. 8.1. 9.1.

Donna appears to gasp for breath, through her mouth, as she reaches the end of an utterance Wade assists Alberto with a class demo Mutual focus of students as they watch the egg-in-bottle demonstration. Ashley is sitting cross-legged on the table (see left hand side) Students’ expression of intense emotions Mutual focus evidenced by facial alignment at the moment after Kim’s utterance in turn 1. Shady (lower left), Dre (rear), Simon, Tania, Erin (right). Kim is out of view to the right Neutral face and extreme frown Glance/gaze time and head-down time calculated as a moving average of five actions over the duration of Fragments 6.1 and 6.2 Embodiment of concepts Students’ mean interest levels across the course of the energy unit. Note that the lesson numbers are formatted such that the first digit represents the week (weeks 1–10), while the second digit corresponds to the lesson number in a given week (lessons 1–3) An overall count of each of the emotions reported by students in their emotion diaries A detailed count of each of the emotions reported by students in the emotion diaries, in lessons 3.2–5.1. Note that the lessons are numbered such that the first digit represents the week (weeks 3–5), while the second digit corresponds to the lesson number in a given week (lessons 1–3) Graph showing students’ mean interest levels across the chemistry unit. Average interest for Lesson 2 in Week 3 dropped to 6.1. Note that the lesson numbers are formatted such that the first digit represents the week (weeks 1–8), while the second digit corresponds to the lesson number in a given week (lessons 1–3) (a) Greta is sad and looks down. (b) Greta wipes her tears. (c) Greta is happy Mr. Boyd and Greta laugh in synchrony An excerpt from the emotion diary Cody’s ratings of classroom emotional climate before participating in cogen

vii

47 64 74 76 78 117 118 126

139 140

141

145 147 147 161 179

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

9.2. 10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. 10.5.

Improvements in Cody’s classroom emotional climate ratings Cassie (in middle) concentrating on her laptop Brigid sighs because Cassie is ignoring her Cassie before the deep breathing After the deep breathing exercises Cassie is happy

184 207 208 208 209 209

TABLES

7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. 10.5.

A conceptualisation of the extrinsic emotion regulation strategies that a teacher can employ to influence students’ emotions in the classroom A typical emotion diary entry for lesson 4.1 A typical emotion diary entry for lesson 4.2 Student comments about changes to emotions after breathing Reported changes in negative emotions by students Comparisons of prosody (intensity) before, during and after the deep breathing intervention Reported changes by four representative students in their ability to focus better Representative examples of students’ negative comments about the deep breathing exercises

137 142 143 203 204 205 205 210

FRAGMENTS

4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5. 9.6. 9.7. 9.8.

viii

Negative sanction and the hierarchy of sacred objects Ashley is focused on the demonstration The unexpected occurs building a shared favorable mood Students’ expression of intense emotions Emotional energy in a second order ritual Concentration and confidence Fluctuating confidence Face-to-face interaction in transformation Emotional energy and confirmation understanding Interruptions Discussing Cody Including Cody in cogen I enjoy it but… Disturbing other students Cody is funny but disruptive Let it go Teacher reflection on cogen

63 72 73 75 79 111 115 121 123 177 178 179 180 181 181 181 183

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

9.9. 9.10. 11.1. 11.2. 11.3.

She decided to spend time with us She started to like me Vicarious experience of high fives Social bonds through personal life stories Pedagogical social bonds and answering questions

185 185 221 223 228

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STEPHEN M. RITCHIE

1. EVENTS IN LEARNING SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

For far too long, the study of learning in school classrooms was undertaken as if this could be achieved independently of learner emotions and contexts. A research focus on the role of learner emotions in school contexts was overdue. More importantly, the confluence of cognition and emotion, as observed in events that punctuated classroom structures dramatically, necessitated theorization of events. Applying what philosophers, sociologists and historians have learned about major historical events, my colleagues and I began a program of research to investigate classroom events as the unit for analysis. Emotional energy of the classrooms and discrete emotions of individuals were outcomes of salient learning events studied. We learned that eventful learning occurs dramatically for all to see, and un-dramatically over time and in ways less visible to other classroom participants. Eventful learning then involves both cognition and emotion and, as the cases reported in this book show, in classroom activities designed to engage learners emotionally. Keywords: events, emotion, emotional energy, learning, eventful learning EVENTS AND EMOTION

Throughout history events have evoked strong emotional responses by those who experience the event directly or vicariously. The terrorist attack on New York in 2001 (i.e., 9/11) caused fear, followed by anger and deep sorrow once we understood what had happened. In contrast to negatively valenced emotions such as these, the world rejoiced when the Berlin Wall was pulled down. This event evoked such positively valenced emotions as joy and hope. These events also transformed practices, structures, and the ways people view the world. For example, travellers are now prepared for increased security checks at airports, and willingly trade off their privacy for safety. Security and intelligence agencies have been strengthened, and global cooperation between these agencies has foiled plans for several new terrorist attacks. More recently, bollards are now commonplace along pedestrian routes in major cities and around tourist landmarks; and service men and women refrain from wearing their uniforms off duty. Furthermore, since Germany’s unification, Berlin has become a cultural hub of Europe with trendy bars and clubs popping up, and gentrification of run-down buildings of the East has created fashionable residential communities.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_001

S. M. RITCHIE

Given the impact of events on society, it is unsurprising that philosophers, historians and sociologists have interrogated historical events to help conceptualize and refine this construct. Generally an event is a turning point, rupture or breach in social practices. Adam Moore (2011) argued that, “While an event is an incident that results in the transformation of a cultural system, it is in turn shaped by the terms of the structure it transforms” (p. 298). William Sewell Jr. (2005) accepted that structure and event are mutually dependent; he also provided historical evidence to support the following additional features that characterize events and differentiate them from ordinary happenings: ‡ Events rearticulate structures and produce more events. ‡ Events are cultural transformations that are characterized by heightened emotions and shaped by particular conditions. ‡ Events are acts of collective creativity that are punctuated by ritual. ‡ Events are spatial as well as temporal processes. Just as historical events evoke emotion and enable the transformation of structures, so too do classroom events. I have previously illustrated how a beginning physics teacher transformed his practices in relation to lab work once one student group went off track to explore for themselves alternative circuit designs, which evoked the teacher’s negative emotions initially followed by positive emotions when he could identify merit in the students’ practice, thereby giving him new insights into how to conduct lab sessions with desirable outcomes (Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu, Sandhu, Henderson, & Roth, 2013). As I have shown more recently (i.e., Ritchie & Newlands, 2017), not all classroom events punctuate social structures in visibly obvious ways. Instead, gradual changes can occur un-dramatically over time. As Moore (2011) argued, “the eventfulness of life can be found in instances of social reproduction as well as change” (p. 311). Student epiphanies or ah-ha moments of understanding (e.g., Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015) are less common in classrooms than the gradual temporal process of coming to know, which is contingent on previous understandings and experiences. This contingent and temporal nature of events for learning was illustrated with the case of pre-service teachers learning science. Moments of low intensity emotions also were detected over a prolonged period in this pre-service teacher education class (Ritchie & Newlands, 2017). Learning discipline content, focusing attention, calling upon memories, and recognizing associations between events and their outcomes, are the processes of interest for educators and emotion researchers (Immordino-Young & Damasio, 2007). As Mary Immordino-Young and Antonio Damasio argued, new “neurobiological evidence suggests that the aspects we recruit most heavily in schools … are profoundly affected by and subsumed within the process of emotion” (p. 3), they called emotional thought. Similarly, Richard Davidson with Sharon Begley (2012) noted, “There is no clear, distinct dividing line between emotion and other mental processes; they blur into each other. As a result, virtually all brain regions play a role in or are affected by emotion…” (p. 89). Accordingly, the pedagogies employed by 2

EVENTS IN LEARNING SCIENCE

teachers should aim to change students’ “emotional relations to the subject – so as to better learn it” (Rosiek & Beghetto, 2009, p. 183). We extend our understanding of the association between learning and emotion in classroom events in this book. Before overviewing the significant contribution this volume makes to the literature, it is important to situate our work historically from our first studies of emotion and learning through what we call eventful learning. TRAJECTORY OF OUR RESEARCH ON EMOTIONAL EVENTS

While I was immersed in Kenneth Tobin’s research squad on sabbatical to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2003, we became aware of draft chapters of Randall Collins’s (2004) book Interaction Ritual Chains. Our readings and shared understandings of chapters relevant to our classroom studies at a nearby school expanded our interpretive capacity to contrast successful and unsuccessful classroom interactions. We learned that successful interactions were characterized by bodily presence, barriers to outsiders, mutual focus of attention, synchrony of gestures and body movement, and shared common mood or emotional experience (e.g., Ritchie, Tobin, Roth, & Carambo, 2007). Outcomes from successful interactions included: a feeling of membership (or solidarity), positive emotional energy (EE), symbols that represent the group, and feelings of morality. Positive EE is expressed as “a feeling of confidence, elation, strength, enthusiasm, and initiative in taking action” (Collins, 2004, p. 49) by individuals and collective effervescence from the group; those who experience it want to repeat the experience. Initially, we did not attempt to identify the discrete emotions expressed by individuals during interactions; we simply referred to them as positive and negative emotions. We soon discovered Jonathon Turner’s (2002) book Face to Face: Toward a Sociological Theory of Interpersonal Behavior and later (2007), Human Emotions: A Sociological Theory, in which discrete emotions were identified and their derivations were accounted for theoretically. This opened up new inquiries for us. Our commitment to understand better the social dynamics of classroom interactions was reinforced through our investigations and readings. We also were reminded of Paul Pintrich, Ronald Marx and Robert Boyle’s (1993) advice that pedagogical strategies for classroom learning also needed to address individual and contextual factors, which justified our interest in the emotions produced during classroom interactions in the pursuit of learning science. In other words, models of cold cognition for conceptual change were inadequate to explain and predict learning in dynamic classroom contexts. Our readings were no longer restricted to education, educational psychology, science education and sociology of education. We were reading sociology, psychology and neuroscience to inform our research program. Post Philadelphia, three Australian Research Council (ARC) grants funded our research. Our first Discovery Project (DP0984394) focused on the emotional transition of beginning science teachers (e.g., Ritchie et al., 2013). We wanted to identify their emotional interactions and discover how they learned professionally 3

S. M. RITCHIE

from their successful interactions with students (e.g., Ritchie, Tobin, Hudson, Roth, & Mergard, 2011). Emotional climate also became a new focus during the study. Kenneth Tobin led this new thread for our research (e.g., Tobin, Ritchie, Hudson, Oakley, & Mergard, 2013). This innovative research inspired two doctoral projects and another project conducted by one of our colleagues. Jenny Oakley’s doctoral research (see Chapter 9 in this volume), in a science classroom taught by a beginning teacher, was funded by this grant. In his doctoral study, Sonam Rinchen (Rinchen, Ritchie, & Bellocchi, 2016) extended Alberto Bellocchi’s exploratory study of the emotional climate of a pre-service science teacher education class in Australia (Bellocchi, Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu, & Sandhu, 2013) to a science teacher education class in his home country of Bhutan. What was common across these early studies was we identified emotional events for microanalysis. This was done by identifying “spikes in the curve” on graphical representations of classroom emotional climate data over time or through self-reporting methods (e.g., cogenerative dialogues, emotional diaries – see also Chapter 3). As we refined these techniques, we could see opportunities for their application in school classroom studies that focused on the development of students’ scientific literacy through their emotional engagement in writing activities – the purpose of our second ARC grant. Building on my interest in developing school-aged students’ scientific literacy through writing fictional narratives that merged scientific content in what we call hybridized text (Ritchie, Rigano, & Duanne, 2008; Ritchie, Tomas, & Tones, 2011), we designed an ARC Linkage grant (LP110200368) with three school partners. In this project we focussed on the transformation of students’ discrete emotions produced in events, typically during engaging writing and inquiry activities (e.g., King, Ritchie, Henderson, & Sandhu, 2015). By now, we had become accustomed to using an event as the unit for analysis (e.g., King, Ritchie, Sandhu, Henderson, & Boland, 2017). It made perfect sense then to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of classroom events, but this time in the context of pre-service science teacher education classes (e.g., Ritchie & Newlands, 2017). Our third ARC grant (DP120100369) studied classroom events in our teacher education classes. We expanded our interest in face-to-face interactions to include online learning communities (e.g., Bellocchi, Mills, & Ritchie, 2016), and began interventions to investigate the role of breathing to self-moderate emotions in teacher education (e.g., Tobin, King, Henderson, Bellocchi, & Ritchie, 2016). Collectively, we have published our research in the major international journals of science education (i.e., Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, and Research in Science Education), a special issue of Cultural Studies of Science Education on emotions, and an edited volume published by Springer (i.e., Bellocchi, Quigley, & Otrel-Cass, 2017). Our edited volume (i.e., Ritchie & Tobin, 2018) represents the culmination of our collective research efforts over the three ARC grants and new projects that emerged from these grants. 4

EVENTS IN LEARNING SCIENCE

SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR CONTRIBUTION IN THIS VOLUME

Research on emotions in learning and teaching has been overshadowed historically by a cognitive focus. For example, more than five decades ago, Lev Vygotsky (1962) wrote: We have in mind the relation between intellect and affect. Their separation as subjects of study is a major weakness of traditional psychology since it makes the thought process appear as an autonomous flow of ‘thoughts thinking themselves,’ segregated from the fullness of life, from the personal needs and interests, the inclinations and impulses, of the thinker. (p. 8) Moreover, Michael Lewis (2008) asserted: “We need to give emotions the same status as cognitions. Just as cognitions can lead to emotions, emotions can lead to cognitions. The theory implies no status difference” (p. 745). Paul Schutz, Lori Aultman and Meca Williams-Johnson (2009) also recognized this interrelationship when they highlighted that “affective experiences are intricately woven into the fabric of classroom experiences” (p. 195). Investigating how teacher-student and student-student interactions contribute to the emergence of emotions, emotional energy, and emotional climate in classrooms is essential if we are to understand better the interdependent relationship between emotions and cognitions (see Teixeira dos Santos & Mortimer, 2003). Our emphasis on emotional arousal in classroom teaching and learning during events in this book will give us the opportunity to explore the relevance of sociological theories of emotions (Turner, 2007, 2009) in the context of understanding classroom interactions: [W]e need richer conceptions of students as affective and embodied selves and a clearer theorisation of the role of emotion in educational encounters. These areas are currently under-researched and undertheorised. (Beard, Clegg, & Smith, 2005, p. 235) In Chapter 2 of this volume, we review our contribution to the literature and related studies and we also provide an overview of the case studies that illuminate the theoretical underpinnings of our work, including our understanding of eventful learning. In Chapter 3, we highlight our discoveries of new methods and integration of these methods with our interpretive stance towards research. In so doing we provide a solid foundation for the way the contributors have conducted their case studies of eventful learning. REFERENCES Aultman, L. P., & Williams-Johnson, M. R. (2009). Educational psychological perspectives on teachers’ emotions. In P. A. Schutz & M. Zembylas (Eds.), Advances in teacher emotion research (pp. 195–212). Dordrecht: Springer Press. Beard, C., Clegg, S., & Smith, K. (2007). Acknowledging the affective in higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 33, 235–252.

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S. M. RITCHIE Bellocchi, A., Mills, K. A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Emotional experiences of preservice science teachers in online learning: The formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 629–652. Bellocchi, A., Quigley, C., & Otrel-Cass, K. (Eds.). (2017). Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research. Dordrecht: Springer. Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. Bellocchi, A., Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., & Sandhu, S. (2013). Exploring emotional climate in preservice teacher education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 8, 529–552. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davidson, R. J. with Begley, S. (2012). The emotional life of your brain. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative research on teaching. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119–161). New York, NY: MacMillan. Immordino-Young, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3–10. King, D. L., Ritchie, S. M., Henderson, S., & Sandhu, M. (2015). Emotionally intense science activities. International Journal of Science Education, 37, 1886–1914. King, D. T., Ritchie, S. M., Sandhu, M., Henderson, S., & Boland, B. (2017). Temporality of emotion: Antecedent and successive variants of frustration when learning chemistry. Science Education, 101, 639–672. Lewis, M. (2008). Self-conscious emotions. Embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 742–756). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Moore, A. (2011). The eventfulness of social reproduction. Sociological Theory, 29(4), 294–314. Pintrich, P. R., Marx, R. W., & Boyle, R. A. (1993). Beyond cold conceptual change: The role of motivational beliefs and classroom contextual factors in the process of conceptual change. Review of Educational Research, 63, 167–199. Ritchie, S. M., Hudson, P., Bellocchi, A., Henderson, S., King, D., & Tobin, K. (2016). Evolution of selfreporting methods for identifying discrete emotions in science classrooms. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 577–593. Ritchie, S. M., & Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 107–119). Dordrecht: Springer. Ritchie, S. M., Rigano, D. L., & Duane, A. (2008). Writing an ecological mystery in class: Merging genres and learning science. International Journal of Science Education, 30, 143–166. Ritchie, S. M., & Tobin, K. (Eds.). (2018). Eventful learning: Learner emotions. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Sense. Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Hudson, P., Roth, W.-M., & Mergard, V. (2011). Reproducing successful rituals in bad times: Exploring emotional interactions of a new science teacher. Science Education, 95, 745–765. Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Roth, W.-M., & Carambo, C. (2007). Transforming an academy through the enactment of collective curriculum leadership. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 39(2), 151–175. Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., Sandhu, S., Henderson, S., & Roth, W.-M. (2013). Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50, 137–161. Ritchie, S. M., Tomas, L., & Tones, M. (2011). Writing stories to enhance scientific literacy. International Journal of Science Education, 33, 685–707. Rosiek, J., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Emotional scaffolding: The emotional and imaginative dimensions of teaching and learning. In P. A. Schutz & M. Zemylas (Eds.), Advances in teacher emotion research: The impact on teachers’ lives (pp. 175–194). New York, NY: Springer. Schutz, P. A., Aultman, L. P., & Williams-Johnson, M. R. (2009). Educational psychological perspectives on teachers’ emotions. In P. A. Schutz & M. Zembylas (Eds.), Advances in teacher emotion research (pp. 195–212). Dordrecht: Springer Press.

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EVENTS IN LEARNING SCIENCE Sewell, W. H. Jr. (2005). Logics of history: Social theory and social transformation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Teixeira dos Santos, F. M., & Mortimer, E. F. (2003). How emotions shape the relationship between a chemistry teacher and her high school students. International Journal of Science Education, 25, 1095–1110. Tobin, K., King, D., Henderson, S., Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Expression of emotions and physiological changes during teaching. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 669–692. Tobin, K., Ritchie, S. M., Hudson, P., Oakley, J., & Mergard, V. (2013). Relationships between emotional climate and the fluency of classroom interactions. Learning Environments Research, 16, 71–89. Turner, J. H. (2002). Face to face: Toward a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions. A sociological theory. London: Routledge. Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen M. Ritchie has been fortunate to collaborate with such trail-blazing international scholars as Kenneth Tobin and Wolff-Michael Roth on several projects throughout his career. It has been just as satisfying for him to apply what he learned in these projects to support younger researchers (notably, Associate Professors Alberto Bellocchi, Donna King and Louisa Tomas) as their careers have emerged, and as they assume leadership roles to continue the cycle of mentoring early career researchers themselves. Stephen’s research has focused mostly on learning and teaching in science classrooms as learners are engaged emotionally in meaningful activities in the pursuit of scientific literacy. Early research with his collaborator at James Cook University, Donna Rigano, set the scene for major theoretical advances that followed while he was Professor of Science Education at Queensland University of Technology. His research efforts slowed down somewhat while he was the Dean of the School of Education and Acting Provost at Murdoch University over the last five years. As his formal leadership duties and his academic career draw to a close, he hopes to renew his efforts in supporting colleagues in science education research, and even pursue new interests outside of science education.

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JAMES P. DAVIS AND ALBERTO BELLOCCHI

2. EMOTIONS IN LEARNING SCIENCE

ABSTRACT

Our purpose in this chapter is to review a discerning selection of recent science education research on the topic of emotions. Within the theme of theoretical foundations, we firstly discuss the big ideas influencing this body of literature that we describe in terms of ontology, epistemology and time; emotion and embodied experience; mindfulness; expression of emotion; and, emotional energy and emotional climate. We then review the most recent of these studies to highlight the outcomes of these investigations as they relate to school classrooms or teacher education. The studies included in this overview offer a foundation for future research, and support the forthcoming chapters of this collection that document emotional events in a range of contexts and from complementary and new perspectives. Keywords: emotion, emotional energy, emotional events, elementary science, high school science, preservice science teacher education Emotion research is now a well-established and expanding sub-field of science education research (Bellocchi, Quigley, & Otrel-Cass, 2017). Despite some early efforts in the study of affect (e.g., Alsop, 2005), a more general construct than emotion, the field of science education has taken considerable time to direct more attention to the specific emotions that play a role in learning and teaching. Consolidation of this sub-field begins with some initial journal publications in special issues such as in the International Journal of Science Education in 2013, and most recently the special issue on emotion in Cultural Studies of Science Education, and the edited collection by Alberto Bellocchi, Cassie Quigley and Kathrin Otrel-Cass entitled Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research, published by Springer. Given the international concerns expressed by teachers, researchers and governments over student disaffection with school science (e.g., Lyons & Quinn, 2010), it is timely to take stock of what some of these works and researchers have brought to light in recent times. Due to the rapid expansion of this sub-field, and the many detailed qualitative studies often explicating emotional micro-interactions in science classrooms, a comprehensive coverage is not possible of the diverse and highly intricate outcomes currently available. For this reason, we have chosen to focus on studies that could be described as primary research on specific emotions. Our focus is also on studies

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_002

J. P. DAVIS & A. BELLOCCHI

that might be most accessible to our community of science educators. This choice is informed by the acknowledgment that science education has only recently directed energy at understanding emotion (Bellocchi et al., 2017). Also included are studies that offer practical interventions that may serve to support instruction or wellbeing in science education. Within the selected studies, we draw on outcomes that are most striking to us in understanding teaching and learning of science at the different stages of education including university preservice science education classes, high school classes, and elementary settings. Non-school settings associated with the aforementioned stages of schooling are also represented. A second challenge posed by recent literature is the expanding theoretical perspectives, often more than one being adopted in a single study, which researchers have employed to wrangle the emotion octopus into a manageable container. Although numerous studies we present here share theoretical ground, combinations vary. We begin the chapter with an overview of this rich set of traditions that are informing our international collective efforts at apprehending the slippery beast that is emotion! Having outlined the beast’s metaphorical tentacles, we proceed in the second section with an overview of key outcomes from primary research. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EMOTION IN SCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH

In science education research, socio-cultural and socio-phenomenological perspectives strongly influence theories of emotion enabling greater understanding of the context and authenticity of science classroom experiences. In this section on theoretical foundations of emotion, our objective is to signpost the major influences on the collective thoughts of science education researchers, evident in the methodologies, methods and citations they have used in various research projects. This is a brief genealogical presentation of the literature to illustrate the origins of contemporary thinking about emotions in science education. We have structured our genealogy of emotions in science education under the themes: ontology, epistemology and time; emotion and embodied experience; mindfulness; expression of emotion; and, emotional energy and emotional climate. Ontology, Epistemology and Time The complexity of emotion as a phenomenon, and the diversity of research approaches for understanding emotions, highlights the importance of a researcher’s need to be self-aware of their own perspectives before starting out on emotions research. In the science education literature, this need for researcher self-awareness is evident in the ontological and epistemological foundations that are articulated. We define ontology as the study of being as the foundation for understanding how we come to exist as humans and as subjects within a society. In contrast, we define epistemology as studies into the origin of knowledge. Understanding our own ontological and 10

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epistemological positions as researchers, and the positions of others, is therefore important when attempting to unravel complex phenomena such as emotions. To illustrate the relevance of these ideas, we discuss here three examples of how these foundations are defined and we illustrate evidence of how these foundations are embedded in the contemporary science education emotions literature. Ontological authenticity. Kenneth Tobin, Konstantinos Alexakos, Anna Malyukova, and Al-Karim Gangji (2017) developed the notion of ontological authenticity as a research perspective that could guide their understanding of the different “stakeholder” perspectives throughout their study of emotions. This notion was adapted from Egon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln’s (1989) fourth generation evaluation and was identified by Tobin et al. (2017) as a way of understanding multiple, complementary methodologies within their approach to social inquiry. By being self-aware of changes in ontological perspectives as they engaged with different stakeholders and using these perspectives to educate others, meant that the quality of interactions may be changed. This ontological positioning and preparedness for re-positioning introduces their study of Jin Shin Jyutsu (JSJ) as an approach for enhancing mindfulness and sustaining productive learning environments. JSJ is a knowledge system grounded in traditional medicine practices that establishes links between bodily action and emotional experience. A social ontology. In a study of emotions in an area of science education traditionally dominated by cognitive science perspectives, James Davis (2017) articulated his awareness of ontological differences between a cognitive sciences view of science learning and an alternative perspective informed through the lived experiences of his students and himself as the teacher. Through an analysis of the literature, Davis (2017) established an understanding of the cognitive sciences as portraying an a priori ontological position. This position was evident in the language used suggesting that concepts, constituting knowledge, and mental schemata constituting the structure of the human mind, are pre-existing before any learning interaction. In Davis’s analysis, the clarification of this a priori ontology was important because of its implicit, taken-for-granted character within the science education and cognitive sciences literature. Revealing this ontological position enabled an understanding about the exclusion of emotions from this body of knowledge, which led to a need for defining an alternative ontological perspective. This alternative was a social ontology that drew upon the work of Emilé Durkheim (1912), enabling the constituents of a biological being and a social being to define the foundation of people’s existence within a society. The explicit articulation of this social ontology is important in science education emotions research because of the socio-cultural foundations that commonly rely on the original works of Durkheim. A social epistemology of knowledge. Complementing the social ontology explicated by Davis (2017), Alberto Bellocchi (2017) articulates a social epistemology of 11

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knowledge, which is grounded in Durkheim’s (1912) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. As Bellocchi foregrounds, Durkheim’s study was not about religion itself, but about the foundation religion establishes as a system of practices giving rise to the formation of knowledge through social ritual. According to Bellocchi’s analysis, we may take Durkheim’s study of religious practices as a framework to investigate any social practice, including science learning: As a means for understanding the formation of knowledge through interactional practices in classroom contexts. Time. Like ontological and epistemological perspectives, our conceptualization of time may be taken-for-granted during our moment-to-moment enactment of social life (Tobin & Ritchie, 2012). Stephen Ritchie and Jennifer Beers Newlands (2017) have explicitly reframed the temporal and contingent quality of events in learning science from notions of historical events (Moore, 2011) to define a conceptualization of time through the explication of emotional events in learning science. The conceptualization of time embedded within the notion of events in science learning has temporal and contingent features distinguishing it from everyday chronological time. The concept of events enables us to understand learning science as an important transformation in localized structures through social practices that may occur continuously or discontinuously across different episodes of time. The notion of discontinuity is important in events because the event is defined by the transformation of structures, such as knowledge structures, which is itself a form of social discontinuity. This social discontinuity may be described as the contingent quality of events. Discontinuity may also be evident because an event may not become salient until some later event, so that the sequence of time and the explicit quality of cause and effect may not become evident to people experiencing particular moments of social life. Such appreciation of time as a quality of social interaction in science learning situations is therefore important in understanding emotions, as they are experienced. Emotion and Embodied Experience John Dewey (1894) articulated the difference between experiences of emotion and expressions of emotion in his interpretation of William James’s (1884) physiological understanding of emotion and Charles Darwin’s (1872) book on expression of emotion. Dewey (1894) made a clear distinction between experiences from within an emoting person, and expressions of emotion defined from the perspective of others that has informed contemporary research in the science education literature. Dewey’s influence is evident in research on aesthetics (Wickman, 2017), and emotions (Tobin et al., 2013), and has contributed to studies of emotion that define the interface between biological and social experiences. The research interest in emotional experience is evident in a study by Liv Kondrup Kristensen and Kathrin Otrel-Cass (2017) who apply Maurice 12

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Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) Phenomenology of Perception to understand the intertwining of emotional and bodily (biological) experience. To operationalize phenomenological perspectives of emotional experience recent studies have also adopted ethnomethodological orientations either explicitly (e.g. Davis, 2017) or implicitly. The implicit influence of ethnomethodological thinking becomes evident when we consider what ethnomethodology is, and where it is located in foundational theories. Ethnomethodology is the study of peoples’ methods of interaction in localized contexts to understand how experiences such as emotion may come to exist. In foregrounding these ethnomethodological orientations we point to the work of Randall Collins (2004), which is cited extensively across the science education literature on emotion. In defining experiences of emotion, Collins (2004) relies heavily on the ethnomethodological thinking of Ervin Goffman (1967) and to a lesser extent Harold Garfinkel (1967). The different approaches to ethnomethodology, by Goffman and Garfinkel, both aim to operationalize phenomenological understandings of everyday lived experiences. For this reason, they offer useful theoretical approaches for studying emotional experience by informing the analysis of empirical data in the form of conversational and physical gestures. By focusing on the body as our medium for knowing the world (Merleau-Ponty, 2012), studies of emotion in science education have drawn upon methods for the analysis of facial actions, bodily gestures, and conversation, including the prosodic features of speech, during social interaction (e.g., Tobin, 2006). Prosody accounts for features in speech such as intonation, pitch, and volume, and in some studies the level of power-in-the-air has been considered as an indicator of emotional intensity (Bellocchi et al., 2014). Power-in-the-air measures the physical power of sound energy generated by speech and is represented in micro-watts per square meter (μW/m2). Bellocchi and Ritchie’s (2015) study of embodied experiences of pride and triumph in a school science classroom is an example of where multiple methods were applied to access emotional experience. Beginning with students’ first-person experiences reported in emotion diaries and interviews, Bellocchi and Ritchie then analyzed salient video data for facial actions, bodily configurations, prosody and interactions associated with events identified through self-reports. This approach provided a unique combination of first and third person method for the study of emotion. In that study experiences of pride were identified in situations where students were not always aware of their emotional experiences, which highlights the importance of understanding the interconnectivity across bodily movements and emotional experiences. More recently studies of internal bodily indicators for emotional experience have been published with a focus on pulse oximetry. Pulse oximetry involves an electronic device placed on the thumbnail that measures the percentage oxygen saturation of the blood (SpO2) and heart rate or pulse in beats per minute (bpm). In healthy people oxygen saturation tends not to vary significantly, however heart rate is highly variable and closely related to emotional experiences (Calderón, 2016). Olga Calderón (2016) draws on scientific explanations of anatomy and physiology as a way of introducing the application 13

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of oximeters for studying the physiology of emotional experiences in a science classroom. An example of this application is the work of Arnau Amat, Corinna Zapata, Konstantinos Alexakos, Leah Pride, Christian Paylor-Smith, and Matthew Hernandez (2016) who used pulse oximeters as part of a multi-ontological approach for studying emotions. By focusing on pulse rate data they were able to conduct a statistical analysis that evidenced heart rate synchrony between two coteachers during presentations. This finding of pulse rate synchrony is important to understanding emotional experience because synchrony of physiological measures was previously established between infants and their mothers in a neuropsychology study (Feldman, 2007). That study analyzed links between physiological experiences of emotion, described as feelings or background emotions by Antonio Damasio (1999) and the socio-phenomenological level of experience (Feldman, 2007). The connectivity between neurophysiology and social levels of observation such as synchrony in bodily actions is important as it forms a coherent multi-ontological perspective between biological and socio-phenomenological approaches that we have touched upon so far. This connectivity is evident in the science education literature in the way that conversation and gesture is analyzed to identify coordination, synchrony and fluency within social interaction. While recent studies of vital signs have related synchrony between people as an indicator of shared emotion, notions of gestural synchrony and fluency have been identified as indicators of shared emotion for more than a century. We refer here to the work of Collins (2004) who conceptualizes collective effervescence as a form of shared emotion during social interaction. Collins (2004) establishes his conceptualization of emotional energy as an individual-collective emotional experience by integrating Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence with ethnomethodological notions of lived experience. On this basis, the bodily indicators of emotion we have discussed above are analyzed for the purpose of determining coordination, synchrony and fluency in social interaction. This approach enables taken-for-granted emotional experiences to be analyzed, which is not just a challenge for researchers, but also for people who experience their emotions in everyday life without fully understanding these experiences. The need for greater self-awareness about otherwise taken-for-granted emotions, has led to increasing interest around mindfulness in science learning contexts. Mindfulness Mindfulness is about overcoming some of the taken-for-granted emotions we experience by learning reflective practice, and raising self-awareness of in-themoment experiences (Powietrzynska & Gangji, 2016). The ability to practice mindfulness has positive influences over relationships as it enables us to show compassion, respond in non-judgmental ways, and acknowledge emotional challenges. Being able to practice mindfulness could address many of the challenges teachers face in their everyday work, however, it is rarely taught in initial teacher education (ITE) programs. 14

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One example of an ITE program where mindfulness is described by Malgorzata Powietrzynska and Al-Karim Gangji (2016). Powietrzynska and Gangji (2016) studied physics students in a teacher education program who were exposed to a Mindfulness in Education Heuristic (MEH) as a way of raising their awareness of emotions and their in-the-moment experiences during learning. The MEH comprised of 31 questions, with response measured on a Likert scale. While response data were collected as part of their study, the purpose of the MEH is to initiate and maintain respondent’s reflexivity on emotions and experiences over time. The theoretical foundations for this type of research draws from a range of sociological sources such as Collins (2004), Sewell (2005), and Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992). These theoretical influences in the mindfulness literature are explicitly described by Alexakos et al. (2016) who framed their study on dialogic interactions, polysemia, and polyphonia (Bakhtin et al., 1994), reflexive practices (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), interaction rituals and emotional energy (Collins, 2004), personal emotions (Turner, 2002) and an understanding of contradiction through dialectical processes (Sewell, 2005). The interactions that were studied were methodologically framed using an interpretive and multi-level approach via cogenerative dialogue (Tobin, 2014). Expression of Emotion In emotions theory, the genealogical foundations for understanding expression of emotion and its distinction from emotional experience are consistent with some of the earliest work of Dewey (1894). The foundation for his theory of emotion was in establishing a distinction between the expression of emotion and the experience of emotion. As Dewey (1894, p. 555) states, “We call it [emotion] expression when looking at it from the standpoint of an observer – whether a spectator or the person himself as scientifically reflecting on his movements, or aesthetically enjoying them.” Via his comparative analysis of works by James (1884) and Charles Darwin’s (1872), Dewey established a theoretical delineation between emotional experience and emotional expression as different constructs. This delineation remains important in contemporary emotions research. Donna King, Stephen Ritchie, Maryam Sandhu, and Senka Henderson (2015) have used a multi-theoretical approach to connect their interpretation of emotional expression with evidence of emotional experience. To define particular emotional expressions, conceptualizations of discrete emotions such as joy, wonder and amazement were identified using a theoretical framework developed by Jonathan Turner (2007). Turner’s (2007) sociological theory draws on bio-evolutionary and physiological dimensions of emotions to understand the heterogeneity of emotional expression, emotional labels and how these may be understood in relation to experiences. To determine labels for discrete emotions King et al. (2015) used facial action coding as one method to connect externally observable facial expression with emotion labels. Facial action coding is associated with work led by Paul Ekman 15

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(Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1972) and uses a social psychology perspective to codify particular facial expressions with particular emotional meaning. In terms of the expression versus experience debate (Dewey, 1894), facial action coding has controversial links back to Darwin (1872). However, as one source of evidence it is commonly used in science education research to establish a bricolage approach to interpreting emotional expression as a means for interpreting emotional experience. A further dimension to emotional expression, other than discrete emotion, is the concept of valence that places emotions on a spectrum from positive to negative. An example of valence is evident in the study by King et al. (2015) who seek to study positive emotions and to align discrete emotions across this spectrum of valence. For example, happiness/joy and surprise may be associated with heightened levels of positive emotion, whereas disgust may be considered a negative emotion (King et al., 2015). In science education research, such categorization of emotional expression has often drawn upon Turner’s (2007) theory, however the simplicity of this categorization has been recognized as an area needing further research (King et al., 2015). The theoretical complexity of connections between emotional expression and emotional experience is further evident in a study by Tobin et al. (2016) that focuses on expression of emotions and physiological changes during teaching. This study uses pulse oximetry (Calderón, 2016) for measuring heart rate and blood oxygen saturation, to understand these variables in relation to observed bodily expression, audio and video data collected during teaching, and participant interviews. The analysis of these multi-level data is framed through polyvagal theory (PVT). PVT provides a neuro-physiological framework that relates fundamental emotional responses, such as fight or flight, with emotional expression and physiological experience that was theorized in the work of Darwin (1872) and recently developed by Stephen Porges (2011). The application of PVT by Tobin et al. (2016) is relevant in science classrooms because of the inter-relationships between facial actions, emotional expression and participant perceptions of a safe or unsafe environment. Emotional Energy and Emotional Climate As a concept, Collins (2004) developed emotional energy from the Durkheimian (1912) notion of collective effervescence, to describe the uplifting emotional experiences of successful micro-social interaction. For both Durkheim (1912) and Collins (2004) these experiences are uplifting in the way they form a persons’ sense of moral being: that is, a sense that they are not just a biological organism, but they are part of a higher order of being within a society. As an empirical phenomenon, emotional energy may be observed and understood through disjuncture-free, smooth flowing interactions, evident by the synchrony and mutual focus of gestures and speech. Emotional energy is a heterogeneous phenomenon, experienced contemporaneously at individual-collective levels, and describable across a spectrum of dramatic/undramatic forms. It is interpretable through bodily expressions, selfreport, physiological signs, and the successful achievement of interactional outcomes. 16

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In science education research the concept of emotional energy is used to investigate learning interactions across many contexts, including afterschool game design curriculum (Kwah et al., 2016), and online learning in higher education (Bellocchi, Mills, & Ritchie, 2016). Other studies have focused on the meso-social or classroom level of collective emotion called emotional climate. The concept and phenomenon of emotional climate has been investigated in school classrooms (Tobin et al., 2013), and amongst preservice science teachers in Australia (Bellocchi et al., 2014) and Bhutan (Rinchen, Ritchie, & Bellocchi, 2016). In each investigative context, researchers employ a bricolage of multi-level, multi-method, and multi-theoretical approaches (cf. Tobin & Ritchie, 2012) to explore the complexity of experiences and theoretical understandings of emotional energy, which we have touched upon throughout this section. Finally, the depth and breadth of research into emotional energy in science education has reached a point where this body of literature is beginning to contribute to further theoretical development of the concept beyond the work of Collins (2004). For example, Bellocchi (2017) refines the theoretical connectivity between emotional energy and cognition in science learning experiences, and points to the possibility for a microsociology of learning. Ritchie and Beers Newlands (2017) establish the relationship between emotional energy and time, where the salience of emotional outcomes defines the temporal boundaries of learning events. Davis (2017) develops an ethnomethodological understanding of undramatic emotional energy as a taken-for-granted resource embedded within the practices of microsocial interaction. These examples highlight the methodological and theoretical developments around emotional energy that contribute to both science education research and the sociology of emotion. OUTCOMES OF RECENT EMOTION RESEARCH IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

Following the theoretical and methodological foundations of recent research on emotion in science education, we now turn to outcomes delivered through some of the studies discussed earlier. Discussion of outcomes is organized, in the sections that follow, using sub-headings aligned with the educational contexts of the studies including higher education, high school education, and elementary education. Due to the increasing volume and high level of detail regarding micro-social interactions in the studies reviewed, we select from the studies key examples to illustrate some of their major contributions. University Classroom Studies For some time, Ken Tobin and his US colleagues have been interested in ways of ameliorating deleterious emotions associated with teaching and learning to teach science. Most recently, Tobin et al. (2017) found Jin Shin Jyutsu (JSJ), a form of traditional Asian medicine, useful in this regard. One study site included a monthly 17

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seminar series attended by faculty, graduate and undergraduate students at City University of New York (CUNY). As discussed earlier in the chapter, when JSJ is adopted as a research method, researchers look for particular gestural configurations in video data that correspond to JSJ holds, or touches. During one of the seminars, a graduate student delivers a presentation, which is then followed by a critical panel discussion by graduate and undergraduates. Karim (one of the authors) was taking his turn as critic of another speaker. Leaning on a lectern, Karim has his right leg crossed over his left. This leg position corresponded with what is known as a safety energy lock (SEL): more specifically, SEL 1 of each leg. Pairing SEL 1 in this way is indicative of enhancing self-confidence, calming nerves and releasing stress. Physiologically, this body positioning opens the chest, facilitating calm breathing. Similar analyses are offered for each of the research participants/authors who were students in this context, and personal narratives complement analyses of JSJ positions. In Karim’s case, he noted that the standing position is a relaxing one for him, which seems to correspond with the JSJ analysis. Tobin et al. (2017) discuss different emotions most likely invoked or addressed by the JSJ positions and narratives. Anger, happiness, fear and sadness are some of the emotions that corresponded with Karim’s breathing pattern at one point during the seminar. These researchers are careful not to overstretch claims associating emotions, reflections and JSJ positions. Notwithstanding this justifiable conservative stance, the study provides an innovative approach for exploring eventful learning that extends beyond previous research focused on psychological approaches for interpreting gesture and facial expressions associated with emotionality. Tobin et al. (2017) also provide a clear demonstration of authentic inquiry, whereby the boundary between research analytic methods and interventions is dissolved. Participants may benefit from engaging with this kind of research by learning about JSJ holds and consciously using these to regulate emotions when they wish to do so. Ken’s (i.e., editor 2) graduate school classes at CUNY provide a fertile ground for emotion research. These classes are often preceded and ended with mindfulness techniques and many of the methods for investigating emotions that form part of the studies reviewed in this chapter. For example, physiological measures of emotional arousal are often taken using pulse-rate oximeters. Within this educational context, Calderón (2016) presents examples of using oximetry to study emotion in preservice science education courses. Two preservice teachers form case studies for illustrating how pulse rate oximeters, which can be worn on the finger, might be used as research instruments and in classroom interventions simultaneously. For one case study student, Sofia, severe drops in her blood oxygenation were recorded while she delivered a presentation to the class. Sofia’s presentation involved sensitive topics (e.g., corporal punishment, violence) and her demeanor suggested she might have experienced anxiety during her presentation. Low blood oxygenation, at the levels Sofia was experiencing, can become problematic and result in adverse health effects if sustained for prolonged periods. When the researchers noticed her low blood oxygen saturation, one of them intervened by engaging Sofia in a breathing meditation: 18

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seeking to calm her nerves. Peaks and troughs in blood oxygen measurements can form useful measures of emotional experiences during teaching. What this case study also illustrates is how researchers use real-time data to support preservice teachers in regulating emotions that interfere with desired or desirable learning goals. An Australian study (i.e., Tobin et al., 2016) involving oximetry obtained similar effects as reported by Calderón (2016). The teacher in that study, Donna King, used a pulse rate oximeter while teaching an introductory level preservice science education course. Her class consisted of graduate entry preservice science teachers, many of whom held higher degrees in science and had worked in various scientific enterprises. Through narratives, Donna recounts feeling anxious about teaching such a highly qualified group, and in particular being prepared for the deep questions they might ask. Oximetry data corroborated evidence from video recordings of lessons and interviews with students regarding changes in Donna’s breathing rate and prosody. By becoming more attuned to her breathing, through research feedback based on her oxygenation and heart rate levels, Donna developed strategies to calm her nerves before class. Ken (i.e., the 1st author of that paper) encouraged Donna to adopt mindfulness breathing practices whilst observing her real-time oximetry data. In addition to these techniques, Donna’s thorough preparation and extensive rehearsals of lessons before class seemed to assist her in getting initial feelings of anxiety under control. Another example of studies that include interventions for regulating emotion KDV LQYROYHG PLQGIXOQHVV WHFKQLTXHV 3RZLHWU]\ĔVND  *DQJML   :LWKLQ DQ authentic inquiry approach, mindfulness heuristics were integrated into Karim’s undergraduate conceptual physics course for preservice elementary school teachers. Mindfulness heuristics were administered twice to 72 student teachers during the course. An interesting outcome was that preservice teachers generally did not report expressing emotions in this class. Comments offered by preservice teachers in the heuristics indicated beliefs that their own or others’ emotions were not relevant to learning experiences. Preservice teachers indicated a stronger focus on the content RI WKH FRXUVH 7R H[SODLQ WKHVH UHVSRQVHV 3RZLHWU]\ĔVND DQG *DQJML   UHIHU to macro-social influences wherein a discourse of achievement, focusing on high grades and a high-stakes educational environment, is dominant. Notwithstanding these claims, preservice teachers also reported enjoyment of Karim’s friendly disposition and generally positive outlook. These teacher qualities, some preservice teachers noted, were conducive to forming resilience against pressures of study and achievement. Preservice teachers expressed excitement in response to science demonstrations that were a fixture in these classes. One argument posed in this study is that preservice science teachers would benefit from learning about and integrating mindfulness practices into their teaching to ameliorate negative emotions. Although the participants were aware of such practices, few engaged in these in their personal lives or elsewhere. Meditation was not part of the instruction in this course, however questions posed in the heuristic that focused on mindfulness did raise the preservice teachers’ awareness of these practices and their potential benefits for science teaching. 19

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In the Australian preservice science education context, Ritchie and BeersNewlands (2017) characterized emotional events during Alberto’s (i.e., author 2, this chapter) instruction on science inquiry. To address the concern over a limited repertoire of science inquiry approaches in high school (cf. Abd-el-Khalick, Boujaoude, Duschl, Lederman et al., 2004), Alberto developed an assessment for his graduate and undergraduate preservice teachers based on extended scientific investigations. Student groups selected a research problem, an appropriate scientific research design, implemented the inquiry and subsequently reflected as teachers on the pedagogical implications of their experiences. For many of the undergraduate students, such open-ended inquiry had not been experienced previously. This was the case for Calvin and Alex who were undertaking a chemical investigation about electroplating. Calvin and Alex had experienced some unpleasant emotions like being annoyed and frustrated associated with failed experimental set-up and poor results. Resolution of these emotions came when the students experienced success after making changes to their design: intense vocalizations corresponding with happiness resulted. A noteworthy outcome for Calvin was that these emotional transformations ran alongside changes in his fluency with chemical concepts. Although he had previously expressed an unscientific explanation for observed phenomena, Calvin now adopted his partner Alex’s canonical chemical explanation when accounting for his observations of the electrolyte solution. Changes in conceptual understanding of chemistry seemed be associated with emotional events. We shall return to this point in our discussion of a classroom study below. School Classroom Studies High school. Beginning teachers may meet rhetoric of fear towards extended scientific investigations (i.e., science inquiry), when entering the profession, amongst more experienced colleagues (Ritchie et al., 2013). Existing teachers disclose displeasure and fear regarding extended scientific investigations, which are mandated assessment items based on the curriculum jurisdiction requirements in the Australian state of Queensland. Against this fear, four case study teachers report overall positive experiences when implementing science investigations. Armed with knowledge of negative emotional experiences shared by existing teachers, the beginning teachers advanced plans for circumventing some of the issues their senior colleagues had shared. Ritchie et al. found that, as the beginning teachers progressed through the tasks with their classes, emotional states changed. When students’ actions or outcomes met the teachers’ expectations, teachers reported positive emotions. The converse took place when expectations were not met. One of the more striking cases with important pedagogical implications was that of Bevan, a former engineer who had changed career to become a high school physics teacher. During a scripted inquiry activity developed by Bevan, 10th grade students were to connect electrical circuits in series and parallel configurations. One group of boys deviated from Bevan’s set protocol, leading to his initial frustration 20

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with the group. As Bevan probed deeper into what the boys had done, he realized that their explorations led to more favourable learning outcomes compared with his protocol. Because of this, Bevan instructed all remaining student groups to engage in a similar exploration as the deviant group. This event marked a key turning point for Bevan as a teacher. As he reflected on the emotional experience with the research team after the event, Bevan was intensely elated about the outcome of the deviant group’s explorations. Such intense emotionality led Bevan to consider changing his future instruction towards more open science inquiry tasks rather than teacher-scripted investigations. One recommendation emerging from Ritchie et al.’s (2013) study was that the interaction between teacher and student emotions should form the focus of future research. This focus was achieved in several subsequent studies. Bellocchi and Ritchie (2015), characterize emotional events in an 8th-grade science class engaged in science inquiry tasks. Details of these “Workstation” inquiry tasks are discussed in Chapter 5 of this collection. Briefly, the 8th-grade teachers had organised a series of workstations whereby students could experience changes in energy associated with the operation of 12 different devices or activities. Some minimal instructions regarding the operation of equipment (e.g., how to turn a hand-crank dynamo lamp; how to operate a solar powered vehicle etc.) were provided along with the requirements for making structured observations. Beyond these minimal teacher directions, student groups freely explored the devices for a period before rotating to a new workstation. Upon completion of the workstation investigations, the teacher facilitated a whole-of-class session focused on answering questions (a Q&A ritual) about energy changes involved with the workstations. During the Q&A ritual, one important emotional event transpired as a student incorrectly labelled the energy changes at one of the stations. The incorrect response drew laughter from the class as the student stood his ground in an emerging argumentative pattern of interaction with his teacher. Throughout this exchange, the student reported feeling irritated and angry as he felt that his ideas were not being accepted. Towards the end of the lesson, as the teacher progressed the questionanswer ritual regarding other workstations, the student had an epiphany moment. He now recognised his initial ideas were incorrect and was able to identify a canonical scientific explanation for the observed phenomenon. In contrast to his earlier feelings of anger/irritation, his gestures and facial configurations now indicated the experience of realisation. Later in the lesson, as he found that other answers he had written for the questions were correct, he produced gestural displays consistent with the emotions pride and triumph. One of the most significant aspects of this case was that empirical evidence of emotional changes occurring in parallel with changes in conceptual understanding of energy concepts was established. A practical outcome was the suggestion that teachers could learn to read student emotions by becoming more attuned to outward displays of emotion to gauge the extent of conceptual development achieved by students at different points in time. Several future directions were also mapped for emotion research including, considerations about 21

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the temporality of emotion (i.e., emotional antecedents of other emotions), impact of emotion on social bonds, the role of emotion in science inquiry, the investigation of emotion in second and third order rituals. Work following these lines of inquiry has begun to emerge, as we shall see next. Learning gains in relation to the chemistry topic of ionic equations were found when students, who were initially experiencing frustration, successfully applied an algorithm to solve paper and pencil problems (King, Ritchie, Sandhu, Henderson, & Boland, 2017). When teachers alternated between macro, micro and symbolic chemical representations, students experienced challenges in understanding the concepts involving reactions and ionic charges. Teachers recognised students’ negative emotional experiences based on outward appearances, prompting them to assist the students. These actions, informed by student emotions, resolved the negative emotional experiences. One of the central pedagogical observations was that when a teacher differentiated her instruction by responding individually to students who were initially confused, this resolved the negative emotions and conceptual issues experienced by students. In one case, using a visual representation of the relevant chemistry before the micro-level explanation promoted the student’s conceptual understanding. Studies so far considered present patterns of negative emotions associated with student or teacher challenges, and positive emotions arising from resolution of these challenges. In contrast to this overarching pattern, questions have been raised around the negative impact of strong positive emotional experiences on learning science (Tomas, Rigano, & Ritchie, 2016). An 8th-grade science class was producing short informational videos relating to the socio-scientific issue of coal-seam gas mining. Louisa Tomas, Donna Rigano, and Stephen Ritchie (2016) reported that when students regulated emotions such as frustration and anger, this led to progress with the video projects. These researchers identify that positive emotions associated with procedural aspects of video-making dominated the students’ experiences rather than emotions associated with the socio-scientific issue of coal-seam gas mining. What this suggests is that the technical and technological aspects of the video projects served as distractors for the students, allowing them to experience and report pleasant emotions, but inhibiting more desirable learning gains that could have been achieved. In Tomas et al.’s (2016) study, the teacher was concerned that student videos contained less scientific information than she had expected. Questions were also raised in relation to the limited science recalled by students when interviewed later in the school year. A valuable insight resulting from the study was that students may need to learn how intense positive emotions can be regulated when those emotional experiences serve as distractors from the learning goals. Emotion research has also been used to shape curriculum for out-of-school learning experiences in support of student engagement and learning. More specifically, curriculum for a game-design program for middle school female STEM students was redesigned based on initial emotional outcomes of students and 22

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teachers (Kwah et al., 2016). The main goal of the program was for participating students to create a mathematics game for 6th-grade students. Despite the emotional climate of the class being high during the first session, it fell considerably over the two subsequent sessions when students were required to research mathematics topics using the Internet. Resemblance of the required activities to typical instruction in school classes was one of the reasons given for the students’ negative responses to the program. Initial research involving video data and researcher field notes indicated that the intended curriculum hindered positive emotional experiences for the students. Teachers delivering the program similarly reported negative emotions during initial implementation. Redesigning the program with the collective classroom emotional climate as a central planning consideration led to reports of positive emotions associated with student engagement in the intended learning goals. By integrating the mathematics research activity with the game design aspects into the same session, improvements in the emotional climate of the group were recorded. One of the implications of this study was that emotional climate needs to feature in the planning and implementation of curriculum if favourable emotional outcomes are to match the desired science learning outcomes. A novel development in the study of emotional events in science education is James Davis’s (2017) research on analogy. Drawing on ethnomethodology and theoretical perspectives on undramatic emotional energy (Collins, 2004) and social ontology (Durkheim, 1912/1915), Davis has provided examples of the way in which students and their teacher (i.e., James) can develop a sense of shared reality regarding phenomena. For example, during a science demonstration involving transfer of heat via convection, James’s former high school science students observed an analogical model involving tea leaves being heated in a beaker. As the students directed their visual focus on the materials, one of them began to offer an account of his observations. Undramatic emotional energy was evident initially as the students and James bent down and directed their gaze at the beaker. One student produced jumbled utterances and circular arm movements when accounting for the observable motion of the tea leaves, while another student completed the utterance with the word circulation. Using this, among other examples, Davis explains how the undramatic actions, utterances, sequence of utterances and visual focus of the group represented a sense of shared reality and collective emotional energy. This study is significant as most previous research drawing on Randall Collins’s (2004) interaction ritual theory is focused on more dramatic emotional events (e.g., Bellocchi & Ritchie’s [2015] study discussed above). Davis’s study has paved the way for new developments on the emotional dimensions of analogical reasoning and understanding undramatic emotional energy that are currently in the publication cycle. Elementary. In one of the first studies of emotional climate in an elementary science class, Kenneth Tobin, Stephen Ritchie, Jennifer Oakley, Victoria Mergard, and Peter Hudson (2013) characterized fluctuations of emotional climate associated with various forms of teacher conduct. Using video recordings of classroom 23

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interactions and cogenerative dialogues with the teacher and selected students, Tobin et al. (2013) identified the impact of cranky teaching in producing disfluency during classroom interactions. In contrast, dialogues and humorous interactions encouraged fluent interactions between students and students and the teacher. Emotional climate was rated positive by the research team during fluent interactions, and negative during events that were disfluent. This study pioneered numerous research methods that were later adopted for micro-analysis of emotional events in studies reviewed in the preceding section. Place-based pedagogy is an approach whereby researchers and teachers prioritize connections to local environments during instruction (Cook & Buck, 2017). In these approaches, geographical locations are less salient during instruction than the history, culture, aesthetics, stories and social problems constituting the milieu of place. Kristin Cook and Gayle Buck (2017) identify situations of heightened emotional energy when place-based pedagogy fosters connections between elementary students and their communities. Although Cook and Buck’s study spanned elementary and high school classrooms, we focus on outcomes related to the elementary classes. Local surroundings became sites for students’ shared focus on science concepts and processes. One example of a 1st-grade student involved her expression of love (i.e., interpreted as a sense of care) towards the environment. In this first-grade class, students initially made observations of the natural environment surrounding their school. Angel, the student, grew her own seedlings in the classroom and the researchers attributed her expression of love towards a large maple tree, to Angel making connections between the fully-grown tree and her classroom experience. Stemming from this emotional connection with her immediately natural environment was an inquiry activity designed by Angel to test water flow. Cook and Buck argue that the emotional connection articulated by Angel during her initial environmental observations provided a foundation for her subsequent activities, which supported her ongoing participation in science tasks. Given the international concerns about student engagement with STEM disciplines in the early years of schooling, this study provides clear evidence that emotion research focused on specific emotional experiences offers new directions for understanding student engagement with science. Christina Siry and Michelle Brendel (2016) provide contrasting accounts of emotion in elementary science classroom experiences. Two examples of children investigating volume using different sized containers and water elucidate the way in which positive and negative emotions are interrelated with the approach to instruction. In one case, the children openly investigated what effect pouring water from a large container has on the volume captured in containers of different sizes. Emotions such as excitement are evident as children laugh, bounce up and down on their toes while investigating phenomena with vigour. Although the children uttered very few words that could represent formal science concepts, their gestures were indicative of the ideas formed about volume. All of this unfolded in high positive emotional exchanges. In a different classroom, Siry and Brendel (2016) observed a highly structured approach to the same activity. Seated in groups of four, children were provided with 24

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containers of different dimensions at the centre of their tables. The teacher asked student groups to identify the container they believed to hold the greatest volume. Once the student groups made their selections, the teacher instructed them to fill the container with water at the tap and then use it to fill the other containers. Through the narrative description provided of this classroom, the exchanges between students, and students and the teacher, were characterized by anxiety and negative emotional climate. Siry and Brendel conclude classrooms like the first where intense positive emotion was experienced are more likely to foster feelings of wonder and encourage risk-taking in science. Such classrooms are also expected to encourage a sense of belonging amongst children that comes with the sharing of positive emotional experiences during favourable circumstances. REFLECTIONS AND LOOKING FORWARD

Science education research has a long history of influence derived from cognitive psychology (Bellocchi et al., 2017). This is a history that is shared by other fields including psychology and sociology. Ideas from psychology are so pervasive that they also enter public discourse, evidenced by the prominence of pop-psychology. It is difficult in these contexts to represent different perspectives without conscious or unconscious slippage into symbolic representations from these influences. One unfortunate consequence is that it may become challenging to avoid the impression that constructs, such as emotion and cognition, are discrete phenomena (cf. Bellocchi, 2017). If we look beyond the inevitable language games that may be tempting when one seeks to avoid being mislabeled by others, then these labels and constructs can help those among us seeking to provide holistic accounts of learning experiences. When we adopt terms such as emotion, conceptual understanding, learning, cognition, we do not need to think about these as others have in the past. We can, instead, use this language to communicate with a broad audience in our field. We can signal to those who have not undertaken research on emotional events, those topics and ideas that may have been part of their former or ongoing work. We can build connections as a larger research community if, as some of these studies reviewed here suggest, we listen radically to one another. Non-judgmental consideration of research, drawing metaphorically on Joe Kincheloe’s notoin of radical listening, is not something we are accustomed to doing as researchers. Criticism is ingrained in our work and can feel right, justified, and righteous. There is ample support for criticism given that research on emotion still remains marginalized in science education journals despite the beginnings of a renaissance that studies like the ones we have reviewed suggest is underway. Compassion, kindness and consideration for the feelings of others when we enact research, particularly the critique of works by others, is perhaps still a long way off. Given the prominent role that un-emotional representations of science have had on the field, and their carry over into ours, it may take considerable work as a discipline before we give further status to emotional ways of being and knowing as researchers. 25

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This chapter presents an overview of work offering a foundation for future research, and there is more that could not be included. In the forthcoming chapters of this collection, readers will see some of the most recently completed studies documenting emotional events in a range of contexts and from complementary and new perspectives to those presented here. New outcomes and approaches to inquiry are constantly emerging and pushing the boundaries of what we can know about learning and teaching science when we are mindful of emotions. Clear lineages from the studies we have reviewed will become apparent, and the wide scope for future research should excite the senses and offer a glimpse of the prosperous future this new sub-field of emotion research in science education is bound to have in the coming decades. Numerous studies we have reviewed in this chapter take their theoretical inspiration from Randall Collins’s (2004) interaction ritual theory. Briefly, these studies have predominantly investigated either first or second-order rituals (see Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015). Researchers have accessed the initial learning events (i.e., first-order rituals) whereby science symbols become charged with emotional energy, or secondary events (i.e., second-order rituals) during which symbols and emotions are re-circulated and re-invigorated. Collins also suggested that third-order rituals, or introspective, cycling of symbols and emotions should form a focus for inquiry. In the present collection, this task is taken up in Chapters 5 and 11. We also see in Chapter 4 the transitions from first to second-order rituals for the first time. Chapter 6 is directed at the study of emotional events during online learning in a high school science class. Another novel direction is the focus on student regulation of emotion in Chapters 7, 8 and 10. School students’ use of audience response technology in rating emotional climate (Chapter 9) presents a key advance to this area of research. Chapter 9 also combines cogenerative dialogue as a means of improving classroom climate. In Chapter 12, extension to the work discussed above on physiological measures and prosody is offered. Collectively the chapters in this book span high school and tertiary science education settings presenting a broad range of contexts wherein emotional events are explored through diverse methods, theories, and methodologies. Perhaps we are heading closer to more comprehensive understandings of pernicious issues like student disaffection with school science and teacher attrition than ever before. Stay tuned for more exciting developments in this story in the upcoming chapters! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This chapter was partly supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award, awarded to Alberto Bellocchi (DE160101053). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Research Council. 26

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REFERENCES Abd-El-Khalick, F., BouJaoude, S., Duschl, R. A., Hofstein, A., Lederman, N. G., Mamlok, R., Niaz, M., Treagust, D., & Tuan, H. (2004). Inquiry in science education: International perspectives. Science Education, 88, 397–419. doi: 10.1002/sce.10118 Alexakos, K., Pride, L. D., Amat, A., Tsetsakos, P., Lee, K. J., Paylor-Smith, C., Zapata, C., Wright, S., & Smith, T. (2016). Mindfulness and discussing “thorny” issues in the classroom. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 741–769. doi:10.1007/s11422-015-9718-0 Alsop, S. (2005). Bridging the cartesian divide: Science education and affect. In S. Alsop (Ed.), Beyond cartesian dualism (pp. 3–16). Dordrecht: Springer. Amat, A., Zapata, C., Alexakos, K., Pride, L. D., Paylor-Smith, C., & Hernandez, M. (2016). Incorporating oximeter analyses to investigate synchronies in heart rate while teaching and learning about race. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 758–801. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9767-z Bakhtin, M. M., Voloshinov, V. N., Medvedev, P. N., & Morris, P. (1994). The Bakhtin reader: Selected writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, and Voloshinov. New York, NY: E. Arnold. Bellocchi, A. (2017). Interaction ritual approaches to emotion and cognition in science learning experiences. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 85–105). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-31943353-0_5 Bellocchi, A., Mills, K. A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Emotional experiences of preservice science teachers in online learning: The formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 629–652. doi:10.1007/s11422-015-9673-9 Bellocchi, A., Quigley, C., & Otrel-Cass, K. (2017). Emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education: theoretical foundations. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 1–6). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_1 Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/ sce.21159 Bellocchi, A., Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., King, D., Sandhu, M., & Henderson, S. (2014). Emotional climate and high quality learning experiences in science teacher education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 1301–1325. doi:10.1002/tea.21170 Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Calderon, O. (2016). Oximetry: A reflective tool for the detection of physiological expression of emotions in a science education classroom. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 653–667. doi:10.1007/ s11422-016-9731-y Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cook, K., & Buck, G. (2017). Our neighborhood: a place for heightening emotional energy in science education. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Ortel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research: Cultural studies of science education 13 (pp. 141–163). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_8 Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York, NY: Harvest Books. Darwin, C. (1872/1965). The expression of emotions in man and animals. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Davis, J. P. (2017). Emotions, social beings & ethnomethods: Understanding analogical reasoning in everyday science classrooms. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 121–140). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_7 Dewey, J. (1894). The theory of emotion: Emotional attitudes. The Psychological Review, 1(6), 553–569. Durkheim, E. (1912/1915). The elementary forms of the religious life (J. W. Swain, Trans.). London: Allen & Unwin.

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EMOTIONS IN LEARNING SCIENCE Tobin, K., King, D., Henderson, S., Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Expression of emotions and physiological changes during teaching. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 669–692. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9778-9 Tobin, K., & Ritchie, S. M. (2012). Multi-method, multi-theoretical, multi-level research in the learning sciences. The Asia Pacific Education Researcher, 21, 117–129. Tobin, K., Ritchie, S. M., Oakley, J. L., Mergard, V., & Hudson, P. (2013). Relationships between emotional climate and fluency of classroom interactions. Learning Environments Research, 16, 71–89. doi:10.1007/s10984-013-9125-y Tomas, L., Rigano, D., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Students’ regulation of their emotions in a science classroom. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53, 234–260. doi:10.1002/tea.21304 Turner, J. H. (2002). Face to face: Toward a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: a sociological theory. London: Routledge. Wickman, P.-O. (2017). Back to the drawing board: Examining the philosophical foundations of educational research on aesthetics and emotions. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 39–54). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_2

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

James P. Davis is a lecturer and researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. His current research focuses on the micro-sociology of emotions in high school science classrooms, and research applications of ethnomethodology to understand better the enactment of school science pedagogy. Alberto Bellocchi is a Principal Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is currently the recipient of a 3-year funded research fellowship focusing on the interplay between social bonds and learning. His broader research program addresses teaching and learning within university preservice teacher education classes and high school science classrooms.

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KENNETH TOBIN

3. METHODOLOGICAL BRICOLAGE

ABSTRACT

In this chapter I describe event-oriented inquiry and ways in which it has been used, and evolved in our research. Our uses of event-oriented inquiry are grounded in the research we have done on teaching and learning, and more recently, on the expression of emotion and wellness. Event-oriented inquiry is frequently used along with other methodologies in a multilogical approach that is participatory, interpretive, and embracing of hermeneutic-phenomenological frameworks that also incorporate critical pedagogy and aspects of ethnomethodology. A most important component of our methodology is authentic inquiry, which embraces four criteria – ontological, educative, catalytic, and tactical authenticity. Each of these criteria needs to be planned and enacted. In this chapter I pay particular attention to catalytic and tactical authenticity, and related aspects of designing and utilizing heuristics, as interventions, intended to improve the quality of education, at individual and collective levels, to ensure that all benefit from what we have learned from our research. Throughout the chapter I illustrate the principles of multilogical inquiry and event-oriented inquiry with examples drawn from previously published research that examined the expression of a teacher’s emotions and associated changes in her pulse rate, blood oxygenation, prosody, and proxemics. As part of ongoing research, I present what we learned about breathing while teaching in two scenarios, when the teacher’s blood oxygenation was low, and when it was high. Keywords: event-oriented inquiry, authentic inquiry, interventions, learning from difference, multilogicality, nasal breathing, polyvagal theory RESEARCHING TEACHING AND LEARNING

A challenge we face in the research we do is to create appropriate resources for analyses. For example, when we visit a school we routinely enact researcher roles as participant observers. That is, we acknowledge our subjectivities, including our expertise. As university people, it is important when we visit schools to ensure that our roles are not seen as exploitative, only interested in doing research for the purpose of writing and publishing journal articles, book chapters, books, and theses. Instead, we adopt friendly roles whereby we interact socially, getting to know those who have agreed to collaborate with us in the research, their colleagues, and others who

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_003

K. TOBIN

come and go when we are in the school. In addition, we take opportunities during conversation, to speak about our research, its goals, and our personal standpoints. We want to be open about research, its purposes, and underlying foundations. In this way, conversations are educative and far-reaching. They also are reciprocal in the sense that conversations are regarded as expansive and dialogic, with opportunities for all participants to explicate their standpoints regarding research and related issues they would like to pursue during research. We refer to this methodology as authentic inquiry, central to fourth generation evaluation (Guba & Lincoln, 1989), which we appropriated in a multilogical approach to research (Tobin & Ritchie, 2012). Several criteria have salience to the dialogic interactions associated with authentic inquiry. First, dialogic interactions can facilitate all participants expressing standpoints that are relevant to the research. Second, dialogues become objects for all participants to build better understandings of others’ perspectives. Importantly, we do not regard what we learn from research as colonizing texts that apply to all others in contexts like those in which our research occurred. Nor do we regard assertions that emerge from our research as having thick coherence (Geertz, 1973) – truths that apply broadly to the social world. Instead, we embrace William Sewell’s view, that when culture is enacted it is experienced as patterns that have thin coherence along with ever-present contradictions (Sewell, 2005). Importantly, enacted culture is fresh, invigorated with ambiguity and continuous transformation while carrying along a family resemblance to what “typically” happens here (i.e., in a particular field) – we consider all culture to be historically constituted, consistent with a UHSURGXFWLRQ_WUDQVIRUPDWLRQUHODWLRQVKLS7KHYHUWLFDOEDU_ EHWZHHQUHSURGXFWLRQ and transformation is an indication that the two constructs are dialectically related – that is, they are constituents of a whole, presuppose the existence of each other, and are recursively interconnected (Tobin, 2015). EMOTIONS AND PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES WHILE TEACHING

In order to provide concrete examples of the multilogical approach we have adopted in event-oriented inquiry, I refer throughout this chapter to research I undertook with Donna King (the teacher in the study), Senka Henderson, Alberto Bellocchi, and Stephen Ritchie (Tobin, King, Henderson, Bellocchi, & Ritchie, 2016). Throughout the chapter I draw on particulars from the published study to illustrate multilogicality, authentic inquiry, interventions, and event-oriented inquiry. The published paper expands on research in which Ritchie’s research squad, mostly situated at Queensland University of Technology, had been involved for about a decade. Ongoing studies researched expressed emotions and emotional climate in relation to learning environments, science teacher education, facial expression of emotions, prosody, proxemics, and physiological factors such as breathing patterns and meditation. I draw on examples from Tobin et al. (2016) to explicate, in this chapter, relationships between physiological changes while teaching and expression of emotions.

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METHODOLOGICAL BRICOLAGE

DOING EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

From the perspective of the sociocultural framework that underpins our research, cultural production; that is, what people do, is constituted by cultural reproduction and cultural transformation. Another way to say this is that all actions are unique – consisting of reproduction and transformation. We regard the dialectical relationship EHWZHHQ WUDQVIRUPDWLRQ DQG UHSURGXFWLRQ LH WUDQVIRUPDWLRQ _ UHSURGXFWLRQ  DV synonymous with cultural production, consisting of patterns that have thin coherence DQGHYHUSUHVHQWFRQWUDGLFWLRQVLHSDWWHUQV_FRQWUDGLFWLRQV 7KHSDWWHUQVWKDWWHQG to recur lead to the possibilities of reproduction while contradictions are seeds for transformation. The dialectical relationship cautions that constructs considered in this way are inseparable, constituents of a whole in which all postulated components presuppose the existence of one another. Later in this chapter I return to the salience of contradictions as seeds for transformation, as a central tenet of event-oriented inquiry. The process of doing research is inherently theoretical. On the one hand, the methodology (i.e., theory of method), which is the primary focus of this chapter, provides a theoretical rationale for the methods and procedures we choose to employ in a study. That is, what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. In this particular case, contradictions, as seeds for transformation, are methodologically salient – as they arise in the presence of patterns of coherence (i.e., sameness). I hasten to point out the obvious. Methodology, as it is used in the context of doing research, involves actions such as trying to figure something out, seeking to resolve a puzzle in some way, etc. There also is salience in the theoretical frames we use to make sense of what is happening, why it is happening, and what aspects of culture are hidden beneath a surface of equilibrium conditions (Garfinkel, 1967). We use these theoretical frameworks to notice what is happening and interpret what we notice as we make sense of emergent questions of the type – what does this mean, and, what else is there to learn? Importantly, these frameworks illuminate how we experience, what we notice, and what escapes our attention in specific ways – theory illuminates as it obscures (Tobin, 2008). Hence, in noticing patterns and contradictions – what we see and notice is radically theory dependent. The ontology we experience relates to the theories we employ and we acknowledge, in a spirit of expansive undertaking, that what we learn is one of many ways of making sense of what is happening, why it is happening, and what more is there (Kincheloe, 2008). An overarching umbrella is that our research is emergent, contingent, and expansive. In addition, the research process embraces polysemia and polyphonia. The multilogical bricolage adopted in our research on physiological expression of emotions was historically constituted. Our work was primarily grounded in a theory of interaction ritual chains (Collins, 2004), facial expression of emotion (Turner, 2002), and refinements and protocols provided by Paul Ekman (2003). As our interests encompass mindfulness, we incorporated Richard Davidson’s theories from

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social neuroscience to include research foci on emotional styles and neuroplasticity (Davidson with Begley, 2012). As our awareness about polyvagal theory increased, we began to interpret practices through the lenses of neuroception, and different modes of activation associated with sympathetic and parasympathetic functioning of the vagus nerve (Porges, 2011). Using available data resources, we could examine modes of breathing and breathing patterns in relation to expressed emotions. Also, we could see from oximeters when physiological measures approached levels the body might consider to be potentially harmful, or very safe. Once we knew about neuroception, social risk also became a focus for observations and analyses. For example, Tobin et al. (2016) were aware that Donna was very apprehensive before she began the lesson on which our research was based. Accordingly, the spikes in the curve, here defined as events, associated with relatively high pulse rate and low oxygenation respectively, were interpretable in terms of neuroception and a greater level of sympathetic (i.e., fight-flight) nervous action and conduct, than parasympathetic nervous activity and participant conduct. Our research on prosody grew out of my 30-year interest in verbal interaction and classroom learning environments. We realized that spoken words were only part of the story when it came to analyzing speech. Prosody, carefully analyzing patterns and distributions of the energy of sound waves; focusing on frequency, loudness, and power of the wave in the air, complemented interpretations concerning expressed emotions – physiologically, facially, and proxemically (Tobin et al., 2016). When we began to focus on the intensity and duration of expressed emotion, we searched for ways to ameliorate emotional intensity, if and when it was deemed necessary to do so. This led us to the study of breathing (e.g., belly, thoracic, open mouth, nasal, deep, shallow) and use of meditation to ameliorate unwanted emotions. Before long our studies included physiological expression of emotion in terms of pulse rate, blood oxygenation, and plethysmography (Amat, Zapata, Alexakos, Pride, Paylor-Smith, & Hernandez, 2016). As we worked our way into the study of emotion, the number of theoretical frameworks we used to describe and make sense of the research expanded steadily (Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu, Sandhu, Henderson, & Roth, 2013). In parallel with our research on physiological expression of emotion and ameliorating emotions through breathing, we sought ways to address an excess of emotions through sequences of touching and holding. The framework we employed to make sense of participants touching and holding their bodies, usually with hands and fingers, was Jin Shin Jyutsu (Burmeister, 1994). Also, we used the Jin Shin Jyutsu knowledge system to design interventions to reduce the intensity of excess emotions and, more generally, to enhance wellness (Tobin, 2017). PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH

There are many ways in which authentic inquiry can be enacted in educational settings. Within our research squads diverse, multimethod, multilogical studies 34

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are undertaken routinely. Our approaches include auto-ethnographic self-studies, narratology, interpretive research grounded in hermeneutic phenomenology, and multilevel studies that employ video, audio, and physiological data resources (e.g., pulse rate, blood oxygen concentration, blood pressure). We do not ascribe to a singular approach to doing research and instead embrace a standpoint that values polysemia, emergence, contingence, and beneficence for participants while minimizing and hopefully avoiding harm (Tobin, 2016). It is also important to note that we acknowledge the crisis of representation – that language always falls short of fully representing what we know, understand, and intend to represent in written or spoken text (Greene, 1994). Furthermore, this fallibility of our research is magnified when we endeavor to make sense of our and others’ experiences – which is at the heart of our research project. With these comments in mind I provide specific examples to illustrate some of these points. An Illustrative Scenario In a study of teaching and learning science, an initial step is to go to a classroom. In a typical scenario, there may be three cameras in each of 10 class meetings of a semester-long course. Two of the cameras would be on tripods at front and back corners of the room. A third would be hand-held and might follow what the cameraperson considers to be points of interest. In addition, audio is recorded – one recorder attached around the teacher’s neck and three others that are strategically placed to capture verbal interactions among students. Accordingly, the audio and video records are digitally captured on several different devices, thereby providing an enormously large database for the study. During a lesson involving a researcher visiting a school, the visitor might hold a hand-held camera – raising the possibility of producing an oral narrative of what is happening by speaking softly as the video record is obtained. The soundtrack serves as a voice-over that describes/interprets what is happening. Also, notes and narratives can be written during and after the lesson. When circumstances make it possible, the researcher, as a visitor to the class, can coteach in ways that have previously been agreed to. Typically, this might involve seeing if s/he can help students who raise their hands or specifically engage with a visitor-researcher. To the extent that it is relevant to the research, all interactions involving the researchervisitor become part of the research – part of subjective, participant observation (Erickson, 1986). The design of our studies is emergent and contingent. That is, specific foci of the study, and associated design, depend to a large degree on what is happening and what we would like to learn next. In the moment to moment unfolding nature of social interaction, the person holding the camera is paying attention to what is happening and intuitively moves the direction of the camera to capture as much of the visual and audio narratives as possible. Later, when analyses are undertaken, the record available on the movable camera will reflect the cameraperson’s value system 35

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pertaining to what is important. However, it is important to note that the mobile camera is only one resource of many when analyses are undertaken. Ideally, the analyses are ongoing and inform the design. For us it is unrealistic to expect that between classes we can do much more than organize the data resources and get ready for the next class that will be part of the study. The archiving of data resources so that they can be conveniently retrieved is an important part of the research process. Like most aspects of the research – it is ongoing because many more data resources pertaining to a given lesson will be obtained as the study moves from one year to the next and there is more time for reviewing and analyzing data resources. For example, when video files are analyzed, participants are often asked to provide interpretive accounts of what is happening, why it is happening, and what next should we do to learn more from the events we are studying. Since the participant observer nature of the research involves participants as researchers, who were present and involved in the teaching and learning being studied, it is important to be aware that a significant amount of learning is occurring as participant-researchers are involved in the research activities. Hence, dialogues about what happened, and what else needs to be considered are most important. In fact, to the extent we can find the time, we have found it useful to schedule cogenerative dialogue (i.e., cogen), focused on questions like what happened, what is working, what changes need to be made, why are things working out the way they are, and what factors beyond our control are making a difference to the class? Regularly scheduled cogens are an important part of our multilogical methodology (Tobin & Llena, 2012). Like class sessions, cogens are activities that become foci for the research. Accordingly, written notes and narratives, together with audio and video recordings, document them. AUTHENTIC INQUIRY

Our first foray into interpretive research was grounded in the work of Fred Erickson (Erickson, 1986) and involved, for us, a primary focus on participant observer research, use of qualitative data resources, and construction and refinement of assertions that reflected patterns in data that address broad questions such as: what is happening; and why is it happening? In addition, we entertained a third question, what more is there? This question assumes there is always more to a story than what we know already, incorporating the premise that culture is not visible in settled times – but reveals itself in unsettled times (Swidler, 1986). Accordingly, the researcher-as-participant, intervenes to ascertain how participants act in unfamiliar/ unexpected circumstances. That is, as a part of ongoing research, interventions are used with the purpose of “pushing/prodding” participants to step outside their familiar roles – thereby revealing forms of culture that are not necessarily within their comfort zones (Garfinkel, 1967). A consequence of including what more is there as an overarching mantra for our research, is that different perspectives are not just tolerated and explained away, 36

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but are considered as possibilities to expand what is learned in a study. Different perspectives are invited and studied as part of hermeneutic-phenomenological methodology. Our approach is not to attach to what we know already, but to expand, embrace polysemia, and show value to others’ experiences and their interpretations. Our first significant departure from this approach was catalyzed by Ebon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln’s Fourth Generation Evaluation (1989). Guba and Lincoln embraced emergence and contingence in the selection of participants in research – beginning with one participant, and when it was appropriate to do so, selecting another, who is as different as possible from the first selected. Subsequently, participants are chosen serially based on their differences from those previously selected to be involved. Also, contingency implies that selection takes account of what is a priority to learn next. Thus, difference is central to the selection process and affords opportunities to incorporate contradictions as resources for learning from research. The revolutionary standpoint expressed in Fourth Generation Evaluation is that there is no real or true ontology. That is, people experience what is happening in ways that connect to their lifeworlds – what is happening is radically historical because of these connections. Starting from this bold standpoint, Guba and Lincoln present designs for social inquiry that address four authenticity criteria, the first being ontological authenticity. Ontological Authenticity Ontological authenticity constrains researchers to ensure that, as a result of participating in a study, all participants have opportunities to change their ontologies. That is, the answers to the framing questions of a study – what is happening, and why is it happening would be related to participants’ placements in social space. The research outcomes, as far as participants’ ontologies are concerned, would be diverse. Another way to say this is that assertions would be nuanced and contextualized. Since the emphasis is on all participants, researchers are reminded that research design should address the desirability of all persons having a possibility to change their ontologies as they participate in research. To illustrate this point, in a study of teaching and learning in a classroom, the teacher, students, and researchers all would change their ontologies. In addition to the five authors of the published paper (Tobin et al., 2016), the participants in the research included four students from the class who engaged with reflective reviews of selected video vignettes, in which they viewed the vignettes, discussed salient issues with us as they arose, answered our questions, and posed questions as they occurred to them. Thus, interactions were symmetrical in the sense that they asked us about the research and what we were learning. Stimulated recall was structured as cogenerative dialogue and students wore a finger pulse oximeter, providing them with real-time feedback on pulse rate, blood oxygen concentration, and plethysmograph (similar to blood pressure). Because these analyses occurred 37

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after the course was completed, it was not as convenient to provide feedback on what we learned to others in the class. Of course, since each of us was teaching at the time, what we learned did mediate how we taught, how we thought about teaching, and how we interacted with students. Accordingly, I would claim that we taught in ways that were transformative, not only to what happened in our classes, but also to what students would have noticed and the stories they may have told about what happened and why it was happening. Usually we refer to this “outcome” as ripple effects (Tobin, 2009), and we consider it in terms of generalizability of what we learned from ongoing research (Eisenhart, 2009). We appropriate what we learn from research, as desirable, adapting practices and schemas to benefit others in our professional and non-public activities. Although we do not have information on the stories that the four students would tell about Donna’s teaching in the class, we do have many examples of the way they were able to focus in on aspects of prosody and breathing once we drew their attention to the salience of these features (Tobin et al., 2016). To some degree this is evidence of changing ontology as far as the student participants in the research are concerned. Speaking for myself, I learned a great deal as a result of my participation in the study – especially as it relates to mindful practices and physiology, including neuroception and the vagus nerve. Based on discussions with my co-authors, they also learned a great deal from participating in the analysis, interpretation, and coauthoring of the paper. Educative Authenticity Educative authenticity, like ontological authenticity, relates to learning from others. The purpose is to learn from others’ ontologies. It is not intended that participants persuade others or convert them – or produce more coherence in their descriptions of what is happening and why it is happening. Clearly, this is a challenging criterion to address because, as participants in a study learn from one another, their ontologies will ideally expand. Also, researchers’ efforts to address this authenticity criterion will significantly contribute to the nuance of what they are learning from the research and to a growing awareness of a need for nuance in reporting what has been learned. Educative authenticity definitely applied to Donna, who learned a great deal about her teaching and possibilities for change. Because we were doing the analyses and interpretations when we were together in Australia, the time span extended over two years before the paper was written and published. During the analyses, each of the authors learned about the four student researchers’ perspectives, and also about Donna’s perspectives as a teacher-researcher. Importantly, we all learned a considerable amount concerning breathing, prosody, and their relationships with emotional contagion and expressed emotions. Almost immediately, Donna adjusted her teaching in an endeavor not to teach with low oxygen blood concentration or with a high pulse rate. She incorporated breathing meditation into her approach to teaching and also into her research (see Chapter 7). 38

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Just as students learned from us about the salience to the spread of emotions of prosody, blood oxygenation, and pulse rate, we also learned from their responses about what aspects they considered to be central to good teaching. When the focus was on breathing, prosody, and breathing style, two of the students not only knew a great deal, they also applied what they knew to make sense of how they experienced the class. Catalytic Authenticity Catalytic authenticity fully embraces the implications for participatory research and an ethical stance that researchers should show respect for others’ differences, including their standpoints. Guba and Lincoln argued that for inquiry to be authentic, participation in research should catalyze changes (improvements) for all stakeholder groups. There are many ways to think about this, including the idea that in a school there should be ripple effects from research so that benefits advantage the school in total, including collectives associated with the social labels used to situate teachers and students (e.g., gender, race, economic capital, religion). Hence, in the design of research, plans can address the most salient categories, as they emerge, and describe how research catalyzed advantages for each of the selected groups and individuals. Because of the importance of research making a difference to those involved in the study we included a major section of the focus paper on benefits to participants of our research. Notably, we focused solely on Donna and the changes she made to her teaching as a result of the analyses and interpretations. These were considerable and ongoing. For example, Donna noted that (2016, p. 687): This year I taught Science Curriculum One in first semester, two years after the “shrill voice” data that was collected during the same unit in 2012. I had reflected on the shrill voice since being part of the study. What was not possible in the study was to catalyze changes to the class that was being studied. Simply put, we undertook the study after the class itself was completed. However, I emphasize that it is likely that those of us who have been teaching since doing this study have changed our approaches to teaching, paying attention to breathing and the enacted curriculum, including expressed emotions, prosody, proxemics, and the wellbeing of the teacher and students. Speaking for myself, I adopt the practice of beginning each class that I teach with 3–5 minutes of breathing meditation, followed by five minutes of mindful writing (often referred to as freestyle writing). Tactical Authenticity The fourth authenticity criterion, labelled tactical authenticity, also involves benefits of research for participants. The criterion is a reminder that equity should not be left to chance. The research design should focus on whether individuals benefit – especially those who are socially positioned at the margins and are not readily able 39

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to reap benefits from what has been learned from the research – or as it is stated more generally – from participating in the research. As Gale Seiler (2002) stated in a discussion about her dissertation, “help those who cannot readily help themselves.” The research design should, in an emergent and contingent way, introduce structures to permit all individuals to succeed (remembering that all necessitates plans for specific, identified students). Tactical authenticity is an equity criterion. Because the teacher education classes were no longer in session when we completed writing the published paper, there was no possibility to exercise tactical authenticity. If we were to be engaged in the study at the present time I would implement 5 minutes of breathing meditation at the beginning of the class and consider the possibility of taking another 5 minutes of breathing meditation midway through the class. I would consider two sessions of breathing meditation because of the length of the class. Also, based on what I know from other aspects of our ongoing research, I would include at least 5 minutes of freestyle writing on a topic of the students’ own choosing. To do this would be an example of tactical authenticity. There are other things that could be tried too, based on what we learned about neuroception. I would be certain that all students were educated about the way in which the vagus nerve promotes social interaction through its control of facial expressions of emotion, prosody, and being able to differentiate the human voice from other sounds in the room. I would then emphasize that blood oxygenation and pulse rate can be controlled by belly breathing and that when any student had a sense that either of these physiological variables was not optimal, they could engage in a few minutes of breathing meditation to ensure that the vagus nerve was supporting social communication rather than switching to a fight-flight mode of operation. As an essential part of the toolkit for a science teacher education class, I would have finger pulse oximeters available so that students could check pulse rate and blood oxygenation when and as necessary. If we had done this in the published study it would be a clear example of tactical authenticity, especially if we were to quietly draw this to the attention of students whom we felt needed our assistance in reducing excess emotions and/or bringing physiological variables into an acceptable range. Monitoring of the class can provide the teacher with evidence of, if and when to intervene. INTERVENTIONS

Interventions arise from research methodologies we employ because of an ethical imperative that research does more good than harm. Accordingly, we develop tools to assist us to enhance participants’ awareness of what they are doing and perhaps to raise questions about why they are doing what they are doing. To some degree this approach is consistent with both educative and catalytic authenticity criteria. We created heuristics to address issues that arise in our ongoing research. For example, our work on emotions led us to the issue of mindfulness in education. We wanted to heighten awareness about emotions and ways in which they mediate FODVVURRPFRQGXFW3RZLHWU]\ĔVND $FFRUGLQJO\ZHFUHDWHGDKHXULVWLFWKDW 40

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could increase awareness about the occurrence of more than a dozen characteristics of mindful practice (e.g., I remain curious about the nature of my experiences as they arise). Once individuals are aware of these practices they could ask themselves whether changes in conduct are desirable. That is, the heuristic had the potential to catalyze changes in conduct – not just in the classroom, but also in social life JHQHUDOO\3RZLHWU]\ĔVND 7RELQ  Heuristics A reflexive stance highlights the importance of reflecting in and on practice – with a goal of becoming aware of the unaware (Bourdieu, 1992). So much of what we do in social life is enacted without awareness. At every instant cultural production LVRFFXUULQJFRQVLVWLQJRIVFKHPDV_SUDFWLFHV±SURGXFWLRQLQFOXGLQJSK\VLRORJLFDO conceptual, emotional etc. i.e., everything that is done. For good reason, awareness is limited and depends to a large extent on what is being done and what a person typically/historically has been aware of. For example, if a person has never been aware of his/her blood oxygen concentration, it is unlikely s/he would suddenly be aware of blood oxygenation. On the other hand, if a person is made aware of blood oxygenation, and sees its relevance, then heightened awareness might well be a reasonable expectation (Tobin, 2015). We utilized this idea as a central framework for the development of heuristics. Based on what we learned in the study of teaching and learning in Donna’s science education class, we have heightened awareness about neuroception and the role of the vagus nerve in maintaining the body for effective social communication (Porges, 2011). Being aware of physiological triggers that might switch her body from social communication mode to fight-flight mode allows participants in an interactive dialogue to monitor self and others and take appropriate actions to sustain productive social communication. The breath and harmonious energy flow (i.e., flow of Qi) are central tenets that may manifest in how individuals breathe (i.e., belly, deep, nasal, etc.), whether their face and voice express their emotions, whether they can accurately separate what is said from background noise, and whether their body processes are in harmony (e.g., blood oxygen, pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature). Also, ethical conduct in verbal interaction goes beyond sharing turns of talking, to include sustaining the social safety of the field in which the interaction is being conducted and speaking up when acts of social violence occur, intended or otherwise. The following characteristics for Mindful Interaction can be used in classes, like Donna’s, to increase awareness about the salient outcomes from Tobin et al. (2016), from which we have been drawing examples in this chapter. When I interact with others… ‡ I listen with the purpose of understanding what is said ‡ I show interest by connecting nonverbally with speakers ‡ I seek deeper understanding of what has been said before I offer alternatives 41

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‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

I am aware of others’ emotions I provide time to allow speakers to complete their talking turn I am aware of my breathing as I speak I use belly breathing I breathe in and out through my nose I do not monopolize talking time I am aware of whose turn it is to talk next I use my breath to control my emotions I use my breath to control the harmony in my body (e.g., pulse, blood oxygenation, body temperature) I monitor the loudness of my voice I am aware if my voice is shrill I maintain interest by varying the intonation of my voice I monitor my gestures and body orientation I take appropriate action when social violence occurs EVENT-ORIENTED INQUIRY

Our research involves numerous resources that are to be interpreted to afford the goals of projects in which we have engaged. Since we are involved in many forms of participatory research, the data resources span different levels of social life –macro, meso, and micro. Although these labels are somewhat polysemic, we provide a brief description of each as a foundation on which understandings can build as we move through the chapters of this book. Each of the three levels can be thought of in terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of field – which is a site for cultural enactment (Bourdieu, 1992). A field can be thought of as having structures, including goals and participants. As participants enact culture in a field, associated schemas and practices that unfold are part of a structural flux that is continuous and dynamic. Structures are resources for agency and passivity, which we regard as dialectically interconnected (i.e., agency _ SDVVLYLW\  )LHOGV KDYH QR ERXQGDULHV DQG VWUXFWXUHV FDQ EH SURGXFHG LQ RQH field and flow without impediment to other fields, where they are resources for DJHQF\_SDVVLYLW\ If a research focus is on one field only, we consider the associated analysis to be meso level. That is, the analysis is not multi-field, which is a convenience that comes at a cost. The convenience is that the analysis is simplified with its focus on a single field – as if fields are independent of all fields of the lifeworld. The complexity of co-occurrence is the Achilles heel of the assumption. Usually the compromise is to do a thorough analysis at the meso level (i.e., single field) and then, nuance what was learned, showing interconnectedness with other fields (i.e., thereby incorporating a macro view). Typical resources we use for meso level analyses include transcripts of selected excerpts for a class cogen, one-on-one conversation, interviews, and focus groups. 42

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Responses to surveys and questionnaires also are used, as are electronic data to provide insights into emotional climate, and various analyses of facial expression, prosody, and proxemic representation of emotion. Also, the resources include narratives related to what happened and why it happened. At a micro level the analyses usually need to employ technological resources to permit frame-by-frame analyses of video and ways to slow down and unpack complex audio waves, which can be reviewed in terms of energy distribution as a function of time, for example. Similarly, slowing down a video replay can facilitate analyses of body movements that include pacing, orienting parts of the body, gesturing, facial expressions, eye gaze direction and movements, and ways in which individuals touch and hold their bodies (with and without awareness) in different structural situations. These ideas are used heuristically to understand what we mean by microanalysis and the micro level of social life. We note that, consistent with Jonathan Turner (2002), the levels we describe here are not merely for research convenience – they are also labels for the ways people live their lives. Event is a term that is widely used in everyday life. We use event in our research as part of multilogical methodology that frames our ongoing research. The theory that underpins this crucial aspect of our research is an adaptation of structural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins’ use of event (Sahlins, 1976). Sewell (2005, p. 199) noted that: “Events in Sahlins’s reformulation, are transformations of structure, and structure is the cumulative outcomes of past events.” Sewell connected an event to changing structures of a field in ways that alter the flow of culture – or change what is happening. To paraphrase Sewell, events violate expectations associated with cultural structures – that is, what happened was not what was expected to happen. We characterize an event as encompassing a spike in the curve – meaning that the pattern of culture is disrupted. Stephen Ritchie and Jennifer Beers Newlands (2017) explained how our eventoriented research was grounded in Sewell’s adaptation of Sahlins’ theorization of event. Ritchie and Beers Newlands emphasized that the transformation that defined event needed to catalyze changes in social life. Their reframing of event was associated with compelling examples drawn from classrooms, much like those featured in the chapters of this book. In our work in the United States, the emphasis has been more on the outcomes of research – expressed in the authenticity criteria. Hence, changes in ontology, understanding different frameworks, changing practices, and equitably distributing beneficence are salient to our event-oriented inquiry. For example, for Tobin et al. (2016), understanding microanalyses of low oxygen teaching opened windows into narratives and meanings that they had not previously encountered. The emergence of new theories and applications to ongoing teaching, teacher education, is a game changer that altered how we view teaching, learning and learning to teach. Already we see in teaching and learning contexts, meditation and mindfulness activities, students and teachers using oximeters, and heuristics being adopted to foster a higher incidence of contemplative inquiry. Furthermore, we use Porges’ polyvagal theory (2011) 43

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extensively; to make sense of what is happening and why it is happening in many different types of learning environments. I consider these examples to be consistent with the emphasis Ritchie and Beers Newlands give; that events should be potentially transformative in a macro sense. BREATHING WHILE SPEAKING/TEACHING

We identified five events, two prior to Donna beginning to teach and three selected from the lesson, which was videotaped. The five events were associated with a high heart rate, an unexpected drop in blood oxygenation, teaching with a relatively high pulse rate, teaching with relatively low blood oxygenation levels, and teaching with high blood oxygen concentration (Tobin et al., 2016). The first two events occurred in the pre-teaching phase of the lesson – prior to the start of video recording. During this phase, there were two unexpected spikes in the curve associated with Donna’s higher than expected pulse rate and lower than expected blood oxygenation respectively. To make sense of these unexpected results, we asked Donna to provide a narrative account of what happened and why it happened. Our analyses were grounded in polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011), drawing on neuroception and its relationships with social communication and fight-flight types of conduct. Importantly, before we continued with event-oriented inquiry, we used Donna’s narrative to address what happened in the whole lesson, why it happened, and how the lesson fitted into the framework of the entire course. Also, we studied Donna’s plan for the lesson and her emotions while teaching. Then, we provided our interpretations, primarily relying on neuroception and polyvagal theory. The three events we selected from the enacted lesson, were based on spikes in the curves for Donna’s pulse rate and blood oxygenation as she taught. Event 3 was characterized by a relatively high pulse rate of 111 bpm. Event 4 involved low blood oxygen levels for a 38 s interval of the lesson during which blood oxygenation averaged 92% – many standard deviations below the mean of about 98% (standard deviation of approximately 1). The pulse rate averaged 102 bpm during this event. We transcribed Donna’s talk during this time and analyzed the transcript in terms of prosodic features of each of the utterances. In the next section of this paper, as an example of our analyses, I undertake follow-up research on Donna’s breathing as she spoke these utterances. Student voices were used to provide insights into the different ways they experienced the lesson as a whole and each of the three events identified in the lesson. The four students who reviewed, analyzed, and interpreted the three events varied considerably in their expertise and awareness about physiological expression of emotion, breathing patterns, and prosody (Roth & Tobin, 2010). The activities involving the authors of the paper and students, who came one at a time, were intended to be educative for all of us. As researchers, we wanted to learn from the

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four students and Donna, while letting them know what we had so far learned in the study, its importance, and what we intended to learn next. As student-researchers provided their descriptions and interpretations, we interacted with them, explaining about prosodic features – including frequency, loudness, and intonation. We also explained how our experience of Donna’s occasional shrill speech was associated with the energy distribution of particular utterances (i.e., formants). Some students were aware of prosody as Donna taught and one student reported that Donna’s prosody was occasionally detrimental to his learning. Another student also was aware of Donna’s prosody, but did not think about it during the lesson. Based on his re-viewing of the video vignette, he critiqued Donna’s breathing and connected her breathing pattern to prosody and changing levels of blood oxygenation. The final event, teaching with a 100% level of blood oxygenation, was analyzed and interpreted in much the same way as the low oxygen event. In this vignette Donna felt she was relaxed and students’ perspectives suggested that this emotional state permeated her teaching throughout that event, which was regarded as more engaging, not so fast, and associated with emotions on the happiness spectrum. Breathing While Speaking/Teaching Until we undertook this study with Donna I was not aware of how I breathed as I taught. For example, I did not know whether I breathed through my mouth, through my nose, or both during an utterance. Also, although I knew of the importance of belly breathing, I could not say for sure that I always breathed with my belly. However, the study of Donna’s teaching raised questions about the way in which oxygenation of the blood varied from moment to moment, depending on a number of factors that included, more than likely, when and how Donna breathed. Up until this particular study we had looked at oxygenation and teaching in a context of the Brooklyn College study (Alexakos, 2015). During that study, we were often alarmed that the blood oxygenation levels of coteachers plummeted well below 90% and pulse rate often skyrocketed to what we considered to be extremely high levels. Accordingly, we were most interested to undertake this study with Donna, who was an experienced science teacher educator. The events we selected were relatively novel for studies of teaching and learning, and for studies of prosody. We did not know what to expect in many respects – although we did anticipate that there would be unexpected rises and falls in pulse rate and oxygenation levels of the blood. From the perspective of neuroception, these spikes in the curve would undoubtedly result in physiological changes that would alter, among other things, prosody, facial expression of emotion, and possibly minimize expressed emotions to those associated with fight-flight conduct. That is, in the events we selected, expressed emotions might be limited to the anger and fear spectra. To examine these possibilities, I decided to further analyze event 4, teaching with a relatively low blood oxygenation level.

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Obtaining Interpretive Analyses from Colleagues Using the video vignette associated with the low oxygen event (Tobin et al., 2016), we identified six shallow in breaths, involving inspiration through the mouth. With video, we could not know whether Donna also partially inspired using her nose – however, it was clear that air was inspired orally in a short breath in each of six occasions. Because I was curious to see if the inspiration and expiration patterns were similar in the high blood oxygen event, I also studied breathing patterns using the video vignette for event 5. Even though Donna was not facing the camera directly, it was apparent that inspiration and expiration both involved the mouth. Based on my analyses of the two vignettes/events, I extracted 8 offprints, each showing the beginning of an in-breath. I then sent the offprints in an email message to close colleagues who had studied facial expression of emotion. I was interested to see whether they would consistently identify the emotions in Donna’s face – or, whether abnormal blood oxygen levels would have triggered sympathetic circuits for nerve actions rather than parasympathetic circuits. Within a day I heard back from thirteen colleagues. The following two paragraphs provide a context for my request to them. In the chapter I am including an event partially involving the analysis of facial expression of emotion. Although the attached offprints are not ideal, they are important offprints from one lesson. This is the best we can do for 8 selected “spikes” in the curve – we are stuck with what the video captured and it is not ideal when the image is blurred or the teacher’s head is to the side. We need to get some point of reference against which to compare the authors’ assessments of what emotions are mainly expressed in each of the 8 faces. Accordingly, I have written to a number of my former students/colleagues so that I can create a summary of the key emotions seen in each of the 8 images. The question I would like you to address – for each of the images – which emotions do you see represented/expressed in the facial expression of each of the 8 offprints? The context is that all shots are from the same lesson that we wrote about in a recent CSSE paper. It is not necessary to use any particular framework – e.g., Jonathan Turner, Paul Ekman, and Reinhard Pekrun. I put together a list of emotions to get your mind thinking. The list was derived from a paper that Steve and his group recently published – I knew there was a good list in that paper. Here is the list (to get you started – nowhere close to complete): anger; enjoyment; happiness; excitement; interested; engaged; hopeful; ecstatic; proud; ashamed; worry; nervous; pressured; scared; stressed; anxious; disgusted; surprised; annoyed; frustrated; disappointed; bored; sad; aggravated; awed; hopeful; shy; anticipation; trusting; joyous, rage; exasperation; irritation; expectant; resigned; thrilled; gratified; cheerful; adamant; desperate. 46

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After each of the 13 colleagues had made suggestions about the emotions associated with the image, I sent the following description concerning the 8 offprints. The first 6 are from what we refer to as a low oxygen event in the paper we published (Tobin et al., 2016). They are sequential, as many of you surmised, and each expression occurs when there is no sound – at the end of an in-breath. Sometimes the in-breath was really short and at other times as long as 0.7 s. The revelation is that Donna appears to breathe through her mouth as she teaches. Panels 8 and 9 were from earlier in the lesson, but are associated with what we called a high oxygen event (event 5 in Tobin et al., 2016). I thought Donna might be breathing nasally in that event in which blood oxygenation peaked at100% and Donna reported feeling relaxed. However, as you can see from the offprints Donna breathes in through her mouth on both occasions. Consensus and Contradictions Obtained from Colleagues’ Analyses The eight offprints shared one characteristic in common. At the beginning of the breath, Donna’s mouth was wide open. Because the focus was on selecting the moment when the out breath ended and an in breath started, the orientation of the face to the camera varied from one occurrence to the next. Consequently, variation in the labels selected by the panel of colleagues would be expected, not only because of Donna’s physiological response to low blood oxygenation, but also because the training protocols used to identify facial expression of emotion involves the front view of the face (e.g., Ekman, 2003). Mainly for this reason, I refrain from fully interpreting the variation in selected emotions for all offprints except for 4, 5, and 6. These three offprints are toward the end of the low oxygen set of events, and they

Figure 3.1. Donna appears to gasp for breath, through her mouth, as she reaches the end of an utterance

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involve the frontal face. As I noted previously, the seventh and eighth offprints were from event 5 in the published paper – a high oxygen event. I was surprised to note that breathing in these two instances also involved the mouth. The fourth offprint (Figure 3.1) shows a wide-open mouth, and an image that most colleagues identified as surprise. The fifth offprint was associated with a range of emotions that included irritation, disappointment, surprise, confusion, shame, offense, aggravation, stress, disappointment, confusion, and disbelief. Finally, Donna’s facial expression in the sixth offprint was described by nearly all of my colleagues as being linked with anger or fear (both aligned with a sympathetic circuit that prepares for flight-fight actions). Mouth or Nose? What Difference Does It Make? In my yoga class, we were consistently reminded to breathe in and out through the nose. Our teacher heightened our awareness about maintaining balance between the left and right nostrils. On the other hand, when I was learning karate, my teacher reminded us to breathe in and out through the mouth. Colleagues, including Konstantinos Alexakos, emphasized the importance of breathing to control the movement of Qi (i.e., universal energy) through the body. It had never occurred to me to ask when teachers should breathe through the mouth and when they should breathe through the nose. This issue arose for the first time (for me at least), in this study. Our focus was on creating a method for studying breathing patterns – especially thoracic breathing when the belly was not visibly moving. Low blood oxygenation contexts sharply focused our research gaze on video and audio that occurred in such circumstances. We used PRAAT to look at the clustering of words into utterances and the distribution of pauses within utterances. When we coordinated this information with video frames we could notice shallow breaths occurring in relatively longer pauses. In the low blood oxygenation environment, these breaths involved a wide-open mouth. Once we had looked at the facial expression when breaths were taken, we were curious if the low oxygenation triggered neuroception and truncated muscle actions responsible for facially expressing emotions. Although the video was not produced to answer these questions in this study, about facial expressions and breathing patterns, we progressed, in the spirit of emergence and contingence, to learn what we could. At the very least, our research makes the case for further work on breathing and speaking. As we have done consistently, we would work with participant teachers and students to develop an intervention to learn more about breathing, emotion, and physiological change while teaching and learning (e.g., in verbal interaction). I imagine conscious nasal breathing might be advantageous while listening to others speak, and while pausing at the end of bursts of speech, when duration of pauses might be from 0.2 s and upwards to 3 s. In a high blood oxygenation environment, it is possible that neuroception also signals to the vagus nerve that the body is at risk because of the relative toxicity 48

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of 100% blood oxygen. Accordingly, it is possible that emotions would not be expressed unambiguously in the face because of truncation of the sympathetic actions of the vagus nerve on facial muscles responsible for expressing emotions. Additional research of blood oxygen concentration, pulse rate, and their relationships to hearing acuity, prosody, and facial expressions of emotion might contribute a great deal to our understandings of breathing while teaching, breathing style/patterns, and movement of Qi through the body. According to Tantra theory, nadi is the term used for universal energy flow. There are 72,000 circuits that transfer universal energy to all parts of the physical body (Saraswati & Avinasha, 2006, p. 76). When the three main nadis are activated (i.e., Ida, Pingala, Sushumna) by nasal breathing that involves even use of the left and right nostrils, there is transfer of electrical currents, associated with universal energy, to the brain. If breathing is through the mouth the three main nadis are not activated and the flow of electricity to the brain does not occur. Interestingly, Christina Zelano, Heidi Jiang, Guangyu Zhou, Nikita Arora, Stephan Schuele, Joshua Rosenow, and Jay Gottfried (2016) provided complementary insights in a study using an electroencephalogram. They reported: Our results reveal that natural breathing synchronizes electrical activity in human piriform (olfactory) cortex, as well as in limbic-related brain areas, including amygdala and hippocampus. Notably, oscillatory power peaked during inspiration and dissipated when breathing was diverted from nose to mouth. … Finally, behavioral data in healthy subjects suggest that breathing phase systematically influences cognitive tasks related to amygdala and hippocampal functions. (p. 12448) Zelano et al. (p. 12465) concluded that: “Our findings imply that, rather than being a passive target of heightened arousal or vigilance, the phase of natural breathing is actively used to promote oscillatory synchrony and to optimize information processing in brain areas mediating goal-directed behaviors.” Rosemary Lester and Jeanette Holt (2014, p. 734) noted that, Most inspirations are routed through the nose, rather than the mouth, for good reasons. Nasal inspiration converts the incoming air to body temperature; increases the humidity of the incoming air; and extracts dust, bacteria, and other contaminants from it. … The use of nasal rather than oral inspiration has also been found to be beneficial for voice production. Lester and Holt found from their study of 10 healthy adults, all native speakers of English, inspired simultaneously through the mouth and nose as they spoke. Interestingly, when the participants were made aware of their breathing patterns they found it difficult to do, preferring instead to breathe through the mouth only as they spoke. Coordination of oral and nasal breathing resulted, for some of the 10 participants, in contorted facial expressions and occasional snorting. Lester and Holt used sophisticated methods in their research, not practical in a naturalistic setting of 49

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teaching in a classroom, for example. Accordingly, my recommendation is to take their results on board, as a possibility, and see what teachers and students decide to do as they teach. My perspective, after reviewing some of the salient literature is that the benefits to participants of nasal breathing are considerable, and conscious effort can be directed to use nasal breathing during pauses of more than 0.3 s. At other times, I expect that inspiration through the mouth will occur without conscious awareness. Perhaps there would be some nasal inspiration as well, but as far as an intervention is concerned my suggestion would be to breathe nasally when possible. I assume that over time this will then become more routine and begin to feel normal. In his book on sport, John Douillard (1994) described numerous benefits of nose breathing over mouth breathing while participating in physical activity. Some of the benefits he identified, that have salience to talking while teaching and learning, were that nose breathing favors parasympathetic potential by directing air to the lower lobes where there are nerve receptors that promote parasympathetic activity. In contrast, he noted that mouth breathing moves air to the upper lobes of the lung where the nerve receptors are associated with fight-flight conduct and sympathetic nerve activity. Not surprisingly, and related to neuroception, nose breathing lowers heart beat rate and breathing rate. Also, nose breathing stimulates production of nitric oxide, which enhances expansion of blood cells, increases blood flow, and protects organs from damage; that is, nasal breathing promotes wellness. Since Douillard’s review is associated with sports rather than speaking, the findings I provide here represent a potential for improving wellness associated with teaching and learning by consciously increasing the proportion of nose breathing employed by teachers and learners. After I wrote a polished draft of this chapter, I shared it with Donna, who commented: “the book chapter reads really well and I learned a lot!” My purpose in sending the chapter to Donna was to ensure that she knew about my interpretations of our ongoing collaborative research, and had a chance to learn from it, change her practices if she deemed it desirable to do so, and, as an example of ripple effects, adjust her teacher education courses to include what we learned from the study. MULTILOGICAL INQUIRY

The logics of inquiry are foundational to educational research and, as such, it behooves researchers to be aware of salient theoretical frameworks that underpin selection, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. Also, the methodologies employed in design and conduct of research are radically theoretical. In our ongoing research, which dates back to the 1970s, the theories we have employed have transformed as we learned and sought to learn more. Complexity has increased and in many ways, what we do, and learned, is much more powerful. In this chapter, I have spotlighted a multilogical approach to research that is focused on educating all participants with the purpose of transforming and improving their lifeworlds. An overarching goal is ethical conduct, that addresses many spheres of conduct. 50

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In the chapter I mentioned the framework offered by Hugh Sockett (1993), practical wisdom – a holistic construct that is described in terms of four constituents that are multilectically interrelated (Fellner, 2014). These constituents are: care, courage, honesty, and fairness. Other frameworks are embedded in the authenticity criteria – especially tactical authenticity, which is concerned with equity – not opportunity to participate, but to succeed. As I have been writing this chapter I have been struck by the way that Buddhist practice, known as the eightfold pathway, might readily be appropriated as a heuristic for ethical conduct. I briefly describe the eightfold pathway and mention some affordances here – leaving more detailed work on this framework to a paper dedicated just to this topic. The Eightfold Pathway For almost a decade we have been using meditation and mindfulness in our research RQ VKDSLQJ DQG PRYLQJ HPRWLRQ 7RELQ   :LWK 0DOJRU]DWD 3RZLHWU]\ĔVND I have edited two volumes that have examined aspects of mindfulness and its appropriation in educational contexts in various countries of the world. Recently, Heesoon Bai, Michelle Beatch, David Chang, and Avraham Cohen (2017) critiqued many applications of mindfulness in schools, because mindfulness is just one part of Buddhist practice, that has been extracted and decontextualized from the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path (Peacock, 1999). We agree with the dangers of extracting part of a whole, while neglecting other constituents. Also, we agree with Bai et al., and our colleague David Forbes (2017) that neoliberal ideology is rampant in Western education and there is danger that mindfulness can be used as a tool to foster compliance and suppress struggle against repression by macrostructures that include neoliberalism, capitalism, and crypto-positivism (Kincheloe & Tobin, 2009). Such macrostructures are pervasive and arguably are harming education programs around the world (Forbes, 2017). The Eightfold Path is interwoven into our methodological bricolage. We value listening, friendship, attunement to others’ needs and aspirations, and cultivation of appropriate ways of living, acting, speaking, and relating to others. Also, we embrace three organizing structures that constitute the Eightfold Path – wisdom, ethics and morality, and meditative practice. In the following sub-sections I briefly discuss how each of these is represented in our multilogical research. Wisdom Appropriate view and intention relate to acceptance that there are no absolute truths (i.e., poly-ontology) and that actions have consequences. In our work, we emphasize that theory is a way of seeing and being in the world. Also, as we interact with others it is important to do no harm and maximize good by recognizing their priorities and intentions, and acting with compassion and care for their well-being. As researchers, 51

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we reject pursuits for gratification, focusing instead on what is valuable to the collective – in most cases to promote happiness, wellness, and literate citizenry. Ethics and Morality One of the key components of this section is appropriate speech, which is extremely important in our research. Areas that warrant careful consideration include false speech, harsh speech, divisive speech, and gossip/idle speech. We have created heuristics for Mindfully Speaking and Mindfully Listening, and the characteristics included in those heuristics address the important idea that speech is central to communication among humans, and should do no harm. Of course, speech is only one form of action and it is important to generalize the do no harm mantra to include all forms of conduct in which we engage during research specifically and in our lifeworlds more generally. One of the key things I have learned from listening to John Peacock is “don’t take what is not freely given.” In illustrating this mantra, Peacock gives the example of time – the way that certain people will trap others with their talk, preventing them from pursuing what they might otherwise be doing. It is important during verbal interaction not to treat others as dumping grounds for lengthy turns at talk. A final point to be made regarding ethics and morality concerns the necessity to align our intentions and aspirations as researchers with those of other participants who have agreed to join us as researchers. Simply put, there is more to sustaining authentic research than learning about emotions and wellness. Accordingly, we should honor the necessity for all participants to design and walk on their own paths, doing what they feel they have got to do. Our roles are to ascertain what they do, why they do it, and what culture is hidden by the harmony of everyday life. Meditative Practice The Eightfold Path includes three criteria within the construct of meditative practice. The first of these involves effort. The idea of middle way comes through – not too much effort and not too little effort – that is, appropriate effort that takes into account contextual factors such as the needs and aspirations of others. Mindfulness is an important criterion associated with meditative practice, or as we like to refer to it, contemplative inquiry. Central to mindfulness is not getting attached to emotions, and when attachment occurs, to let go of those emotions and to thereby sustain good qualities and practices as we stay in the moment. The third criterion is often referred to as concentration, but has the everyday meaning of gathering together thoughts and actions so as to maintain focus and stay in the moment. Beyond Secularism Even within our own research squad, there has been reluctance to include practices associated with a religion-related knowledge systems. In so doing we can ignore 52

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highly valuable ways of knowing and associated ways of being and seeing as researchers. The tendency to create secular mindfulness practices led to the problems identified by Bai and her colleagues. We have progressed beyond efforts to be secular and have consciously sought out knowledge systems to enrich our scholarship. These have included Buddhism (Peacock, 1999), Tantra (Saraswati & Avinasha, 2002), and Jin Shin Jyutsu (Burmeister, 1994). Specifically, knowledge systems grounded in universal energy flow (Beinfield & Korngold, 1991) are welldeveloped and offer solutions to problems associated with help and emotions. In our quest for multilogical frameworks we have had to set aside previously held views about a necessity for coherence among theoretical frameworks that we employed in our research. Instead, we embrace incommensurability and view different theories, not as different truth systems, but as different ways of seeing that provide complementary insights into being in the world. That is, our approach to creating theoretical bricolage is to embrace difference in its many forms as a vital resource for continued scholarship. REFERENCES Amat, A., Zapata, C., Alexakos, K., Pride, L. D., Paylor-Smith, C., & Hernandez, M. (2016). Incorporating oximeter analyses to investigate synchronies in heart rate while teaching and learning about race. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 758–801. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9767-z Bai, H., Beatch, M., Chang, D., & Cohen, A. (2017). Recalibration of mindfulness for education. In 03RZLHWU]\ĔVND .7RELQ(GV Weaving complementary knowledge systems and mindfulness to educate a literate citizenry for sustainable and healthy lives (pp. 21–40). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Beinfield, H., & Korngold, E. (1991). Between heaven and earth: A guide to Chinese medicine. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Bourdieu, P. (1992). The practice of reflexive sociology (The Paris workshop). In P. Bourdieu & L. J. D. Wacquant (Eds.), An invitation to reflexive sociology (pp. 216–260). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Burmeister, M. (1994). Introducing Jin Shin Jyutsu Book I. Scottsdale, AZ: Jin Shin Jyutsu Inc. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davidson, R. J. with Begley, S. (2012). The emotional life of your brain. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Douillard, J. (1994). Body, mind and sport. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. Eisenhart, M. (2009). Generalized notions from qualitative inquiry. In K. Ercikan & W.-M. Roth, (Ed.), Generalizing from educational research (pp. 51–66). New York, NY: Routledge. Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin. Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative research on teaching. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119–161). New York, NY: MacMillan. Fellner, G. (2014). Broadening our lenses of perception to advance learning: An introduction to multilectics. Teaching and Teacher Education, 37, 169–182. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2013.04.015 Forbes, D. (2017). Mindfulness and neoliberal education: Accommodation or transformation? In 03RZLHWU]\ĔVND .7RELQ(GV Weaving complementary knowledge systems and mindfulness to educate a literate citizenry for sustainable and healthy lives (pp. 145–158). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. Greene, M. (1994). Postmodernism and the crisis of representation. English Education, 26, 206–219.

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K. TOBIN Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Kaptchuk, T. J. (2000). Chinese medicine: The web that has no weaver. London: Rider. Kincheloe, J. L. (2008). Knowledge and critical pedagogy: An introduction. Dordrecht: Springer. Kincheloe, J. L., & Tobin, K. (2009). The much exaggerated death of positivism. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 513–528. doi:10.1007/s11422-009-9178-5 Lester, R. A., & Holt, J. D. (2014). Nasal and oral inspiration during natural speech breathing. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 734–742. Peacock, J. (1999). The Tibetan way of life, death & rebirth: The illustrated guide to Tibetan wisdom. Shaftesbury: Element Books Ltd. Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication and self-regulation. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. 3RZLHWU]\ĔVND 0   7R \RXU KHDOWK +HXULVWLFV DQG GHHS EUHDWKLQJ DV PLQGIXOQHVV SURPRWLQJ interventions in educational context. In K. Tobin & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Doing educational research: A handbook (2nd ed., pp. 337–363). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. 3RZLHWU]\ĔVND 0  7RELQ .   0LQGIXOQHVV DQG VFLHQFH HGXFDWLRQ ,Q 5 *XQVWRQH (G  Encyclopedia of science education (pp. 642–647). Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York, NY, & London: Springer. Ritchie, S. M., & Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 107–119). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0 Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., Sandhu, S., Henderson, S., & Roth, W.-M. (2013). Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50, 37–161. doi:10.1002/tea.21060 Roth, W.-M., & Tobin, K. (2010). Solidarity and conflict: Prosody as a transactional resource in intra- and intercultural communication involving power differences. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 5, 807–847. doi:10.1007/s11422-009-9203-8 Sahlins, M. (1976). Culture and practical reason. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Saraswati, S., & Avinasha, B. (2002). Jewel in the lotus: The Tantric path to higher consciousness (3rd ed.). Arroyo Grande, CA: Ipsalu Publishing. Seiler, G. A. (2002). Understanding social reproduction: The recursive nature of structure and agency within a science class (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Sewell, W. H. Jr. (2005). Logics of history: Social theory and social transformation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sockett, H. (1993). The moral base for teacher professionalism. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51, 273–286. Tobin, K. (2008). In search of new lights: Getting the most from competing perspectives. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3, 227–230. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9109-x Tobin, K. (2009). Repetition, difference and rising up with research in education. In K. Ercikan & W.-M. Roth (Ed.), Generalizing from educational research (pp. 149–172). New York, NY: Routledge. Tobin, K. (2015). The sociocultural turn: Beyond theoretical imperialism and the imperative of learning from difference. In C. Milne, K. Tobin, & D. deGennaro (Eds.), Sociocultural studies and implications for science education (pp. 3–31). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4240-6_1 Tobin, K. (2016). Connecting science education to a world in crisis. Asia-Pacific Science Education, 1, doi:10.1186/s41029-015-0003-z Tobin, K. (2017). Researching mindfulness and wellness. In M. Powietrzynska & K. Tobin (Eds), Weaving complementary knowledge systems and mindfulness to educate a literate citizenry for sustainable and healthy lives (pp. 1–18). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Tobin, K., Alexakos, K., Malyukova, A., & Gangji, A.-K. H. (2017). Jin Shin Jyutsu and ameliorating emotion, enhancing mindfulness, and sustaining productive learning environments. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 221–247). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_12

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METHODOLOGICAL BRICOLAGE Tobin, K., King, D., Henderson, S., Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Expression of emotions and physiological changes during teaching. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 669–692. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9778-9 Tobin, K., & Llena, R. (2012). Colliding identities, emotional roller coasters, and contradictions of urban science education. In M. Varelas (Ed.), Identity construction and science education research: Learning, teaching, and being in multiple contexts (pp. 137–152). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Tobin, K., & Ritchie, S. M. (2012). Multi-method, multi-theoretical, multi-level research in the learning sciences. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 20(3), 117–129. Turner, J. H. (2002). Face to face: toward a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Zelano, C., Jiang, H., Zhou, G., Arora, N., Schuele, S., Rosenow J., & Gottfried J. A. (2016). Nasal respiration entrains human limbic oscillations and modulates cognitive function. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(49), 12448–12467. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2586-16.2016

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kenneth Tobin came to the Urban Education doctoral program at the Graduate Center of CUNY in the fall semester of 2003. Prior to that he had positions as tenured full professor at Florida State University (1987 to 1997) and the University of Pennsylvania (1997 to 2003). Also, he held university appointments at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University), Mount Lawley College and Graylands College (now Edith Cowan University). Prior to becoming a university science educator in Australia in 1974, Tobin taught high school physics, chemistry, biology general science, and mathematics for 10 years. He began a program of research in 1973 that continues to the present day – teaching and learning of science and learning to teach science.

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ALBERTO BELLOCCHI, JAMES P. DAVIS AND DONNA KING

4. SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS AS MEDIATORS OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we present an original study of the flow of emotional energy that occurs during classroom practices associated with science demonstrations. We take the view that macro-social human practices, such as learning to teach science, are grounded in the micro-social processes that take shape in classroom interactions. Drawing on interaction ritual theory and a theory of eventful learning, the focus is to understand and illustrate the way in which subtle emotions, which bubble away beneath the surface of classroom life, are just as important for understanding how one learns to be a science teacher, as more dramatic counterparts like joy. Beginning with a first order ritual in our teacher education classes, we then follow the flow of emotional energy, a steady and durable form of emotional arousal, across time and space through second-order rituals when preservice and beginning teachers enact demonstrations in their high school science teaching. Implications for future research are considered for tackling the final frontier of interaction rituals research: third order rituals. Keywords: discrepant events, eventful learning, teacher education, science demonstrations, emotional energy The goal of this chapter is to understand how initial encounters, or first-order rituals (Collins, 2004), experienced by Alberto, James and Donna in Steve Ritchie’s science teacher education courses, set up a chain of events impacting the authors’ practices and those of their preservice science teachers and high school students. These emotional events concatenate over time and space to form interaction ritual chains when others reproduce practices and emotional experiences in other places at other times, in what are known as second-order rituals. Within these ritual chains, emotional energy – a durable form of emotional arousal – is reproduced in predictable ways as indicated by Randall Collins (2004). Alberto and Donna’s preservice science teachers, and James’ high school students have subsequently become involved in these science demonstration rituals that began in Steve’s teacher education classes for us. Reproduction of emotions and social practices focusing on science demonstrations will form the evidentiary material we use to illustrate our theoretical perspectives on learning to become a science teacher. Data sources from empirical studies of science

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_004

A. BELLOCCHI ET AL.

teacher courses and high school science teaching are used to establish the fact that science demonstrations become Durkheimian (Durkheim, 1912/1964) sacred rituals for these educators (i.e., Steve, Alberto, James and Donna) and a preservice science teacher (pseudonym Wade) during teaching and learning episodes. Rather than focusing on the more dramatic emotions that we have elsewhere reported (e.g., Bellocchi et al., 2014) in a related preservice educational context, one focus of this chapter is on illustrating the more subdued and methodologically challenging emotionality for empirical study. This is the mundane emotional energy (Davis, 2017) that compels an individual to take action in social encounters (Collins, 2004). Unlike more intense emotions that are often represented through labels such as anger, sadness and joy, mundane or undramatic emotional energy is a steady form of emotional arousal that is experienced and produced at the individual and collective level of social intercourse (Collins, 2004). The emotion associated with mundane emotional energy is respect, which is the sentiment that inspires us to act in morally proper ways due to a feeling of moral pressure acting within us (Durkheim, 1912/1964). Before expanding this theoretical orientation further, we first present personal narratives that establish first order rituals related to science demonstrations in our teacher education classes. SHARED NARRATIVES ORIENTING OUR TEACHING AND RESEARCH

Below we explore the history of Alberto, James and Donna’s experiences of science demonstrations as first-order rituals through our retellings of Steve’s teaching. We illustrate how the emotions evoked by demonstrations (demos) and how the concept of demos as effective science teaching practices are reproduced over time and in different locations. Alberto: I was a past student of Steve’s preservice science education class at James Cook University. I had experienced feelings of engagement during science demonstrations presented by Steve, and formed the view that these were enjoyable and valuable learning experiences for school students and preservice teachers. When Steve called for a volunteer to be involved in a demo about air pressure, whereby a hard-boiled egg is forced into a conical flask, I took up the offer. Following these favourable and memorable experiences, science demos became a staple in my high school teaching and later in my university teaching when I became a teacher educator. My expectations about using demos in science teacher education classes were that my students would receive them in a similar light to my past experiences in Steve’s class. This expectation became amplified during my own high school science teaching experiences when I experienced success in presenting demos to my students. Encouraged by these previous successful rituals, science demonstrations had become a site for reproduction of emotions such as enjoyment for individual students, the class, and me.

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James: I was a past student of Steve and Alberto, and later became their doctoral student. My most memorable learning experiences with science demonstrations during my preservice science teacher education course involved discrepant events taught by Steve Ritchie. Discrepant events involved short demonstrations that were successful in focusing my attention and challenging me, and my peers, to explain what we observed scientifically. After graduating from the preservice teacher education course taught by Steve and Alberto, and becoming a high school science teacher, I subsequently used science demonstrations and discrepant events with my own students because demonstrations often involved simple materials, but created situations of high intensity focus, student engagement and inquiry. Donna: I used demos occasionally when I was a high school science teacher but often was not satisfied with the learning outcomes. When I began teaching preservice teachers at the Queensland University of Technology, I observed Steve’s classes and co-taught with him. I became aware of the positive interactions he had with students during the discrepant events and the successful outcomes for teaching science concepts. I decided to trial different discrepant events in my own classes at the beginning of each lecture or workshop in an attempt to reproduce the positive interactions witnessed in Steve’s classes. I observed students express emotions like happiness and surprise when I did the demos. Furthermore, my role modelling of how discrepant events could be conducted in high school science classes provided opportunities to explain the pedagogical approach to them. I now consider discrepant events to be a highlight of my university classes and students often remember them long after the classes are finished. In their professional experience debriefs, preservice teachers reflect on their use of demos in science classrooms recounting lively stories of students’ reactions as well as how they adapted them for the school context. From First-Order Rituals in Narratives to Second-Order Rituals Our narratives constitute our accounts of first-order rituals where the relevance of demos was first established for each of us. Emotions were produced and experienced in these situations that became attached to the sacred practice of demonstrations, and in an abstract sense to the idea of demos as effective teaching practices. Documented cases of this have been reported previously, for example, in a study of Donna’s class (Bellocchi, Ritchie, Tobin, King, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2014). In that study, preservice teachers attached strong emotions to their experiences with Donna’s demos. Experiences of specific emotions such as gaiety, joy, happiness, surprise, and wonder were evident during different phases of the predict-observe-explain (POE) science demonstrations (Bellocchi et al., 2014). In that study, evidence of the reproduction of valuable rituals by our preservice teachers in school science classrooms was not available. This limited the possibility of providing empirical evidence of the impact of demos through second order rituals. Steve Ritchie’s use

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of science demonstrations and his pre-service teachers’ intention to apply these in their high-school science teaching has been documented more recently (Bellocchi, Mills, & Ritchie, 2016). One preservice teacher went so far as practising demos with her own children, and this was the strongest evidence at that time of second order rituals being enacted by preservice teachers in our courses. Serendipitously for the present study, the university allocated Wade (pseudonym), a preservice science teacher, for a teaching placement in the same school in which Donna was conducting her school-based emotions study (King, Ritchie, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2015). This meant that for the first time we could study the reproduction of demo rituals by one of our students working with high school students. Wade agreed to continue his participation in our research while he was completing his school placement. The class taught by Wade was an 8th grade science class in a suburban state high school. Wade had selected an egg-in-the-bottle science demonstration to teach students about the air pressure concept. Although he stated during an interview that this was not one of the demos he had seen in Alberto and Donna’s science education classes at university, the concept of “science demonstrations” and the associated teaching practices such as the POE questioning technique was something he had learnt through their classes. As we saw through James’ narrative, he first experienced science demonstrations in Steve’s class. James subsequently completed his doctoral studies while teaching in a public high school under Alberto and Steve’s supervision. James’ doctoral study focused on his 10th grade science class and this created the opportunity, in this present chapter, to analyse data involving science demonstrations based on his teaching. In this way, James’ experiences represent second-order rituals complementing those of Wade. Whereas Wade studied as an undergraduate student, James was a postgraduate who had completed a previous science qualification before choosing to study an education degree. The opportunity to present data from two teachers with different backgrounds in science enhances the theoretical generalizability of our study beyond each individual case. RITUAL PRACTICES AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

We have offered some initial orientation to our theoretical stance through earlier descriptions of first and second order rituals in the introduction and narrative accounts. Before presenting our data analyses and constructing interpretations of second order rituals, it is necessary to elaborate the theoretical underpinnings of this study further. Here we establish some of the grounding principles of microsociology of emotion through interaction ritual theory. Any group ritual is a situated focused encounter whose ingredients and products include emotion, shared ideas, practices and feelings of group membership (Collins, 2004). To be accepted as a member of the group, a newcomer must initially share the group’s practices. In doing so, they can engage in collective sentiments directed 60

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at objects and ideas valued by the group (Durkheim, 1912/1964). When this is achieved, social ties may form so that the individual will, in future, seek the group and gather with them on repeated occasions. Emotional ties are formed within a group when there is shared focus on the objects, ideas, and practices that individuals have come together to share. Once these social and emotional ties are embedded in individual and collective practices, individuals begin to experience the moral pressure, or force, of the group leading to several outcomes for the individual and collective. The first of these outcomes for the individual is to succumb to the moral force so that they act on the compulsion to conduct themselves in morally proper ways. This drives them to share the group’s values and to engage in its practices, while also issuing negative sanctions to anyone who transgresses against practices, symbols or members of the group. Secondly, as individuals are receptive to the first outcome, their social bonds (i.e., the social and emotional ties) are strengthened. The other group members will receive him/her as a legitimate member of the group, and s/he will feel more compelled to sustain group ideals. A third outcome involves the re-enactment of rituals with the group, with others at other times and places, or individually through introspective and contemplative reflection. In each case, this is another form of strengthening the first set of outcomes that feed into the second. The final outcome is that social bonds are weakened when the practices, symbols and objects of the group are not re-enacted or respected. In this case, outcomes one to three are disrupted, as the individual no longer conducts him or herself in morally proper ways relative to the group’s ideals, symbols, practices or members. When an individual shares the social practices of the group, particularly through large gatherings focused on enacting the valued beliefs and practices, they experience the moral force at its strongest. These events are sites of production for ideas or concepts at those times when the emotional tone of the group becomes abstracted by individual minds and attached to the objects, practices and symbols shared by the group. In this moment, the moral force, shared collectively and felt at the individual level, is not considered by the individual to belong to the actions and sentiments of the group. This force is projected into the very objects, symbols and practices that formed the focus of the group’s attention. In the religious context studied by Emilé Durkheim (1912/1964), it was through these processes that the idea of other beings such as “gods” was formed in the minds of people. But Durkheim was not seeking to study religious phenomena in and of themselves. His ambition was chiefly to understand the social origins of any idea, not just religious ones, and he chose to achieve this through the study of religious beliefs (Bellocchi, 2017). Durkheim situated the origin of an idea (i.e., the concept of god) firmly in the realm of reality and social life by showing that in religious practices the efficacy attributed to gods is none other than the moral force of the group. This moral force is an internal individual experience resulting from participation, initially in collective practices. In establishing this position, Durkheim developed a social epistemology of knowledge whereby the concepts that form in the minds of individuals are first identified in the collective social practices of the group (see also Rawls, 2004). The salience 61

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of beliefs and practices for any individual derives from the emotional energy they experience during repeated encounters focused on sustaining group beliefs. It is these focused encounters in the Durkheimian sense that in this chapter are considered to be events, which are punctuated temporally by a series of eventful moments as social life unfolds during micro-situational processes. To study these events empirically, we focus on subtle experiences of emotional energy rather than more intense, overt, and transient emotions. In studying these eventful moments, it is necessary to consider the bi-directional relationship between social practices and emotional energy implicit in Durkheim’s social epistemology of knowledge. In the same way that someone may explain their emotion of respect verbally, it is also evident in their actions when they defend symbols and practices, which they consider to be sacred. Similarly, when individuals choose to gather with others to focus their attention on symbols and practices, this is a sign that past experience of emotional energy has motivated them towards this action (Collins, 2004). The bi-directional relationship explained here facilitates the translation of these theoretical ideas into methods for studying interactions. Evidence of the processes described above can be garnered from either direct observation of emotional experiences (e.g., through bodily movements, facial actions, vocalizations). It may also be evident through the fluency and continuity of actions in the way people choose to take a particular kind of action in relation to each other. This becomes evident in the timing of actions and how others receive these actions (cf. Davis, 2017). The goal in the next section is to illustrate how preservice science teachers come to share situated social practices with their teacher educators (i.e., professors) to re-enact science education culture. Within this discussion, the learning experiences of preservice teachers and teacher educators are represented by the enactment of culture and through cultural production and reproduction. Cultural (re)production and enactment is understood through a dialectic relationship between WUDQVIRUPDWLRQ _ UHSURGXFWLRQ RI REMHFWV V\PEROV DQG SUDFWLFHV .HQQHWK 7RELQ personal communication). Our understanding of culture is that it involves patterned DFWLRQVLQYROYLQJDGLDOHFWLFRISUDFWLFHV_VFKHPDVWKDWDUHHQDFWHGZLWKLQVWUXFWXUHV occurring in fields. Culture is characterized by patterns of thin coherence and everpresent contradictions so that it cannot be understood or represented as static or unchanging. In the sections that follow, each of us relates the flow of emotional energy during classroom rituals focused on science demonstrations through narratives and analyses of our lived experiences as science educators. SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS AS FIRST ORDER RITUALS

Alberto: In this section, I present analyses from my preservice science education class. Relative to my earlier narrative, the analyses represent a second order ritual for me, and a first order ritual for the preservice teacher, Wade, at the focus of the classroom event that is presented. Within this class, I had used science demonstrations (demos) deliberately to focus my preservice science students’ attention and elicit 62

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their engagement – emotional/cognitive – on three other occasions preceding the demonstration captured in Fragment 4.1. As turn 1 in Fragment 4.1 indicates, this was the last time I would present such a demonstration to this group of preservice teachers at the end of semester. At turn 6, Wade’s comment suggests it had been some time since I had presented a demo to this group. This was in part due to a focus on other work, and a mid-semester break for the students that produced a three-week gap between demos (turn 6). The demo referenced through Fragment 4.1 took place in the final week of semester and student attendance was down. Wade’s comment in turn 2 suggests his motivation for coming to class was his knowledge that a demo was scheduled for the session. Given that this demo represents the last link in a chain of successful demo rituals conducted earlier in the semester, the ritual had most likely become associated with certain expectation states. An expectation state is an anticipatory condition a person experiences toward a situation, another person or self (cf. Turner, 2007). If a situation, person, or self meets this expectation state, then favourable or pleasant emotions are likely to be experienced. The converse is true when expectations are not met. Wade’s verbal action indicates that he had certain expectations directed at science demos consistent with an internalization of emotional energy during previous successful encounters (i.e., that met his expectations). We see this subtle form of emotional energy as Wade accounts for his social action of attending class (i.e., regrouping for the ritual) due to his knowledge that another demo would ensue (turn 2). Wade was a regular participant when I called for students to assist with demos presented earlier in the semester. Video recordings of these activities sometimes reflect episodes of more dramatic emotional events involving Wade where he is seen to be smiling during the demo. Analysis of interactions in the video data, captured in the still images of Figure 4.1, reveal that Wade and Alberto’s facial expressions Fragment 4.1. Negative sanction and the hierarchy of sacred objects Turn

Speaker

Utterance

1

Alberto

((facing science demo materials on desk, lighting candle, smiling)) Okay team ((smiling)) .. ((no smile, facing demo materials)) ahhh::: I couldn’t possibly leave you without having one/last/demo/…

2

Wade

That’s why I came↑((melodically))

3

Alberto

=a:n:::::d ahhhh]

4

Class

[((laughter, smiling))

5

Alberto

((raises head, faces Wade)) [thanks Wade ((no smile, flat tone)), and that’s why I[ do them ((smiling, teeth showing))

6

Wade

[I’ve been waiting for this for 3 weeks ((slight smile))

7

Alberto

((smiles and nods his head as acknowledgement))

8

Class

((laughter continues))

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are consistent with the emotion happiness (cf. Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 1978/2002) in the context of these amicable interactions. The visual focus is directed at the materials they are manipulating in preparation for delivery of the demonstration.

Figure 4.1. Wade assists Alberto with a class demo

We can also see in the bottom section of this composite figure that the class is focused on the demo based on the orientation of most students’ bodies and heads directed at the materials and presenters. These images were taken from one of the demos that preceded Fragment 4.1. Evident in Figure 4.1 are the ritual ingredients of co-presence and mutual focus amongst the class, and shared emotion between the presenters during aspects of the demo. Mutual focus was also evident in the way the class spontaneously laughed in turns 4 and 8. Mutual focus of attention amongst the class and presenters is one indication of mundane emotional energy (Davis, 2017). If the practices being witnessed were not valued by the group, students would either not attend (as some had chosen to do in the final lesson), or they would not direct their mundane emotional energy through a common focus of visual attention at the materials and presenters. Subtle Emotionality Wade’s willing participation and anticipation of the last demo, as captured in Fragment 4.1, presents further evidence of underlying mundane emotional energy 64

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(Davis, 2017). Unlike higher intensity feelings that are expressed publically through distinctive facial configurations or bodily gestures and vocalizations, mundane emotional energy is the steady state of emotion that provides individuals with confidence and drive to act in a social situation (Collins, 2004). To identify mundane emotional energy, it is necessary to focus on the subtleties of interaction looking at both what is done and said, and what is not done and not said during interactions (Davis, 2017). Within the Durkheimian (1912/1964) framework and Collins’ theory presented earlier, this requires us to focus on the bi-directional relationship between social practices and emotional experience. Over time, the repeated emotional experiences during science demo interactions formed interaction ritual chains, so that these rituals became part of our (i.e., Alberto, Wade) teaching culture as conventional ideas and practices representing effective science teaching. Wade and I became partners in these demos as he opted to be involved in all demos as co-presenter or participant throughout the semester. Active participation in demos indicated to me that Wade was beginning to share the values I placed on demos as effective and important teaching practices. Repeated participation also told me that he was doing this above the level to which any other student in the class had done. In this way, his status within the hierarchy of the class rose in my eyes above the level of other students. This is also suggestive of us becoming more closely tied in our belief systems, and forming stronger social bonds. Participation in shared symbols and practices shows that one is a member of a group holding the same set of values and beliefs as other members; Wade was becoming part of the “effective science teacher” gang/club in my view and based on my rules of what counts as being “part of the gang.” Negative Sanctions for Transgressions against Sacred Practices Wade’s comment in turn 2 of Fragment 4.1 represented his appropriation of valuable symbols and practices, and also served as a negative sanction against me for making him (and the class) wait it out for three-weeks between rituals. In this context, the valence metaphor negative refers to a reprimand for a transgression against valued symbols, beliefs, or practices. For a student to offer such a reprimand to a teacher provides evidence that science demonstrations for Wade were not only important, but were placed above other learning experiences in this course and perhaps above the status of the teacher. His sanction illustrates that the right to participate in regular demo rituals had been violated. Wade’s actions can be taken as a way of defending this right. What this shows within a Durkheimian (1912/1964) standpoint, is that the science demonstrations were treated by Wade as sacred science teaching objects that were now abstracted within the learning experience hierarchy above the teacher himself. Or to state it more explicitly through the language of ritual practice, his comments are indicative of having formed a belief that demos are sacred science teaching practices. Within this framework, all beliefs are organized into two categories, sacred and 65

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profane, and practices sustain beliefs so that the two are interrelated parts of a whole belief system (Durkheim, 1912/1964). In this system, rites are the social rules that direct how people should act towards sacred objects or beings. Here, sacred objects refer to practices, ideas, words, expressions and formulae (Bellocchi, 2017). More importantly, the social forces that operate in the two domains of the sacred and the profane are different. That is, sacred objects are seen as imbued with an energy that is their own; it is not considered by group members to come from an external source, such as the groups’ practices. However, Durkheim (1912/1965) demonstrated in his meta-ethnography of Aboriginal and other indigenous ritual practices that the source of this energy is borne out of initial rituals; it is the morality that individuals feel towards objects and practices that give objects and practices their sacred character. When the individual feels compelled to show respect for a sacred practice or symbol, the motivating force he or she feels that drives their respectful actions is none other than their internalized emotional energy that was first established through collective, and emotionally charged, ritual practices focused on an object. The moral pressure perceived from the rules of the group that direct respectful action towards the sacred objects is the emotional energy that drives the individual to take a social action. Any social action that upholds valued ideas, symbols, objects, or group members is thereby an expression of either dramatic or undramatic emotional energy. As we can see in Fragment 4.1, Wade is defending the sacred object – the demo – by articulating the precise length of time (i.e., 3 weeks) since Alberto had initiated the last honouring of this ritual practice. Such defence for the sacred object directed at the teacher shows that in Wade’s value system, it is the demo and not the teacher who presented it, that is most important. One of the ways in which it is possible for a negative sanction to be issued by an individual who has a lower status (i.e., a student) than another (i.e., a teacher) in an institutional setting like this, is if the student places the practices and symbols in higher priority than the teacher. Alternatively, if the teacher transgresses the ritual rites of practice that must be adhered to in the presence of the sacred object (including the correct timing of rituals in the temporal sense), then the teacher is open to moral sanction from the group that is bound to uphold the sacred practices. There was, in contrast, no evidence of Wade or any other student delivering negative sanctions when lectures were not presented, suggesting that traditional lectures were not sacred objects for this group or Wade. This analysis suggests that science demos were at the top of the hierarchy of sacred objects, and other activities like lectures or working on curriculum documentation (i.e., part of the course content and learning experiences) did not register as sacred for Wade. My acknowledgement in turn 1 of Fragment 4.1 that “I couldn’t possibly leave [the class] without one last demo” also supports the above analysis. Through this utterance, I am recognising directly the importance of demos in science teaching practice by stating that in this very last lesson, I felt compelled to present a demo. This statement communicates to the class my values attached to demos as being so important that we had to re-engage in the ritual at this last opportunity. 66

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So far, the analyses establish the eventful, albeit mundane, nature of demos. In contrast, a previous study (Bellocchi et al., 2014) that established higher intensity emotions including wonder and gaiety as representing the collective and individual emotional energy during science demonstrations. Fragment 4.1 involving Wade contains evidence of the subtler emotional energy that is ever-present beneath the surface of classroom life. This mundane emotional energy became accessible here because of a perceived transgression against sacred rituals that led Wade to take social action against his teacher (i.e., Alberto). In some ways, an unplanned breaching experiment (cf. Garfinkel, 1967) had taken place whereby the normal order of the classroom as expected by the students had not been followed for, what Wade considered to be, an inordinate amount of time. Belief Systems Evident through Sanctions There is still more that can be discerned from Wade’s reaction to the situation that had formed around this demo ritual. In religious rituals, the concept or idea of a sacred being that has efficacy to achieve worldly phenomena comes from an individual’s projection of the collective moral force (i.e., the emotion of respect) beyond him or herself. Collective moral force becomes attached to practices, an object, idea, or symbol in a process called contagion (Durkheim, 1912/1964). That is, rather than believing that his or her feelings of respect towards a sacred object or sacred being are the reason why an individual believes that the object or being possess its own energy sui generis, the individual imposes that energy onto the object or being. In our case, Wade’s comments are suggestive of a belief that science demos are efficacious at achieving science teaching and learning goals (e.g., conceptual understanding, learner engagement) and of their own accord, these demos have the capacity to generate valuable outcomes in school settings. Another way to say this is that the sacred character of the demos does not come from their physical attributes, but rather from the belief that people, such as preservice teachers and teacher educators, share about the efficacy of these practices to achieve certain valued outcomes. An alternative explanation, of course, is that demos are less boring than lectures or other class activities, but as we shall see in Donna’s analyses, Wade’s reproduction of the ritual in his own school practices suggests that the interpretation of events discussed above is a more likely explanation than the alternative. I can now extend the earlier analysis of my conduct in Fragment 4.1, to inform understandings about my response to Wade’s sanction. One of the outcomes of successful rituals is social solidarity (Collins, 2004) or the formation and maintenance of social bonds (Bellocchi, 2017). Although I had demonstrated agreement with Wade on the importance of the demo when I acknowledged this in turn 1, my body direction and facial configurations in turns 5 and 7, add more to the story. The class receives Wade’s comment through laughter. We can interpret this laughter in two ways in the context of these interactions. One interpretation is that Wade’s negative sanction is seen to be a risky interactional move by someone of 67

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equal status to other students having directed such a move towards the higher status teacher. That is, the class could receive Wade as simultaneously brave and foolish. A second interpretation is that the collective laughter shows solidarity between Wade and the remaining students in valuing the sacred symbols and practices. That is, the collective laughter represents the class’ emotional energy and agreement with Wade’s negative sanction as much as it may also have been indicative of their reaction to Wade’s bold comment. I responded in two ways to Wade’s sanction where non-verbal communication is concerned. In turn 5, Fragment 4.1, I directed my gaze up from the demo materials to face Wade on my right. My body was angled away from Wade in my seated position, so that my torso, legs, arms and interlaced fingers were directed to the left towards other students. As I raised my head and faced Wade, my face was seemingly expressionless. That is, I did not at this point share in the class’ laughter nor did I smile, frown or have any other facial configuration recognisable as a dramatic emotional expression. Smiles or laughter are actions that could have communicated solidarity with the collective and supported their view and my opening comment in turn 1 that demos are in fact sacred. Instead, my posture and gaze direction, along with my facial configuration and tone of voice point to something different. As I utter “them” in turn 5, my mouth makes a flat shape with closed lips pressed together with moderate tightness. As I complete this facial movement, there is a downward turn in both corners of my mouth with lips remaining pressed closed. Once the utterance “them” is completed with the accompanying movements of my mouth, I then present a smile with my teeth showing. My lips move back and the corners of my mouth move upward. There is slight tensing of my eyelids causing my eyes to narrow. There are noticeable crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes. The “smile” could be interpreted as a genuine smile (Ekman, 2007), but my recollection of this interaction is different and offers scope for the smile to be interpreted as something else. In my past interactions with Wade, I had categorized him as something more than a high-status student in the class. I had taught Wade in a course before the one that is the focus of this analysis. From these experiences, I had labelled comments like those in Fragment 4.1 as smart-alec comments and Wade as a smart-alec. This colloquial expression in the present context refers a person who engages in sarcastic humour. There are negative connotations sometimes applied to this expression also (i.e., that the person is obnoxious), but this was not my view of Wade. These colloquial terms capture the view I had formed of Wade as an intelligent student who likes to show his capabilities and intellect through sarcastic comments and the brashness of some of his statements. My facial and gestural configurations throughout the exchanges in turns 5 and 7 of Fragment 4.1 support this view of my classification of Wade. In this way, there is evidence for both my respect for Wade as a group member who shared the value of symbols and practices I had spent considerable time establishing with his class. The contradiction to this view, arises from my past and current classification (i.e., Fragment 4.1) of him as a smart-alec. With this historical background in consideration, the smile I gave at the end of my 68

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response in turn 5 can be read as a social smile designed to communicate to the class that I want to maintain good terms (i.e., our social bond) with Wade in the presence of the class group. Perhaps I am also smiling to save face (Goffman, 1967) due to the social transgression to which I had been subjected. There is more happening in turn 5 than what I have considered so far. When Wade mentions the time-frame of three weeks, I nod my head in his direction showing again my acknowledgement that his statement was warranted but simultaneously a further blow to my status. My gaze and nod shows this as my head is turning down in a deep nod as opposed to a short “yes” nod that can represent agreement in social intercourse. A short nod would have sufficed to simply agree with his position as might have happened in another context where nodding is taken to mean “yes” or “I agree” (Stivers, 2008). Instead, my lengthy nodding action can be interpreted as acknowledgement and shame at the truth of his statement and the social transgression it offers me in the light of the rest of the class. Shame is an important social emotion that signals one’s acknowledgment of one’s transgressions. It is commonly signalled through a lowering of the head or gaze (Retzinger, 1991), which is consistent with the downward turn of my head at the bottom part of the head nod movement. I had responded to Wade’s negative sanction, as is expected (Turner, 2007), with suppressed annoyance that was covered by my social smile. The annoyance I felt was evident in the tensing of my lips when I expressed “them” at the end of turn 5 before rounding the turn off with my social smile. This smile serves the function of a repair ritual between Wade and me and for the benefit of the class. It shows that their laughter, that either approves his negative sanction or supports his view that demos are sacred, is well received and “taken in stride” by me. As the interactional turns in this episode of transgression and sanctioning end in turn 8 with the class’ response, I begin a new formal ritual by returning to the discussion of the planned demo and other examples of demos I was planning to share with the class. Restorative Practices There is one last dimension to the exchanges in Fragment 4.1 that remains to be explained for a full picture of the demo ritual unfolding at that time. As a member of the group who shares the belief that these rituals are sacred, I have very few options to get the interaction back on track other than to acknowledge Wade’s statement in the affirmative and to reassert the sacred status of the objects and practices by engaging in them. If I had chosen to abandon the ritual, I would have committed the most heinous crime against the expectations of this group and the belief system about the importance of demos for teaching and learning science, which I had spent considerable time in fostering. Earlier I outlined the way in which Wade sustained the sacredness of the demo materials and practices through his negative sanctioning. The emotions I expressed in response to this have meanings that can be discerned from the context and my narrative account of the situation. What remains to be elaborated further is how 69

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mundane emotional energy is evident from the exchanges. It has already been established that Wade valued the demo practices to the point where he raised their status above the status of the teacher in the interactional hierarchy represented in Fragment 4.1. His actions are evidence of the emotion of respect (Durkheim, 1912/1964; p. 207, emphasis added): We say that an object, whether individual or collective, inspires respect when the representation expressing it in the mind is gifted with such a force that it automatically causes or inhibits actions. Respect is demonstrated through upholding sacred symbols and ritual practices as Wade’s comments and the previous analysis established. When an individual experiences the emotion of respect, they have the confidence to take action in social situations presenting boldness in their demeanour and conduct. We saw this with Wade’s comments that first reprimanded my lengthy sojourn from presenting demos, and from his self-confession of attending class because of the demos. My actions of responding in the affirmative to acknowledge that his statement was fair are further evidence that I share the same respect for the practices. In addition, I am able to overlook the social transgression implied by Wade’s statement, which has the potential of lowering my status in the presence of the larger group and also invoking shame, by acknowledging his point and moving on with the demonstration. Wade’s case in my class has enabled me to present evidence supporting the claim that respect is a form of mundane emotional energy. This emotional energy drove Wade to the action of directing a reprimand at me. His actions also enabled me to illustrate the sacred nature of science demonstrations in teacher education classes during a first order ritual for Wade. Having established the mundane emotional energy of respect that illustrates the sacred nature of demo rituals, next Donna presents an analysis of Wade’s reenactment of demonstrations rituals in a high school science setting. Her analysis provides an empirical example of a second-order ritual taking place that reproduces emotional energy experienced initially in the first order ritual I have described here. SECOND ORDER RITUALS IN PRESERVICE TEACHING

Donna: Steve Ritchie and Jen Newlands (2017) explain that “in order to capture the temporally contingent nature of events in classroom studies, salient episodes or fragments of events need to be linked together” (p. 110) so that the story or narrative can be told by the researchers in a cogent way. In this section, I present an analysis of Wade’s high school teaching that creates a broader link to the previous event analyzed by Alberto. More narrowly within this section, I link three classroom episodes (Fragments 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4) showing the sequences of interactions that occurred during the egg-in-the-bottle demonstration that were salient for incremental changes in students’ conduct that culminated in the expression of intense emotions. The first episode (Fragment 4.2) shows how the students’ focus changed when Wade 70

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altered the structure of the class while the second episode (Fragment 4.3) shows how a shared favourable mood continued to build following Wade’s conduct, even when the outcome of the demonstration was not expected. Mundane emotional energy is identified in these episodes through the contrast in student participation in the demo activity. The final episode (Fragment 4.4) shows students’ expression of intense emotions when the demonstration was successful. Both preceding episodes represented through the narrative created by the classroom researcher, show that these teacher-student interactions were salient for affecting the heightened emotional outcome that occurred in the final episode. Enacting Science Demos with School Students During a field placement at a public high school reported previously (see King, Ritchie, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2015), Wade conducted the egg-in-the bottle demonstration outside the classroom by gathering the students under a tree. He gave a four-minute introduction prompting students to recall their prior knowledge about pressure asking questions such as: “So if we have our container and we keep putting in molecule after molecule after molecule, what’s going to happen to the pressure on the inside?” During this introductory teacher-student exchange, a small number of the students answered questions with many appearing disinterested since they were fanning themselves and some students were talking to the person next to them about topics unrelated to the demo. One particular student, Ashley who was often disinterested in science lessons as observed during our earlier study, was showing signs of disengagement at this stage. Ashley was sitting at the back of the class on the outdoor table with his head bent down looking towards the teacher for 58 seconds. Following this, he turned his head away from the teacher so that he was not looking at him and did not volunteer any answers. The orientation of his body was 90° in relation to the teacher rather than facing him like the cooperative position of the majority of the class (Argyle, 1979). At 3.2 seconds into the introduction, the teacher noticed Ashley was not looking at him and directed a question to him, “Who’s that at the back?” Ashley did not respond to the teacher’s initial question. The students turned to look at Ashley who was looking away and completely distracted. Wade asked him “What’s in the container Ashley?” referring to the imaginary container he had been using to illustrate the concept of pressure and paused for 1.6 seconds. Ashley rubbed his face and mumbled something inaudible forcing the teacher to say “Pardon?” Ashley mumbled a reply “air.” By directing a question at Ashley, Wade may have sought to re-focus Ahsley’s attention since he appeared to be distracted. As discussed previously in this chapter, Wade valued science demonstrations as effective at achieving science and teaching learning goals which may explain his actions for seeking Ashley’s attention. After the introduction, Wade changed the structure of the lesson by moving away from the tree where they had assembled initially, to begin the demonstration on an outdoor table. Ashley moved quickly to position himself with his legs crossed sitting 71

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on the table in close proximity to the science equipment and the teacher. Immediately, there was a change in his conduct compared to the aforementioned exchanges, as he now awaited the demonstration. Ashley’s positioning in this instance was a social action directed at the social practice. Such actions show that he valued the activity that was about to occur. These actions can be attributed to Ashley’s internalisation of collective emotional energy in previous rituals (Durkheim, 1912/1964), which afforded him the agency to act. In other words, Ashley’s repositioning so he could see the demonstration constitutes social action, which is interpreted as evidence of his heightened emotional energy (Collins, 2004). Most of the students in the class gathered around the table moving from sparse to dense bodily assembly (Collins, 2004). Bodily co-presence such as students standing together in a group creates a sense of belonging to the group by building a barrier to outsiders. This is a necessary condition for the establishment of interaction ritual chains that can contribute to building emotional energy conducive to sustaining ritual practices (Collins, 2004). The students’ eyes were focused on Wade as he asked Tyler (i.e., another student) to help set up the experiment. Wade began with a brief discussion about particle theory. The excerpt presented in Fragment 4.2 occurred 29 seconds after he moved to the table to begin the demonstration showing how the teacher created a shared mood that coincided with changes in Ashley’s engagement in the lesson: Fragment 4.2. Ashley is focused on the demonstration Turn

Speaker

Utterance

O7

Wade

so when something gets more energetic it bounces around a lot more alright ((Ashley leans in and points to the egg in the bottle)) ..and it also wants to expand…and if there’s not much space in here ((referring to conical flask)) where’s it going to expand to? ((Tyler points in an upwards direction with his finger)) ((Wade mimics Tyler’s actions and points up too)) Cheeew’ ((Student – Teacher discussion with multiple students follows about how to get egg out of bottle))

During Fragment 4.2, there was an observable change in Ashley’s conduct as he focused on the demonstration, moved forward and pointed his finger at the egg with a smile on his face. Other students at this point also were focused on the demonstration and listening to the teacher-student exchange. Tyler’s non-verbal actions, pointing upwards to indicate that the air had escaped, answered Wade’s question which was a resource for the teacher who mimicked this action to the whole class. Wade’s repeating of Tyler’s actions showed a degree of synchrony between Wade and at least one other student (i.e., Tyler). This action is suggestive of “a shared mood and mutual focus necessary for synchrony and the emergence of positive emotional energy” (Milne & Otieno, 2007, p. 545). During this six-minute episode, Wade 72

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was building the students’ anticipation through the shared experience. After Ashley pointed to the flask, there was a 28 second discussion about how to get the egg out of the bottle as Wade prepared the paper for lighting for a second attempt. During this time, the shared mood of the class became more favourable than when they were under the tree. Unexpected Demo Outcomes Mediate Mutual Focus The next excerpt followed the previous episode when Wade asked a student (Tyler) to put the egg on top of the glass conical flask. The following episode shows an unexpected outcome from the demonstration, which Wade used as a teaching-learning opportunity while continuing to build students’ shared favourable mood. This Fragment 4.3. The unexpected occurs building a shared favorable mood Turn

Speaker

Utterance

08

Jackie

[This is cool]((Wade places burnt paper in conical flask))

09

Wade

[Alright, chuck it on top ((Tyler then places the egg on the mouth of the beaker)). Let’s se:e’ ((the students are focused on the burning paper that is placed in the conical flask and then the egg is placed on top))(0.2)

10

Peter

Sir [it’s not burning anymore ((referring to the paper))

11

Ashley

[it’s not burning, Sir

12

Student

The tape extinguished it sir

13

Jackie

the egg extinguished it, [Sir] ((Wade takes the egg away from the top of the conical flask))

14

Wade

[Actually] let’s think about it, why might it not be burning? ((students respond simultaneously))

15

Ashley

[because there is no air]

16

Tyler

[because there is no oxygen in it]

17

Students

[no air..no oxygen..] ((other students saying similar things and talking over each other))

18

Wade

Wa:it ((Wade holds up his finger)) ha:a:a’ guys,gu:ys’ can you say that again for me, please ((Wade points to a student on his right, Tyler))

19

Tyler

There is no more oxygen inside it

20

Wade

Yeah, so the first bit of paper we threw in there has already burnt up all the oxygen in there. So there might not have been enough left to fuel that fire. ((Ashley waves his hands over the flask to get rid of the smoke))

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episode shows that despite the egg not entering the conical flask, Wade capitalized on this teaching and learning opportunity to probe students’ understanding about combustion reactions as well as continuing to build the emotional energy. As seen in Figure 4.2, the teacher (front right of picture) and students were mutually focused on the demonstration as they eagerly awaited the outcome. The overlapping speech and repetition (see turns 10 and 11; 12 and 13) indicated students were engaged with the demonstration (Milne & Otieno, 2007). In turn 11 Ashley volunteers an observation that the paper was not burning and in turn 15 he offers a suggestion for why this might be occurring when he says “because there is no air.” Ashley’s active participation by responding in turns 11 and 15 are evidence of him taking social action. At this point, all students are focussed on the demo, some are leaning their heads towards the demo showing embodied alignment. Such subtle coordinated actions, which last throughout the episode, demonstrate a sense of common purpose (Davis, 2017) and are indicative of mundane emotional energy.

Figure 4.2. Mutual focus of students as they watch the egg-in-bottle demonstration. Ashley is sitting cross-legged on the table (see left hand side)

When Wade asked the question in turn 14 “why might it not be burning?” he used the demonstration to elicit students’ understanding, affording them opportunities to draw on their prior knowledge to explain the unexpected outcome. Ashley and Tyler answered the question as other students simultaneously called out similar answers overlapping with each other (turn 17). Wade stopped students from calling out the answers by holding up his finger and saying “wait” and then pointed to Tyler on his right to repeat his answer, which provided a resource for the whole class. Wade affirmed Tyler’s answer with “yeah” and then elaborated on the answer in turn 20 explaining how the first bit of paper they put in the conical flask may have used up the 74

SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS AS MEDIATORS OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES

available oxygen causing the second bit of paper not to sustain a combustion reaction. In such a way, Wade probed students’ understanding by relating the role of oxygen as a fuel for combustion reactions to the experiment. Wade’s questioning was crucial for engaging students with the science concepts on this occasion. The episode shows how Wade was successful in continuing to build students’ excitement evident through the ritual ingredients of mutual focus, co-presence and shared emotions as well as the overlapping speech patterns and positive comments such as “this is cool” (turn 8). Wade reflected on this demonstration on two occasions after the class – in his teacher journal and class notes. He wrote “I successfully picked up on several forms of conduct displayed by the egg to discuss with students” (class notes) and “[I] brought up prior knowledge and made links to observations as opportunities arose” (reflective journal). As a researcher in Wade’s class, I observed him repeat this probing of students’ understanding in a subsequent lesson related to the outcomes of burning a banana chip where students also were required to observe changes during combustion. For Wade, this spontaneous questioning which related to the observations of the experiment, was an important pedagogical approach that he reproduced. Interestingly, this strategy was modelled in the first order rituals in Alberto’s class. Not only did Wade reproduce this strategy in a second order ritual creating opportunities for learning, but he successfully created excited anticipation amongst the class. Such conditions were antecedents for the intense emotions experienced in the next episode. Demos Mediate Changes from Subtle to More Intense Emotions After Fragment 4.3, the students suggested that Wade try the demonstration again. Wade prepared another conical flask and lit a strip of paper prior to the next excerpt which occurred 36 seconds after the last episode: Fragment 4.4. Students’ expression of intense emotions Turn

Speaker

Utterance

21

Wade

Alright let’s do this. And see if we can get him a friend, shall we ((referring to the egg already in the flask))?

22

Student

OK [I don’t think he wants a friend]

23

Ashley

[Egg has frie:ie:nds] ((friends is said with a high pitched voice)) ((Wade lights the strip of paper and puts it into the beaker))

24

Wade

Alright chuck it on ((asking Tyler to place the egg on the mouth of the conical flask)) ((Tyler places the egg on top and everyone observes. There is absolute silence at this point. The egg slowly enters into the neck of the beaker and then explodes into the beaker.(0.2) Everyone screams))

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Figure 4.3. Students’ expression of intense emotions

In this episode, the students expressed the intense emotions of happiness/joy and surprise when the egg entered the flask as seen in Figure 4.3 (turn 24). The heightened emotional mood that was building across Fragments 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 built to collective effervescence in turn 24 when the crowd took part in the collective action (i.e., screaming) suggesting that the momentary sense of solidarity became quite strong. Analysis revealed that students’ facial expressions showed both happiness and surprise (King et al., 2015). One example of this occurred when a female student (Jackie’s) jaw dropped and her hands were over her mouth showing the happy/surprised expression (see Figure 4.3; Ekman & Friesen, 2003). At the same time, other students had smiles on their faces. In a similar way, micro-analyzing the expressions of the students visible in the photo showed that they expressed a similar smile. The subtle emotions that Ashley displayed in Fragments 4.1 and 4.2 were important for understanding how a previously disengaged student (King et al., 2015) participated in a demonstration affording an opportunity to learn science. In the first two episodes, we explained how Ashley chose to participate when he took social action directed at the social practice indicative of mundane emotional energy. The undramatic emotional energy, which bubbled away in these episodes, was salient for establishing Ashley’s commitment to, and engagement with, the activity. In Fragment 4.3 there was an expression of more intense emotions when the egg entered the bottle and Ashley expressed his excitement through a high-pitched exclamation in turn 23. Such highly intense emotional experiences are important too because they are remembered a long time after the event (King et al., 2015). The analysis shows that demonstrations can elicit both dramatic and undramatic emotional expressions both of which are important for understanding how middleyears students learn as well as how pre-service teachers use science demonstrations as mediators of emotional experiences.

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Empowering Preservice Teachers through Successful Rituals These three episodes show Wade’s commitment to completing the egg-in-the-bottle demonstration successfully in his class. Previously we have shown that Wade valued the ritual of demonstrations as an important pedagogical approach for engaging students and achieving valuable science outcomes. Furthermore, we argued that the mundane emotional energy of respect, which drove Wade to reprimand Alberto for waiting three-weeks between demos came from his own internalized emotional energy. Such respect towards a sacred object like the demonstration suggests that Wade’s previous experiences with demonstrations, may have come from collective, emotionally charged rituals, which he regarded as worth repeating. Interestingly, in our previous research (i.e., Bellocchi et al., 2014) we showed that pre-service teachers viewed science demonstrations as highly engaging and associated them with creating a positive emotional climate (i.e., the collective experience of emotional arousal shared by the class (Bellocchi et al., 2014)). Furthermore, the pre-service teachers conveyed emotions such as happiness, surprise, wonder, gaiety, and joy during demonstrations that involved the teaching strategies of POE (Predict-Observe-Explain) and role-play. Interaction ritual theory (Collins, 2004) suggests that experiencing heightened emotional arousal during such interactions may empower pre-service teachers to reproduce these demonstrations in their own classes to re-generate positive emotional climate. It is likely that Wade’s positive association with demonstrations, as a first-order ritual in Alberto’s class, empowered him to reproduce the second-order ritual in his own class that culminated in collective effervescence. SECOND ORDER RITUALS IN FULL-TIME TEACHING

James: The example I analyze in this section involved a 10th grade class studying ocean currents. The students had just completed an observational inquiry task where they observed the effect of heat on water circulation. My demonstration extended the student inquiry task by showing the effect of a salinity gradient on the movement of water. The demonstration involved a large glass container of tap water at room temperature, and a small bottle of hot saline solution containing green food dye. With my thumb over the top of the small bottle I placed it on its side at the bottom of the large container and released my thumb, allowing the contents of the bottle to escape, while students observed the unfolding phenomenon. Performing and Experiencing Demonstrations Earlier in the lesson the class had been working in groups around the lab and they were quite restless and talkative as they transitioned to the front of the room for my demo. The students who are the focus for my analysis are identified via pseudonyms. As I set up the demonstration at the front of the lab students adopted viewing positions, 77

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and I instructed them to watch very closely as the event would happen quite quickly. My instructions acted as an invitation to the students to participate as observers in this science demonstration. This teacher-directed assembly of students was part of the science demonstration ritual that not only achieved a mutual focus of attention through directedness of gaze and body positions, but also established an emotional sense of anticipation because something unusual was about to happen. I enacted my instruction in an everyday, mundane manner, meaning that I was checking student positions and ensuring their attentiveness in an undramatic emotional tone as if “nothing out of the ordinary was happening” (Collins 2004, p. 106). The students physically aligned their shared gaze around the science materials which followed my mundane instruction. The mutual attentiveness of my students is evident in Figure 4.4 as they remained poised for making an observation.

Figure 4.4. Mutual focus evidenced by facial alignment at the moment after Kim’s utterance in turn 1. Shady (lower left), Dre (rear), Simon, Tania, Erin (right). Kim is out of view to the right

Figure 4.4 shows the mutual gaze of my students evident via the facial alignment of each student toward the demonstration that was just off to the side of the camera. Other students in the class (including Kim) were observing from similar positions to the right of Erin on the far right of the image in Figure 4.4. The intensity of solidarity. The moments of this ritualized experience were indicative of high levels of dramatic emotion, a focus on the co-construction of shared 78

SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS AS MEDIATORS OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES

Fragment 4.5. Emotional energy in a second order ritual Turn

Speaker

Utterance

1

Kim:

0

2

Dre:

LWVSRXULQJRXWƍ

3

Kim:

that actually looks so coo::l

4

Erin:

0

5

Shady:

NO [its NOT a gas]

6

James:

[it looks like a gas]

7

Dre:

its sinking to the bottom because its cooler than the water in the beaker ((raises arm to point))

8

Shady:

12LWVZDUPƍHUKHDGWXUQVVOLJKWO\WRZDUG'UH

9

Kim:

wouldn’t it be heavier because its got like(.) salt in it(0.1) [in a way]

10

James:

[yep]

11

Shady:

AND the food dye:

12

Kim:

thats ACTually SO::o coo::l

its coming out0

it’s a gas0

ideas, and an underlying tone of undramatic emotion, all of which contributed to the intensity of solidarity throughout this experience. This is evident in the following transcript where Kim whispers “0it’s coming out0” at turn 1, and Dre expands on WKLV XWWHUDQFH ZLWK ³LW¶V SRXULQJ RXWƍ´ ZLWK D ULVLQJ SLWFK DQG KLJKHU YROXPH WKDQ Kim, indicating emotionality (Szczepek Reed, 2010). Evidence of shared emotional experience is further accumulated as Kim declares “that actually looks so cool” in turn 3. At turn 4 Erin quietly whispers an idea by stating “it’s a gas.” Erin’s utterance enacts an explicit idea into the ritual that may be indicative of the intensity of the undramatic emotion because the group’s attention not only involves a physical focus, through the direction of gaze and body alignment toward demo materials, but also the beginning of conceptual entrainment (cf. Davis, 2017). That is, their initial utterances are the precursors to what later becomes a conceptual explanation of the observed phenomena. Shady follows Erin’s utterance with an emphatic exclusion of Erin’s idea at turn 5 as indicated by vocal stress placed on “NO” and “NOT.” The utterance at turn 5 by Shady had the potential to disrupt the mutual focus on ideas and the solidarity of the group, if, for example, Erin took offense to his remark and embarked on a strong rebuttal. My immediate action as the science teacher was to overlap Shady with my own utterance “it looks like a gas” in turn 6. My utterance at that moment unified the conflicting ideas put forward by Erin and Shady by creating an analogy. That is, I acknowledged that there were similarities with a gas, and also differences, by using the word “like” in turn 6. By creating an analogy in this situation my actions maintained solidarity because the analogy allowed the 79

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simultaneous inclusion of both Erin’s and Shady’s ideas. Evidence of this solidarity comes from the lack of confrontational argumentation after turn 6. Interactional repair maintains solidarity. My action at turn 6 enabled the ritual to continue by maintaining solidarity so that ideas were not being excluded. As a second-order ritual the science demonstration was itself sacred within my teaching because, from my earlier experiences of the first-order ritual in Steve’s classes, inclusivity, solidarity and the generation of ideas was an important part of the science demonstration. My place in this second-order ritual was therefore to maintain order, repair disjuncture and encourage the inclusion of ideas and inclusion of the group members who proposed them. The maintenance of solidarity is further evident in the way that the interaction continued at turn 7, with Dre proposing an explanation for what we (the class) had observed together. At turn 8, Shady made a counter-proposal that he directed at Dre by tilting his head in Dre’s direction while making an utterance. At this moment in the interaction, the group was experiencing a high level of mutual entrainment on the physical materials and possibly on the concepts (i.e., gas, gas-like properties, density) attributable to the materials. This was evident at turn 9 as Kim proposed that the saline solution may have been heavier (a higher density) causing it to sink, despite its higher temperature compared to the tap water. The pace of delivery of Kim’s proposal at turn 9 was slow and her use of language selective as she paused throughout her utterance, indicative of an underlying, undramatic emotional experience productive of science concepts. This undramatic emotional experience involved conceptual entrainment evident in my confirmation of Kim’s utterance as I followed with “yep” at turn 10. Shady then followed me at turn 11 with “AND the food dye,” confirming that all three of us (Kim, me and Shady) shared the idea of the solution being “heavier” (denser) than tap water. The experience of seeing the demonstration and contributing to the co-construction of ideas involved emotional experiences in both dramatic and undramatic forms. Kim’s final statement at the end of this interaction epitomized the experience of the group overall as she re-stated “that’s ACTually SO::o coo::l” at turn 12. These were the same words she stated earlier at turn 3, except this time the emphasis on “ACTually” and “SO” and the elongation of “SO::o coo::l” were more dramatic than her earlier slow-paced speech gesture. This more dramatic speech suggests an intensification of her emotion after she had reflected on the science demo experience over the duration of the demonstration. Emotional Transference from First to Second Order Rituals The example presented in this section of a science demonstration in my teaching illustrates the way in which demonstrations can engage students in both dramatic and undramatic forms of emotional experience. Such experiences become intense when the ritual of the demonstration is successful. The success of this ritual was 80

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made possible by the transference of my own emotional experiences of science demonstrations during my teacher education course with Steve (i.e., the first-order ritual). My earlier first order experiences situated me to replicate similar experiences with my own high school students. As a science teacher, I had internalized my experiences of science demonstration rituals, enabling me to assemble my own students in situations of mutual focus and anticipation. In addition to establishing the situation, my contribution to the success of the ritual in the episode analyzed above involved maintaining solidarity by building on and connecting student ideas. This was evident in the transcript of this example where I encouraged contribution and maintained inclusivity and openness in the group interaction. By replicating the science demonstration to involve high intensity, dramatic and undramatic emotional experiences I was re-creating these rituals, as memorable learning experiences for my own students. EMOTIONAL ENERGY FLOW ACROSS RITUALS SUPPORTS EFFECTIVE TEACHING PRACTICE

The overarching narrative that operates across this text is one of lived experiences of science demonstration rituals. Emotional energy that flows through first-order rituals is reproduced in predictable ways, at times, when rituals are re-enacted by individuals in some other time or place. As the re-enactment of practices unfolds in different places at different times, emotional energy is invoked in ways that parallel its initial formation during the first rituals. In this way, second-order rituals are established. A failed gathering during a first-order ritual would result in dissipation of emotional energy and it would not be possible for the ritual of science demonstrations to be reproduced across time and space with the same efficacy thereby inhibiting the formation of second-order rituals. Herein we find the inherent efficacy of science demonstrations as effective teaching and learning strategies. Engaging in these practices fosters second-order rituals, which serve to sustain the ritual practice for the originators of the first-order ritual. If science demonstrations lost this capacity, then science educators would be unlikely to continue the practice. If science demonstrations elicited unfavourable emotional experiences, it is also unlikely that any of us would continue with this practice due to the emotional contradiction this would generate for us as individuals and for the collectives we gather (i.e., our classes) each year to participate in the rituals. As we have seen in previous work (Bellocchi et al., 2016), it is also likely that students, such as preservice teachers studying online, are possibly enacting the rituals asynchronously through what are known as third-order rituals (Collins, 2004). This more introspective, asynchronous, or social-psychological ritual is also unlikely to be sustained should first or secondorder rituals fail to achieve their efficacious outcomes. Our present study serves as a bridge to that earlier work where it was not possible to identify second-order rituals due to students studying online. Alberto Bellocchi, Kathy Mills, and Steve Ritchie (2016) reported that some preservice teachers studying online did in fact express 81

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the desire to enact science demonstrations, and one teacher even practised the ritual with her own children before planning to use it in schools. In this chapter, we have presented evidence of second-order rituals in our own teaching and the experiences of Wade and James. We have also illustrated how these practices sustain emotional energy at other times and in other places. When preservice teachers re-enact science demonstrations, this provides evidence that they have constructed a symbolic representations of the demos as effective science teaching practices. Evidence that this is the case comes from the practices observed in second order-rituals outlined in this chapter. We have presented here empirical evidence in science classrooms by describing how emotional events are a constituent of situated social practices that give rise to the abstract symbolic representations adopted by individuals. This perspective is consistent with the processes outlined initially by Durkheim (1912/1964) and more recently by Collins (2004). Moreover, the analysis of situated social practices is essential for understanding how this may come about. Third Order Rituals: The Next Frontier for Research on Interaction Rituals? Third order rituals are those introspective and reflective rehearsals that individuals perform in physical isolation from others (Collins, 2004). Although Bellocchi et al. (2016) provided some evidence that online students may engage in these practices; third-order rituals present the next frontier for empirical studies of interaction rituals in science education. Drawing on ethnomethodological perspectives in the present chapter, we have shown, as James Davis (2017) did elsewhere, the mundane emotional energy that is ever-present during social practice. This approach to studying subtle conduct during situated classroom practices may offer one approach to accessing third order rituals that are not evident through vocalizations. Another related approach is to draw on phenomenological or hermeneutic phenomenological perspectives (van Manen, 2015) sensitive to (in/re)trospection and lived experience. Some of this work is underway as Alberto has begun a range of phenomenological studies of emotional teaching experiences (see Chapter 11 this volume), and James has similarly studied high school students’ emotional experiences along these lines. Our present chapter, with our own stories of lived experiences represents a collective effort to bring together first and third person accounts of first and secondorder rituals, that could serve as a guide for studies of third-order rituals. The most elusive goal is accessing genuine first-person experiences from research participants such as students. The limiting factor here is the need for participants to have some understanding of phenomenological practices before they can indeed share firstperson experiences rather than accounts of experiences (van Manen, 2014). One encouraging development is that when it comes to emotions, others may be better at identifying our emotional expressions than we are at identifying them ourselves.

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By reviewing physiological and neurological studies, Turner (2007) explains that this emotion identification phenomenon is related to the speed with which we produce bodily configurations associated with emotional experiences relative to the speed with which we become consciously self-aware of their production or the associated emotions. From such a perspective, having research participants reviewing a video of their interactions and self-identifying their emotions is potentially as effective as an outside observer doing the same. Although some of the underlying ontological assumptions about emotion would need to be carefully considered in this approach, from a practical perspective, gaining first and third person perspectives on emotional experiences is likely to be more informative than garnering one perspective alone. If we develop effective ways of teaching participants to be phenomenologically aware and analytical and couple this with self-identification using video data, we may eventually obtain more comprehensive understandings of third order rituals using a range of methods that supplement selfreported accounts. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to our research assistants Senka Henderson and Maryam Sandhu for their contributions to various aspects of these projects. The Australian Research Council Linkage and Discovery Grants, contract grant numbers LP110200368 and DP120100369 supported the research presented in this chapter. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Research Council. REFERENCES Argyle, M., Graham, J., Campbell, A., & White, P. (1979). The rules of different situations. New Zealand Psychologist, 8, 13–22. Bellocchi, A. (2017). Interaction ritual approaches to emotion and cognition in science learning experiences. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 85–106). Dordrecht: Springer. Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/sce.21159 Bellocchi, A., Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K. G., King, D. T., Sandhu, M., & Henderson, S. (2014). Emotional climate and high quality learning experiences in science teacher education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 1301–1325. doi:10.1002/tea.21170 Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davis, J. P. (2017). Emotions, social beings & ethnomethods: Understanding analogical reasoning in everyday science classrooms. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cas (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 121–140). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_7 Durkheim, E. (1915/1964). The elementary forms of the religious life (J. W. Swain, Trans.). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Ekman, P. (2007). Emotions revealed. New York, NY: St Martin’s Griffin.

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A. BELLOCCHI ET AL. Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Hager, J. P. (1978/2002). Facial action coding system: The manual [CDROM]. Salt Lake City, UT: Research Nexus. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press. King, D., Ritchie, S., Sandhu, M., & Henderson, S. (2015). Emotionally intense science activities. International Journal of Science Education, 37, 1886–1914. doi:10.1080/09500693.2015.1055850 Rawls, A. (2009). Epistemology and practice: Durkheim’s the elementary forms of religious life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retzinger, S. M. (1991). Violent emotions: Shame and rage in marital quarrels. New York, NY: Sage Publications. Ritchie, S. M., & Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 107–119). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0 Szczepek Reed, B. (2010). Beyond the particular: Prosody and the coordination of actions. Language and Speech, 55, 13–34. doi:10.1177/0023830911428871 Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41, 31–57. doi:10.1080/08351810701691123 Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: A sociological theory. London: Routledge. van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of practice: Meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. van Manen, M. (2015). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (2nd ed.). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Alberto Bellocchi is a principal research fellow and Associate Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. His current research program focuses on understanding the interactions between emotions, social bonds and learning science. He conducts this research in high school science settings and university teacher education classes. Two other strands of this research program include investigations of the connections between emotion, social bonds and science inquiry, and emotion management of teachers and students. Alberto is a Lead Editor of Cultural Studies of Science Education and an editorial board member of Journal of Research in Science Teaching. He is the lead co-editor of the collection Exploring emotions aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research published by Springer in 2017. James P. Davis is a researcher and lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. James has a background in qualitative and quantitative research in health and science education. His current research focuses on analogical reasoning in science teaching and learning, the sociology of emotions in high school science classrooms, and research applications of ethnomethodology.

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Donna King is an Associate Professor in science education. Her research in science education spans three interconnecting fields: the emotional engagement of students in science in the middle years, using engineering contexts for teaching science and context-based science education. An outcome of this work is the development and implementation of innovative contextbased units where teachers have adopted new pedagogical approaches for teaching science. Recently, she completed a project with a team of researchers from the Queensland University of Technology and the Department of Education and Training to establish a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Hub for schools where teachers worked with industry partners to connect STEM in the classroom with real-world STEM. She was recently invited to be the co-chief editor of the international journal Research in Science Education.

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5. NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL EVENTS DURING SCIENCE INQUIRY

ABSTRACT

In this chapter I present an original study of the interplay between emotions and science inquiry in an 8th-grade science class. I address the need to research emotional learning events by focusing on third-order (introspective) rituals. Research on emotion and science inquiry is scant, making the need for work like this pressing. Through analysis of student emotion diary data during three different inquiry activities, I focus on emotional events that may work against sustained engagement with inquiry. Practical implications are considered through the development of two inter-related perspectives named pedagogy of emotion and emotional pedagogy to assist teachers and students in addressing deleterious emotions related to science inquiry. Keywords: science inquiry, pedagogy of emotion, negative emotion, emotional event, emotion diary, emotional pedagogy I don’t care what your answer is, I just want you to have a crack … Today is about thinking: Hmmm what happened? What changed? Why do I think that changed? Think that you are a scientist … And today it’s your day, [I] wonder what happens if I turn this handle? Okay? Ready? Off you go …. (8th Grade Science Teacher) With these inspirational instructions, an 8th grade science class erupted into a series of science inquiry activities designed to develop their understandings of energy concepts. Student voices echoed in the small room forming a unified buzz of undifferentiated excitement as the teacher said, “go.” I was electrified by this buzz; it directed me to aim my video camera first this way, then that. I had caught the students’ excitement. Different devices and materials were located on desks and benches (i.e., workstations) in a room that looked like a repair workshop; bench drills and other tools had retreated to the edges, under the advance of the science inquiry activities. Euphoria splashed the drab grey walls bestowing them with a vibrancy that was not their own. The teacher’s instructions offered encouragement to students inviting them to “have a crack” (give it a go) and explore the materials at each workstation. She offered guiding questions in her preamble instilling a sense of wonder “Hmm what happened?” “I wonder what happens if…?” and indirectly

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_005

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suggested that these wonderings would involve thinking like a scientist. I watched, for the remainder of the lesson, as students engaged enthusiastically with the materials at each station. The room remained vibrant for the lesson’s duration with loud conversations, movements and overt enjoyment. Some students approached the materials in very systematic ways, testing each change they made before making another. Others appeared happy to alter variables less systematically and simply observe what happened. This was one of the most emotionally charged lessons I would witness over the ten-week observation period in this science class. I classified this lesson as eventful (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017) as it represented a rupture of high intensity and pleasant emotions based on initial observations and when compared to other lessons during the study period. Observing students in this context raised my interest about the possible interactions between science inquiry and emotional events, especially as science inquiry would become an on-going focus for the teacher’s instruction. The workstation inquiry activity could be classed as guided inquiry because teachers had pre-selected materials and provided basic instructions before setting students off with their investigations. Teacher scaffolds included some guiding questions (“What I [the student] did? “What I predict will happen?” “What does happen?”). Beyond these basic questions and the teacher’s opening statement, students freely manipulated the materials and responded to the activity as they wished. The students’ excitement and enjoyment was clear to anyone who saw the class in action that day. That students found this lesson highly engaging is unsurprising, as the enjoyment of practical work has been long established in the literature (Wellington, 2005). For this reason, in the present study, I attend to what are commonly referred to as negative emotions. Focusing on these kinds of emotional events is important, because as Stuart Firestine (2016) has recently noted, dealing with failure and setbacks is a normal part of scientific work. When experiencing failure and setbacks, we can expect negative emotional events to arise (e.g., frustration, annoyance, disappointment), as situations, self or others fail to meet our expectations (cf. Turner, 2007). Understanding negative emotional events in science inquiry can help us to develop pedagogies for supporting students in overcoming setbacks and sustaining their engagement with science. My initial experiences and reflections led me to ask: “How do negative emotional events relate to science inquiry?” Despite the growing interest in emotions in science education research (cf. Sinatra, Broughton, & Lombardi, 2014), relatively little attention has been given to the emotions experienced by students during different types of inquiry (Wellington, 2005). Jerry Wellington’s (2005) focus was on highly scaffolded or guided tasks such as cookbook experiments, where he identified a critical stance towards the inclusion of such tasks in school science. Wellington (2005) highlighted questions about whether practical work amounted to busy-work, involving manipulation of equipment, rather than intellectual effort focused on understanding scientific ideas. Another question he raised focused on differences in the cognitive and affective outcomes associated with practical work. Wellington identified the need 88

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for research to understand more directly which of these outcomes are most salient in different forms of practical work, and what strategies are effective for bridging the phenomenal knowledge acquired by students during practical activities, and the important connection to scientific explanations for observed phenomena. Some recent progress in this direction includes Lama Jaber and David Hammer’s (2016) study of epistemic affect in an elementary science class, research focusing on student interest such as studies by Niels Dohn (2013) on engineering design activities, and Maria Maulucci, Bryan Brown, Salina Grey, and Shayna Sullivan’s (2014) study of authentic inquiry experiences in middle school science. Each of these studies moves beyond the cookbook experiment (i.e., practical work) to investigate inquiry activities that are more aligned with the work of scientists. Despite this recent progress, these studies were focused on affective aspects of learning (i.e., interest, attitudes) and some researchers came to focus on these post hoc (i.e., Jaber & Hammer, 2016). Such foci leave the direct investigation of specific emotions, in contrast to affect, associated with science inquiry under researched. This study expands previous work that has focused on teachers’ emotional events during science inquiry in high school settings (Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu, Sandhu, Henderson, & Roth, 2013) from related theoretical orientations to those presented here, and work that is more recent focusing on experiences of high school students during science demonstrations and guided laboratory work (King, Ritchie, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2015). EMOTION CONCEPTS AND LIVED EXPERIENCE

Numerous perspectives on what constitutes an emotion are found in different fields. Jonathan Turner’s (2007) sociological theory of emotions is useful because it seeks to complement evolutionary/biological, neurological perspectives on emotion with sociological ones. Psychological, physiological/neurological, and evolutionary perspectives are not salient methodologically for this study, as my interest lies in understanding students’ first-person (phenomenological) accounts of emotional events, which are reported using cultural labels commonly referred to as emotion labels. Within this broad perspective, emotional perturbations constitute an event (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017) on a micro-social scale as fine as the level of the individual. Emotional events involve a transformation such as from a calm/ indifferent situation for an individual or group, to elevated or depressed situations (Bellocchi & Turner, 2017). Furthermore, as theorised recently (Bellocchi & Turner, 2017), the valence metaphors negative and positive commonly associated with emotion labels (i.e., anger is negative; happiness is positive), require clarification within empirical studies. For the purposes of this study, the emotions identified with the metaphor negative are those that have the capacity to disrupt students’ learning progression during science inquiry activities, those that are unpleasant to experience (e.g., disappointment), or those that, from a student perspective, are associated with unfavourable circumstances. 89

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In this study, I assume that in retelling an emotional event, a student has first noticed such transformations in their own body systems or that of others, or in situations, and that these experiences have remained salient at a time after the actual event took place. In Chapter 4 of this collection, I made the case that studies of emotional events need to address third-order rituals. Briefly, a third-order ritual is an introspective circulation of symbols carried out by individuals with or without face-to-face interaction (Collins, 2004). Randall Collins (2004) recommends using reflective accounts for accessing third-order rituals. As my colleagues and I have shown elsewhere (Bellocchi, Mills, & Ritchie, 2016), this can be achieved using emotion diaries (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017). The present study represents an attempt to initiate this work in the context of school classrooms. In accordance with the perspectives on emotion outlined above, I accept that terminology including anger, fear, happiness, frustration, annoyance, anxiety, disappointment, and pride, for example, serve as social accounts of the lived experiences that we call emotions or emotional events. Within this perspective, an emotion such as happiness is not a physical particle (like an atom or a cell) that can be located somewhere in the biological being (Bellocchi, 2017). The label happiness, for instance, is a linguistic device used in human interaction to communicate verbally about experiences that are lived in-the-moment or recounted at another time. Consistent with a phenomenological perspective on lived experience (van Manen, 2015), I take students’ personal accounts as reflections on emotional events in the way these experiences had meaning for students and in the way that students make meaning emotionally during relevant classroom events (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017). In the context of emotional events, lived experiences reported through diaries can represent whole events or smaller fragments of events. EMOTION RESEARCH AND SCIENCE INQUIRY IN SCHOOL SETTINGS

In the last decade, we have seen an increasing focus on emotion research in science education when compared with preceding periods (Fortus, 2014). Despite this trend, most studies have focused on students’ interest, motivation and attitudes towards school science with fewer studies investigating specific emotions (Wickman, 2017). It is acknowledged now that student engagement with science cannot be considered from a traditional cognitive focus alone. Considerations regarding social and emotional aspects of science learning experiences are equally important (e.g., Olitsky & Milne, 2012). Recent research efforts have focused on emotional events during high school science classroom interactions. Alberto Bellocchi and Steve Ritchie (2015) established connections between changes in student conceptual understanding that paralleled emotional changes during science inquiry activities. Beginning with the identification of frustration and irritation, transformation of these emotions that culminated in feelings of pride and triumph were reported. Bellocchi and Ritchie (2015) depicted the complex emotional trajectories experienced by 8th grade science students who had completed a guided inquiry activity. Their study provided detailed accounts of the 90

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emotional trajectories temporally distributed across one 10-week school term. One recommendation made in that study was that further research is needed to understand the interplay of emotion and a wider range of science inquiry tasks. Other studies have identified emotions including wonder and surprise, and happiness and joy in relation to science demonstrations and laboratory activities (King, Ritchie, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2015). Studies like these exemplify the positive experiences afforded to students and teachers by engaging in these activities. Louisa Tomas, Donna Rigano, and Steve Ritchie (2016) investigated the way in which 8th grade science students regulated their emotions such as anger and frustration in support of collaborative science video projects about socio-scientific issues. These researchers also found that pleasant emotions were directed at operating the video technologies and dominated students’ learning experiences rather than the socioscientific issue that was the focus of the video project. Recommendations from that study included that students should learn to regulate favourable emotions (e.g., enjoyment) and unfavourable ones (i.e., anger, frustration) for sustaining focus on science during learning experiences, rather than aspects of the learning environment such as manipulating video equipment. These recent studies have provided a distinct and perhaps unique focus on emotions as opposed to the more typical focus on affect in school science classrooms. They move closer to the necessary and nuanced understandings about emotion in science classrooms that are required. In the present chapter, I extend these earlier works by providing a unique study of the emotional events that may disrupt student progress during science inquiry, including guidedinquiry, open-ended inquiry, laboratory and non-laboratory inquiry. This range of inquiry activities goes beyond the earlier focus of research on science demonstrations, laboratory exercises, and video projects. STUDY DESIGN

The study is broadly informed by an interpretive paradigm with a focus on the first-person perspectives of individual students (Tobin & Ritchie, 2012). Consistent with an event-oriented approach to social inquiry, hermeneutic phenomenology was an important methodological influence. There were two major approaches to my data analysis including the technical aspects of thematic analysis outlined by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke (2012) and methodological perspectives on phenomenological thematic analysis developed by Max van Manen (2015). One class of 8th grade students and their teacher from a well-resourced coeducational school formed the study participants. Twenty-five out of 27 students in the class and the teacher agreed to participate. The university ethics board provided ethical clearance for the study, and the Principal, all student participants, their parents, and the teacher signed consent forms before commencement of data collection. All students were from an English-speaking background and the teacher was a Caucasian female in the age range of 40–50 years. Three out of five lessons 91

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scheduled on a fortnightly rotation were observed over a ten-week period (one school term) in negotiation with the teacher. Three lessons during which the instruction was focused on inquiry-based activities were selected for analysis. Science Inquiry Activities The science students participated in three inquiry-based activities during the study period. Two activities consisted of practical investigations whereas the third involved an internet-based literature search. Three levels of openness, Joseph Schwab (1962) suggested, are useful for classifying science inquiry. The first, and simplest, level involves provision of the methods and questions that guide student investigations. Students follow the prescribed inquiry procedures and establish relationships about variables. This is called closed inquiry. In contrast, the second level, guided inquiry, involves provision of the questions but students devise the methods of investigation. The third level of inquiry is more sophisticated than the preceding ones because students are presented with phenomena and must develop questions and derive evidence-based explanations of observed phenomena. This is referred to as open inquiry. Of the two practical inquiry lessons, the first, the Workstation Inquiry, was classified as guided inquiry because teachers supplied materials and some scaffolding questions to direct student investigations. Twelve workstations were located on desks around a room. In sequence the stations included (1) a hair dryer, (2) a hand turbine, (3) a radiometer, (4) a tuning fork with cup of water, (5) an acid fuel cell, (6) a solar powered dog, (7) a solar powered fan, (8) a model wind turbine, (9) steel wool burnt by using a power supply, (10) a car on incline ramp, (11) a tennis ball for dropping, and (12) a hydrogen fuel-cell car. Teachers provided students with a template for recording observations. The level of scaffolding was minimal, leaving students to freely manipulate materials and explore their workings (see also Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015). In the second inquiry lesson, student groups investigated information about forms of energy (e.g., solar, gravitational) using the Internet. This Literature Inquiry was scripted by the teacher and aligned with the closed inquiry category. A poster presentation, in which students were to present information to the class, was the culminating activity in the Literature Inquiry. The third inquiry lesson, the Rube Inquiry, involved a well-known design challenge based on the Rube Goldberg machine concept. Briefly, a Rube Goldberg machine is an over engineered device used to perform a mundane task such as dropping waste paper into a basket. Designing and building an over engineered machine presented students with numerous opportunities to experience a design activity and a way of exploring energy concepts. Students were required to bring materials from their homes into class and then design, build and test their contraptions. The design brief simply stated that their machine must use the principles of energy changes to function. This form of inquiry aligns with the category of open inquiry.

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In the first lesson of the school term, the class completed the Workstations Inquiry. There was a one-week gap between implementation of the Workstation Inquiry and the Literature Inquiry. The Rube Inquiry took place two weeks after the Literature Inquiry and occurred after formal assessment preparations had been completed in preceding weeks. IDENTIFYING AND ANALYSING EMOTIONS IN SCIENCE INQUIRY

Emotion Diaries Data sources for this study consisted of emotion diaries (Ritchie, Hudson, Bellocchi, Henderson, King, & Tobin, 2016) and my classroom observations. Diaries are one common method by which researchers can access emotional events (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017) and reflections about lived experiences (van Manen, 2015), which constitute third-order rituals. Nine emotion labels (excitement, happiness, enjoyment, pride, anxiety, frustration, annoyance, disappointment, and disgust) were presented in one column of a table in the emotion diaries (see Ritchie et al., 2016). Students could also include one more emotional label of their own choice. The emotion diaries provided a blank column beside each label where students explained at what or whom their emotions were directed. Students have been found typically to report 3–4 emotions per lesson and provide comments about each reported emotion (Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015). The diaries were administered at the end of each observed lesson over a 10-week period. In the current study, I took the emotional reports presented in the diaries as examples of small fragments of classroom experiences that were eventful (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017) thereby triggering students to report on these situations. Through my thematic analysis, I attempt to link these fragments to develop a coherent narrative about emotional events during science inquiry. Thematic Analyses of Emotion Diaries There were 192 positive and negative emotional reports for the three inquiry activities in the emotion diaries. In the analyses that follow, I have excluded cases where there was no specific association between the student comments and aspects of the inquiry activities represented in the themes and sub-themes. One example of an excluded comment is: “The activities [workstations] were fun.” This removal led to the exclusion of negative emotional reports pertaining to boredom, disgust, and enthusiasm. After I removed such statements, 165 relevant emotional reports remained, of which 72 (43.6%) represented negative events. Students also rated their overall interest levels for each observed lesson on a scale of 1 to 10 (low to high interest). Mean interest for each inquiry activity was as follows: Workstations, 7.5; Internet, 5.7; Rube, 8.5. As these mean interest levels suggest, the two laboratory/ practical inquiries were appraised with higher levels of interest than the Literature 93

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Inquiry. Although this could lead to assumptions about emotional events associated with differences in the laboratory versus non-laboratory nature of these tasks, the specific emotions reported for each inquiry type provided deeper understandings about aspects of each task pertinent to emotional events. Two stages of thematic analysis were implemented during which I established semantic, or literal, meanings of student comments and latent meanings (Braun & Clarke, 2012). To achieve an understanding of latent meanings I drew upon my classroom observations and, on a small number of occasions, I reviewed video sources forming part of the larger data corpus to check details about student conduct during lessons associated with emotional reports. In the first analysis stage, I created sub-themes of emotional events inductively by focusing on aspects of science inquiry evident in emotion diary comments. A second set of sub-themes was also created that targeted only on the emotion labels selected by students without focusing on any aspects of the nature of each inquiry activity. These two sets of sub-themes were compared leading to a condensed set of sub-themes at the end of stage one. Following these initial steps, I generated general themes to consolidate groups of sub-themes. For stage two of the analysis, I aligned each emotion label in the diaries with themes and sub-themes developed in stage one several months after the initial coding. As I compared my coding of one inquiry lesson with codes of another, I refined the initial categories until I produced the final set of themes and sub-themes that described all student comments focused on inquiry. These procedures included positive and negative emotional events. My analyses, which are presented next, focus on negative events organised according to themes and sub-themes. Exemplary quotes from student diaries have been selected to illustrate the essence of themes and sub-themes. NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL EVENTS

I assert that barriers to progress during stages of science inquiry are major sources of negative emotional events. In the sections that follow, themes representing barriers to progress with science inquiry are analyzed including (1) dysfunctional equipment and inappropriate use of equipment; (2) lack of relevant information or comprehension of information; and (3) repetitive trials. Theme One: Events Associated with Equipment Dysfunction, Mishandling and Lack of Equipment Given that making observations about changes in energy was the primary goal of the Workstation Inquiry, any event that did not allow students to achieve this was received as unfavourable and the converse occurred when successful observations were made. Similar issues arose in the Rube Inquiry. At times students attributed failure in making meaningful observations with the equipment provided, difficulty with the use of the equipment, or a lack of equipment. In such cases, these situations 94

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prevented students from making observations or progressing with the task despite their correct handling of the materials. Three sub-themes were created to account for emotional events of this nature: mishandling of equipment, equipment dysfunction, and lack of equipment. Mishandling of equipment. Most comments relevant to this sub-theme are associated with the Workstation Inquiry, except for one set of cases from the Rube Inquiry. As an example, one student connected the emotion label annoyed with the act of cranking of the arm on the dynamo at workstation two. Given that workstation two depended on students being able to operate the crank arm correctly, when this manipulation was not effective, it hampered their ability to make observations about energy changes. Another student selected disappointment to account for the same experience. A different example from those above, relating to frustration, pertains to the following quote: “When the car kept falling off the ramp.” At workstation ten, students were to observe what effect the inclination of a ramp made on the motion of a toy car released down the ramp. Failure to align the car on the ramp meant that it could not travel correctly, thereby preventing students from making accurate observations. Feeling annoyed and frustrated can be understood from the perspective that unsuccessful manipulation of equipment prevented students from reaching the goal of making observations about energy changes. Similarly, in the Rube Inquiry, one student in a group of four that was using dominoes as a component of their machine reported frustration when she repeatedly knocked over the dominoes during the set-up stage. The tedious nature of setting up individual dominoes for the machine to function, and then knocking them down before the machine could be completed works against the group and individual goal of making a functional machine. Repetition of the tedious set-up is most likely the reason for reporting this emotional event, as the unpleasant process of carefully standing each domino up would once again be required. When goals are not achieved and when obstacles are perceived to be the cause, then unpleasant emotions are reported (Turner, 2007). Similarly, when expectations directed at completing stages toward the goal of creating a functioning machine are not met, students report unfavourable emotional experiences. Students attributed lack of functionality directly to their capabilities in manipulating equipment at times as this comment indicates: I was using the acid fuel cell. I felt anxiety as I didn’t see anything happen and I thought I did something wrong. As we can see, this student attributes his/her failure to make observations upon their own use of the equipment and associates this with feeling anxious. This is an interesting choice of emotion label given the provided context. Perhaps the student was concerned that they had done something incorrectly involving acid, which is typically perceived as a dangerous chemical in schools. This is a reasonable interpretation because the student may have thought that they had damaged the equipment, which contains a dangerous chemical. This student may have been 95

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anxious about the state of the equipment and any possible harm to self or others who may use it next. Aside from this possible interpretation, emotions such as annoyance, disappointment and frustration would have been expected based on the comments made in relation to equipment manipulation in this sub-theme. Successful equipment manipulation is a precursor to achieving success in the task; failing to do inhibits progress. When students failed to manipulate equipment correctly, this prevented progress with the activity and became associated with negative emotional events. Equipment dysfunction. This sub-theme deals with matters related to the conditions of the materials provided by the school. The central importance of differentiating this sub-theme from the previous one is that here the teacher, laboratory assistant, or school are responsible for the serviceability of equipment and resources. In the previous sub-theme, it was the student who was responsible for handling equipment. One student reported disappointment and another frustration due to the equipment not working at workstation twelve, the hydrogen car, for reasons beyond the student’s control. We can understand that disappointment arises from failure to meet the student’s expectations for progressing the task. In contrast, frustration could be associated with attempting to conduct the activity but failing to do so due to extraneous factors. Frustration is suggestive of repeated attempts, or sustained effort in getting a hydrogen-powered car to function with repeated experiences of faulty equipment. These experiences could result in students attributing fault to others (e.g., teacher, school, assistant) and result in frustration. Lack of equipment. The Rube Inquiry was dependent on students’ sourcing materials outside of school to construct their machines. Some students failed to organise such materials, leading to reports of frustration and disappointment at not being able to build the machine. When the lesson began and the teacher invited the class to commence their planning, designing, and testing of machines, those without materials were left to work in groups at their regular desks drawing and writing plans for machines they would not build in that lesson. Self-attributions or attributions to other group members, who failed to deliver on this first stage of bringing equipment, are the most likely explanation for these negative emotional events. Theme Two: Events Associated with Locating and Comprehending Information The Literature Inquiry was unique amongst activities with respect to emotions pertaining to accessing and comprehending scientific information and science concepts. Negative emotion labels involved with this sub-theme included anxious, annoyed, disappointed and frustrated when students could not locate information relevant to their energy topic as this quote shows: “When I couldn’t answer all the questions and find the website” (frustration). One student reported feeling annoyed because he could not understand the information located on a website, and another 96

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reported disappointment at not being able to find the required information or understanding the information. When a student could not answer the questions, she reported frustration. The Literature Inquiry activity was to culminate with student poster presentations outlining the research outcomes about different energy types. As students were unable to achieve this goal without relevant information, understandably their appraisals of the experience were not favourable as indicated by their choice of emotion labels. Theme Three: Events Associated with Repeated Trials Student comments coded with this theme were indicative of multiple attempts at designing the Rube machines with varying levels of success. The following comment represents a negative emotional event associated with conducting repeated trials: “Building [the] machine [I] felt disappointment as it kept on failing.” The Rube Inquiry was unique in that it was the only open-ended activity experienced by students during the term, providing the sole opportunity for repeated attempts at design and repeated trials that are akin to the work of scientists. It was also the only activity entirely reliant on the students’ input due to its open-ended nature. A task such as the Rube Inquiry is conducive to self-attributions (or attributions to group members) due to improvements students were seeking to make during repeated trials. When initial trials failed, and students constructed increasingly more functional machines or machine components, any success that was experienced was attributed to the students’ efforts. Overall these analyses indicate that when students’ progress during inquiry tasks is impeded, negative emotions are reported. Although each different type of inquiry activity presented a different form of challenge, emotional experiences converged on issues around barriers to progress. PEDAGOGY OF EMOTION AND EMOTIONAL PEDAGOGY FOR SUPPORTING SCIENCE INQUIRY

A key outcome of this study is that when a stage in an inquiry activity creates a barrier against the goals for that task, such experiences are associated with negative emotional events. At times, barriers are associated with aspects of the inquiry process itself such as failure during early trials. These types of barriers are important for students to experience as they provide authentic situations of scientific inquiry (cf. Firestine, 2016). Other examples, such as the faulty equipment, were not conducive to learning. Emotional events related to faulty equipment, locating information, or comprehending information on the Internet direct our attention to ways of removing unnecessary barriers in supporting student learning. When teachers plan activities like the Workstation Inquiry, the overall number of stations could be reduced to five or six, or the twelve stations could be presented across several lessons instead of one. 97

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Time available for each station could be increased, and the inclusion of a deliberate exploratory period with the materials could be included for each workstation. Students could then familiarize themselves with the equipment and its manipulation so that the intended learning may be achieved. For the Rube Inquiry, planning and trialing of materials by individual students or groups can be done at home if school time is limited. Students could develop initial written plans and present them along with the required equipment one day before the machine building and testing day/s. For activities like the Literature Inquiry, an initial hindrance with task progress was the students’ ability to locate relevant information and subsequently comprehending any acquired information. Although websites had been pre-selected for students, ensuring that the reading age is appropriate could be an important planning step for enhancing success in this activity. The Rube and Workstation Inquiry activities provide ample scope for students to experience a full range of emotions relevant to the intended purposes of the activities. If we limit unfavourable emotions as suggested above, this would not reduce the valuable educational experience of learning to cope with emotions associated with science inquiry (cf. Jaber & Hammer, 2016). I see the experience of learning to manage this full range of emotions when, for example, repeated trials of experiments fail, as central to learning science and learning to be a scientist. But it is also authentic for scientists to plan carefully and minimize unnecessary barriers to progress of their research. The practical suggestions offered here are designed to achieve authentic inquiry by affording students agency to manipulate equipment, plan for the correct operation of devices, and learn that planning can enhance the overall success of investigations. For closed and guided inquiries devised by the teacher, rendering visible the background planning and organization required for the activity could present a valuable experience for students to learn about the required degree of preparation. I do not see value in emotional events that are directed at faulty equipment, or lack of process that students can be taught to avoid. It is important to note that in the present study the teacher was highly organized, the activities were carefully planned, and the school was well resourced. The suggestions presented here would offer enhancements to the existing planning and preparation that went into the inquiry activities. Strategies for Supporting Students to Manage Emotions in Science Inquiry Valuable inclusions to the teaching and learning I observed could include student reflections on emotional events and working towards strategies they can use to manage emotions in ways that support their scientific investigations. Students in this study experienced failed trials, frustrations when operating equipment, and teamwork, all of which are authentic aspects of doing science. Learning how to manage one’s emotions through effective strategies is important for sustained engagement with inquiry activities. If students are taught to become aware of their emotions as they experience them, they can also learn to take stock of how these experiences could be affecting their success in a task. 98

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Students can achieve emotional awareness by reflecting on their completed emotion diaries and focusing on those emotions they perceive as problematic for progressing their scientific investigations. By self-identifying emotional events, students can choose to change or regulate their emotions before engaging in their next inquiry activity or stage of an activity. Helping students to recognize which emotions are serving as barriers for their progress could be an effective starting point for classroom-based instruction worthy of further exploration. We can teach students to recognize physiological changes in their bodies and the range of emotions associated with these changes as a way of learning to recognize emotions during inquiry. In a similar way, students can be taught to notice how they speak and gesture and how they respond to others during classroom situations with the goal of identifying their own emotions and those of others. Noting such effects, students can be taught to pause, re-focus themselves or others, and attempt the task again once they have calmed their inner storms, just as Ken Tobin, Donna King, Senka Henderson, Alberto Bellocchi, and Steve Ritchie (2016) have done with university teachers. Frustration with initial operation of equipment can overshadow a solution to the problem. Students might focus on their frustration, rather than the signal this emotion may be sending, which is that their current attempts are not effective and a new approach is required. A valuable direction that this kind of instruction can take LVWKHLQWHJUDWLRQRIPLQGIXOQHVVVWUDWHJLHVHJ3RZLHWU]\ĔVND *DQJML IRU supporting students’ self-awareness of emotions. Brian Matthews, Tim Kilbey, Caroline Doneghan, and Suzanne Harrison (2002) offer other practical examples of group-work strategies focusing on emotional literacy. These researchers constructed reflection activities where one student observed their peers during group work, and later the group came together to discuss how each member’s conduct and emotions were managed in the interactions. Over time, each student rotated through the observer role. Such an activity could also be constructed with the emotion diaries used in my study. Student groups could be provided with reflection time to discuss emotional events that were directed at another group member or the groups’ progress overall. It would be important for teachers to provide appropriate instruction about the conduct of the peer debrief so that respectful and constructive comments were the focus. Cogenerative dialogues (Tobin & Roth, 2005) can be and have been used to the same effect in our research group. Other examples from my own recent research into social bonds are discussed here: https://vimeo.com/188946208/63a63af63b Researchers and teachers can also scaffold student learning about emotions using video segments for supporting emotional reflections. By asking students to review video clips during inquiry where emotions such as frustration, anxiety and disappointment are reported, researchers and teachers can support students to identify effective strategies for managing emotions differently and developing greater resilience. Self-awareness (i.e., recognizing physiological and behavioural aspects of emotion) and redirection in the way that was described above could help students to 99

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generate solutions to problems and develop resilience for sustained engagement with science inquiry and science more generally. The example just given refers to what I call the pedagogy of emotions. I use pedagogy here in the original sense of leading the child (van Manen, 2015). Our (students, teachers) emotions can teach us something about ourselves, about the way we conduct ourselves in different circumstances. Learning to identify our emotions in different contexts can become a tool for enhancing our chances of success rather than becoming an impediment to our goals. In this discussion, I want to curtail interpretations of my practical suggestions as implying that we should sanitize students’ experiences of science inquiry so that they only experience favourable or pleasant emotions. Students must experience setbacks and failure that arise even when the best laid plans and preparations have been made because this is not only an inherent aspect of doing science, but also important for most facets of work and life experience. As students progress through experiences of science inquiry at school (e.g., elementary to high school), they are likely to accept greater responsibility for the conduct of inquiries. Alongside these technical and conceptual aspects of learning and doing science inquiry, students should be brought into direct contact with the associated emotional events that inquiry will inevitably evoke, and be invited to reflect on these experiences including how they managed their emotions and how they could better manage them in future. A pedagogy of emotion involves students learning how to be mindful about their emotions and those of others and modifying their actions for achieving their learning goals. The active role teachers and other adults can play are addressed in the next section. Normalizing Emotions through Stories and Vignettes about Scientists Another set of practical suggestions to assist students in managing their emotions could involve teachers developing learning episodes based around case studies of emotional events of practicing scientists (current or past). Jaber and Hammer (2016) have presented examples of emotions experienced by scientists, and various ethnographic texts about the work of scientists that could be developed into historical vignettes (e.g., Bellocchi, 2004) for use in the classroom with the view to normalize a wide range of emotional events likely to be experienced during scientific work. To create historical vignettes, the focus would need to be on both the favourable emotional events of wonder, excitement and passion, for example, and the unfavourable ones such as disappointment, anger, frustration and anxiety after major setbacks or failed experiments. Combining this approach with the strategies for enhancing students’ emotional awareness through self-awareness and reflection (i.e., pedagogy of emotion) could lead to increased resilience for sustained engagement with science inquiry. In accord with these classroom strategies, science teacher education should prepare science teachers in developing their own emotional pedagogy. In a view that I share with other researchers (cf. Jaber & Hammer, 2016), what makes a successful scientist is the combination of his or her knowledge and capabilities for scientific work with the capacity to manage setbacks and the 100

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associated emotions. Learning resilience in contextually and discipline specific ways as suggested above could inform pedagogy, curriculum design and planning if we are truly interested in students’ on-going participation in science across and beyond the schooling years. Emotional pedagogy then becomes the active process whereby an adult such as a parent or teacher helps students to identify their emotions in specific science learning situations and, through reflection, to identify ways to manage those emotions that can otherwise become counterproductive to learning goals for the students. Emotional pedagogy directs the actions of teachers to support the pedagogy of emotions that I described earlier, which is an introspective process, available to individual students or student groups. My perspectives on emotional pedagogy in relation to science inquiry are supported by research in elementary school classrooms and reviews of the emotional experiences of scientists identified by Jaber and Hammer. These researchers identified what they called epistemic affect as the emotional events that scientists and science students have in conjunction with practicing science inquiry. Jaber and Hammer argue that epistemic affect stabilizes engagement with science and should form part of the formal curriculum experienced by students, a perspective that supports my dual stance regarding pedagogy of emotion and emotional pedagogy. In this study, I have extended Jaber and Hammer’s work by proposing explicit practical strategies for supporting students and teachers in understanding emotions associated with science inquiry. Learning from Emotional Events in Inquiry Contexts From the perspective of eventful learning outlined by Steve Ritchie and Jen Beers Newlands (2017), the three inquiry activities in the present study were eventful. Each inquiry type alone saw the transformation of students’ emotions from anticipatory feelings of happiness, excitement, for example, to frustration and annoyance, although this change was less pronounced in the Literature Inquiry than the other two. Given that these three activities represented three moments in time during the 10-week school term, we also see the reproduction of this emotional transformation at this larger time-scale. I would argue that what the analyses presented in this chapter have also contributed is an understanding of the emotional milieu that may precede an emotional event in science classrooms. That is, a more dramatic emotional event such as an outburst of anger in the classroom may be preceded by more mundane or less effusive emotional events, such as low-level frustration, when equipment does not work. Subsequent research could apply the thematic approach to analysing diary data as used in this study, to identify pre-conditions for events, and then follow the evolution of one specific emotion such as frustration over time using video data for individual students or larger groups. As the thematic analysis presented in this chapter would indicate, the kinds of epistemic emotions related to science inquiry that Jaber and Hammer suggest should be the focus of research can be identified readily using diaries. Combining video methods with the themes identified in this study could extend research on epistemic emotions in fruitful directions. 101

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, contract grant number LP110200368, supported this research. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Research Council. This study would not have been possible without the enthusiastic participation of the 8th-grade science students and their teacher. I am very appreciative of their time, support and general willingness to teach me about their emotions. I am also grateful to Trisha Bellocchi, Senka Henderson, and Maryam Sandhu for their work as research assistants throughout various stages of this study and the broader research programme to which it belongs. REFERENCES Bellocchi, A. (2004). Designing and using historical vignettes in science teaching: A personal account. Teaching Science, 50, 14–18. Bellocchi, A. (2017). Interaction ritual approaches to emotion and cognition in science learning experiences. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research: Cultural studies of science education 13 (pp. 85–106). Dordrecht: Springer. Bellocchi, A., Mills, K., & Ritchie. S. M. (2016). Emotional events of preservice science teachers in online learning: The formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 629–652. doi:10.1007/s11422-015-9673-9 Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/ sce.21159 Bellocchi, A., & Turner, J. H. (2017). Revising the valence construct in emotion theory and sociology of emotions. In R. Patulny, S. Khorana, R. Olson, J. McKenzie, A. Bellocchi, & M. Peterie (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to emotions: A conversation with sociology. Manuscript submitted for publication. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper (Ed.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology: Volume 2 research designs (pp. 51–71). Washington, DC: APA. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dohn, N. B. (2013). Situational interest in engineering design activities. International Journal of Science Education, 35, 2057–2078. doi:10.1080/09500693.2012.757670 Firestine, S. (2016). Failure: Why science is so successful. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Fortus, D. (2014). Attending to affect in science education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 821–835. doi:10.1002/tea.21155 Jaber, L., & Hammer, D. (2016). Learning to feel like a scientist. Science Education, 100, 189–220. doi:10.1002/sce.21202 King, D. T., Ritchie, S. M., Sandhu, M., & Henderson, S. (2015). Emotionally intense science activities. International Journal of Science Education, 37, 118–1914. doi:10.1080/09500693.2015.1055850 Matthews, B., Kilbey, T., Doneghan, C., & Harrison, S. (2002). Improving attitudes to science and citizenship through developing emotional literacy. School Science Review, 84, 103–114. Maulucci, M. S., Brown, B. A., Grey, S. T., & Sullivan, S. (2014). Urban middle school students’ reflections on authentic science inquiry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 1119–1149. doi:10.1002/tea21167 Olitsky, S., & Milne, C. (2012). Understanding engagement in science education: The psychological and the social. In B. J. Fraser, K. Tobin, & C. J. McRobbie (Eds.), Second international handbook

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NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL EVENTS DURING SCIENCE INQUIRY of science education (pp. 19–33). Springer international handbooks of education. Dordrecht: Springer. 3RZLHWU]\ĔVND 0  *DQJML$.   ³, XQGHUVWDQG ZK\ SHRSOH QHHG WR HDVH WKHLU HPRWLRQV´ Exploring mindfulness and emotions in a conceptual physics classroom of an elementary teacher education program. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 693–712. doi:10.1007/s11422-0169772-2 Ritchie, S. M., & Beers Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research: Cultural studies of science education 13 (pp. 107–120). Dordrecht: Springer. Ritchie, S. M., Hudson, P., Bellocchi, A., Henderson, S., King, D., & Tobin, K. (2016). Evolution of selfreporting methods for identifying discrete emotions in science classrooms. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 577–593. doi:10.1007/s11422-014-9607-y Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., Sandhu, S., Henderson, S., & Roth, W.-M. (2013). Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50, 137–161. Schwab, J. J. (1962). The teaching of science as inquiry. In J. J. Schwab & P. F. Brandwein (Eds.), The teaching of science (pp. 3–103). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sinatra, G. M., Broughton, S. H., & Lombardi, D. (2014). Emotions in science education. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 415–436). New York, NY: Routledge. Tobin, K., King, D. T., Henderson, S., Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Expression of emotions and physiological changes during teaching. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 669–692. doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9778-9 Tobin, K., & Ritchie, S. M. (2012). Multi-method, multi-theoretic, multi-level research in the learning sciences. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 20, 117–129. Tobin, K., & Roth, W.-M. (2005). Chapter 3: Coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing in an urban science teacher preparation program. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 59–77). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Tomas, L., Rigano, D., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Students’ regulation of their emotions in a science classroom. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53, 234–260. doi:10.1002/tea.21304 Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: a sociological theory. London: Routledge. van Manen, M. (2015). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (2nd ed.). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Wellington, J. (2005). Practical work and the affective domain: What do we know, what should we ask, and what is worth exploring further? In S. Alsop (Ed.), Beyond Cartesian dualism: Encountering affect in the teaching and learning of science (pp. 99–109). Dordrecht: Springer. Wickman, P.-O. (2017). Back to the drawing board: Examining philosophical foundations of educational research on aesthetics and emotions. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research: Cultural studies of science education 13 (pp. 9–37). Dordrecht: Springer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alberto Bellocchi is an Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. His current research programme focuses on understanding the interplay between social bonds, emotions and knowledge construction in school science classrooms. He has previously published articles focusing on students’, preservice teachers’, and professors’ emotions in science education. Alberto is lead co-editor of 103

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the international collection Exploring Emotions, Aesthetics and Wellbeing in Science Education Research, published by Springer. He serves as a Lead Editor for the journal Cultural Studies of Science Education, and he is an editorial board member for the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

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6. ONLINE AND FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING IN SCIENCE Learning Events and Transformation of Understanding

ABSTRACT

Historical and sociological accounts of events typically refer to abrupt macro-social changes that create discontinuity in social structures, thereby changing society. At a micro-social level of experience, events may also unfold that contribute to important localized change for the particular people involved. This study of a learning event is an original investigation using empirical data sourced from a secondary school science classroom. Our study adopts a micro-social perspective of events in the context of a school science lesson where emotional fluctuations form the basis for an event to be analyzed. In this sense we adopt the learning event as our unit of analysis to understand the lived experience of a student, the turning point in his learning, and the transformation of his understanding of scientific ideas, as localized structures. This study focuses on the experience of a year 9 science student during a lesson involving both online and face-to-face forms of social interaction. The learning event we analyze highlights the possible contribution of this type of analysis to understanding better, the interplay between emotion and cognition in science education contexts. Keywords: concentration, conceptual understanding, confidence, emotions and learning, social interaction, online learning, undramatic emotion In this chapter, we analyze the science learning experiences of a Year 9 student, who is conducting online research in a classroom context. The experiences we analyze are emotional experiences focused around the student’s changes in understanding of scientific ideas related to radioactive isotopes, beta decay, and carbon-14. These experiences are analyzed as a learning event, evidenced as fluctuations in emotion, a transformation in social interaction, and the achievement of a new layer of conceptual understanding by the student. By presenting our analyses of these events, we extend previous research by Alberto Bellocchi and Stephen Ritchie (2015), which identified connections between emotional changes and conceptual changes related to energy concepts in an 8th grade science class. We also contribute new insights into the forms that emotional energy may take during asynchronous interactions that build

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_006

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on Alberto Bellocchi, Kathy Mills, and Stephen Ritchie’s (2016) study of pre-service science teachers’ online learning. Our main contribution is to analyze events in less dramatic emotional circumstances, than have so far been reported in these previous studies. LOCALIZED LEARNING EVENTS

To define a learning event we have drawn on the work of Stephen Ritchie and Jennifer Beers Newlands (2017) who reframed the macro-social notion of events developed by William Sewell Jnr. (2005), for applications in the micro-sociological context of science classrooms. We recognize learning events as spatial and temporal processes of social interaction that give rise to heightened emotions and transformation of the social situation. In the context of science classrooms, learning events may be observed to emerge over the duration of a lesson or a sequence of lessons. They are not necessarily dramatic events (e.g., those involving overt gestures or vocalizations), as any rise in emotional intensity may be quite subtle, or undramatic, from an everyday observer’s perspective (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017). As noted by Ritchie and Beers Newlands (2017), the history of events typically reflects a macro-sociological perspective in the way they lead to transformation of social structures (cf. Moore, 2011). The connection between macro-social structures and micro-social structures is described by Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss (1903/1963) as the localized production of concepts and inter-relationships that enable the logical hierarchy of social structure to be conceived. We may think of social structure as being continually reproduced and/or modified through the enactment of localized social practices. In these localized contexts ideas form the building blocks for social structure as they define the way people think about society, and these ideas become solidified or institutionalized as conventional wisdom or knowledge (cf. Berger & Luckman, 1966). In the micro-sociology of the science classroom, spoken and written words may be treated as the enactment of ideas that serve as the symbols of school science (Olitsky, 2007), and it is these symbols that we may take as the localized structure within these micro-social situations. As social structures, these ideas are recognizable through the student’s understanding of science, enacted via social interaction. For most school students, the science classroom is probably the most important localized site where scientific knowledge originates in terms of student understanding. The basic concepts of science that are taught in school classrooms may therefore be treated as localized micro-social structures, as the building blocks for the macrostructure of science as a social institution. In a Durkheimian sense, these micro-macro structures may be thought to operate contemporaneously in patterns of concentric and eccentric circles (Durkheim & Mauss, 1903/1963). On this basis, in a science classroom context, the social structure relevant to learning events may be defined in terms of student understandings of scientific ideas or concepts. 106

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EXPERIENCES OF EMOTIONAL ENERGY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

Student understandings of scientific ideas and concepts are identified in our study as the focal point of the experience of emotion. Key to understanding our approach to emotions is our emphasis on emotional experience where we are informed by the work of John Dewey (1894). When referring to emotional experience we think of the experience in terms of bodily movements, feelings as internal sensation, and ideas about which all emotions are focused. From this perspective we recognize emotional experience as being spatially and temporally dynamic so that the experience and the ideas at the center of the experience may change over time. Throughout this study we describe these student experiences in terms of undramatic emotional energy. Randall Collins (2004) conceptualized emotional energy in his interaction ritual theory. Emotional energy is a durable experience of emotional arousal that underlies transient, discrete emotions and may be experienced individually and collectively. It is associated with a sense of confidence and solidarity, and is typically experienced as the outcome of successful micro-social interactions. Our use of the phrase undramatic emotional energy refers to situations characterized by stillness, silence or bodily movements that would be considered mundane, yet we are able to identify evidence of high levels of emotional energy. This study contributes to our ongoing understanding of undramatic emotional energy in science learning experiences. Experiences of emotional energy may be recognized as a heightened sense of solidarity through measures such as self-report using emotion diaries (Ritchie et al., 2016), through facial action coding, conversation analysis, prosodic features of speech, and bodily gestures (Collins, 2004). The methods for recognizing emotional energy vary with the research context. In a study of pre-service science teachers engaged in online learning, Bellocchi et al. (2016) used emotion diaries and blogging to identify self-reports of emotional experiences. Pre-service teachers reported their emotional experiences in their own words without using pre-specified emotion labels, in contrast to previous studies that provided labels for students (cf. Ritchie et al., 2016). Using a database of emotion labels established through the literature, preservice teachers’ self-reports were then coded using conventional emotional labels to identify experiences of discrete emotions, such as frustration, as well as the presence of emotional energy associated with social bonds and solidarity (Bellocchi et al., 2016). Bellocchi et al. (2016) found that emotional energy was experienced more intensely by students who were able to see the lecturer via asynchronous video interactions. In the absence of video interaction, students reported an experience of isolation, indicating a depletion or absence of solidarity and emotional energy. This outcome is relevant to the online learning situation we describe in our present study and will be revisited in our discussion. A further conceptual tool for understanding emotional energy in science education contexts is the idea of conceptual entrainment (Davis, 2017). Conceptual entrainment is defined by high levels of attunement around shared ideas during micro-social 107

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interaction and may be observed in undramatic ways such as the unfolding—albeit, subdued—actions of group members that achieve shared understanding about a particular science topic. For example, James (i.e., Author 1) illustrated conceptual entrainment in a study of year 10 students who were conducting a science inquiry activity (Davis, 2017). Conceptual entrainment was evident in the formation of roles around collective writing, where one student acquired a pen, and then several minutes later he began to transcribe the spoken words of another student who became the group’s speaker. These roles unfolded over several minutes of selforganizing actions by group members without any overt direction or conversation about writing being conducted as a collective action, or the formal adoption of roles. The conceptual entrainment became evident through the unfolding performance of these self-organizing roles. STUDY CONTEXT AND METHODS

Study Context This study was conducted in a Year 9 science class in a school with approximately 1,000 students located in a low socio-economic, rural town in Queensland, Australia. Our study analyzes a learning event experienced by one student, with the pseudonym of Tim, while he was engaged in online research. The research task required students to select a radio-isotope to investigate, and Tim had chosen carbon-14. The task was structured with short response questions that could be answered by doing online research. We focus on the experiences of Tim as he works on his own and during a faceto-face interaction with Mr. D (author 1 and teacher). The class was located in a computer lab at the time of data collection, with students sitting individually with a laptop computer each. The data were collected using a fixed video camera directed at Tim while he conducted his science research task. Ethnomethodological Orientation The methodological approach to this study was informed by ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967). Our ethnomethodological orientation enabled us to describe and understand data by studying how localized social interactions unfolded over time. This was achieved by studying the fine-grained features of conversation and bodily actions to establish meaning by observing interactions. Data were presented in sequential turns of conversation and action, with different sequences collated into fragments as a way to interpret meaning. Audio data extracted from the video recordings, were transcribed using conversation analysis (CA) conventions because CA is a discipline with foundational links to ethnomethodology (Silverman, 1998). This method transcribes both the content of conversation, as well the style of speech such as prosody. For example, 108

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we analyzed the rate of speech by measuring syllables spoken per second (SPS) for each turn. We also calculated the average rate of speech for different fragments or sequences of turns. These data were used to interpret convergence or divergence within social interaction. Methods for Studying Wordless Situations In the online phase of the learning event, Tim made very few utterances, but we transcribed and analyzed his facial and bodily movements in the form of turns of action. Our purpose in studying this silent or wordless situation was to understand the “moments just before sense congeals” (Liberman, 2013, p. 42). A technique inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962/2012) and practiced by Kenneth Liberman (2013) and Harold Garfinkel (1967). It was evident to us as observers that these moments of silent action were characterized by an emotional coherence. This coherence was an essential pre-cursor to the second half of the situation where emotions continued, but words and formal scientific concepts also became evident. To make sense from this silence, we used still facial images of Tim from the video to make categorical and ratio measurements (Stevens, 1946) of changes in facial actions as indicators of emotion. Categorical measurement was performed by comparing Tim’s neutral face with his emotive face against the categorical scales defined by the facial action coding system (Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 2002). Facial action coding is a method for interpreting the type and intensity of facial actions in relation to emotional experience. For example, we categorized (measured) changes in the glabella (forehead), eyebrow separation, naso-labial furrow (crease from the side of the nose down to the mouth), the philtrum (furrow between the bottom of the nose and top lip), mouth positions and teeth exposure, eye corner creasing, and cheek puffing. Supplementing these categorical measurements, we printed images of Tim’s face as he sat in the same position. Images were taken from the video camera that was in a fixed position on a tripod. With these images we physically measured the philtrum and eyebrow separation to determine percentage changes in these parameters between the neutral face position and moments of facial change. These measures are reported where appropriate, in the text and in the transcripts, contributing to our analysis of facial actions. In addition to measuring facial actions we analyzed each occasion of action where Tim glanced or gazed at the computer screen, and each occasion where he put his head-down to write. We defined a glance at the computer screen as lasting 3 seconds(s) or less and a gaze as lasting 4s or more. The time for each glance/gaze and head-down action is shown in the transcript in square brackets (i.e., [3]). When multiple glances/gazes occur in successions, we denote this in the transcripts by indicating the length of time for each glance/gaze, as previously mentioned, and then separating each interval with commas (e.g., [2,2,1]). The glance/gaze data and the head-down data were analyzed in two time-series graphs where the moving average 109

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of 5 occasions of action was presented. A moving average was used because this technique removes momentary volatility in time series data to reveal underlying trends for analysis (Bollinger, 2002). These data were presented as a parallel time series in a single graph and overlapped with turns from the relevant fragment transcripts for analysis. The data for this study are presented in four fragments. The first two fragments focus on Tim’s online experience as a learning event that leads to a transformation in the social interaction. This learning event defines the limits of Tim’s online experience leading to the face-to-face interaction with Mr. D. Concurrent with the transformation of the social interaction, Tim’s understanding of scientific concepts become evident, and the transformation of this understanding is analyzed in relation to the emotional experience. EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES AND THE LIMITS OF ONLINE LEARNING

The data that we analyze in this section involves a student studying alone, mostly in silence. We foreground our major finding at this point in order to contextualize our analyses. Our interpretation of these data has led to our understanding of a situation involving intense, collective, undramatic emotional energy, despite the silence and the physical isolation of the student at the focus of our analyses. The collectivity of this experience of undramatic emotional energy becomes evident through the student’s attempts of engagement with his teacher, by reviewing notes from previous classes and raising his hand to seek the teacher’s attention. The student’s absorption in this collective emotional energy is further evident by his rejection of offers to join face-to-face interaction with his peers. Finally, as this online experience transforms into face-to-face interaction with the teacher, further evidence of the student’s intense experience of emotional energy rapidly unfolds, supporting an interpretation that the online experience was highly intense despite its undramatic appearance. Having foregrounded this finding at this point, we will now elaborate on the analyses that led us to this position, wherein we describe the online learning situation as a form of asynchronous social interaction. Concentration and Confidence The online phase of this learning event unfolds through 8 minutes and 36 seconds of reading and note taking by Tim. This phase is treated as a form of asynchronous social interaction as Tim engages with the questions set by Mr. D and the information provided by an anonymous author via the webpage Tim is reading. The initial fragment of this event is evident in 4 minutes of video data showing Tim reading from a website and making notes. These data are summarized below into a sequence of action turns to facilitate our analysis of Tim’s lived experiences. These actions commence at turn 1, Fragment 6.1, where Tim glances at the computer screen for 2s and then puts his head down to write for 7s. 110

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Over the duration of this fragment Tim’s facial actions provide evidence of his emotional experience of online learning that we describe in terms of concentration and confidence. The intensity of Tim’s experience of concentration is partially evident in his mouth actions that were indicative of focus and concentration at turns 3 and 7, where Tim protrudes his tongue from his mouth with a licking action. In previous studies this facial action has been associated with high levels of interest (Reeves 1993), focus and concentration (Rozin & Cohen, 2003). Concentration was further evident through the actions of Tim’s lateral mouth stretch at turn 5 and the opening of his mouth with another lateral mouth stretch at turn 15. Both of these actions may be treated as indicators of concentration (Rozin & Cohen, 2003). Although these facial actions may be explained by other factors such as having dry lips, other actions by Tim, described below, support our interpretation that his conduct is indicative of the emotion concentration. Peer Relationships and Continuity of Concentration Complementing these examples of facial action data, Tim’s actions in relation to other students also contributed evidence of his intense concentration. For example, Fragment 6.1. Concentration and confidence Turn

Tim’s Actions

1

((Glance [2] at screen, head down to write [7] ))

2

((Gaze [4] at screen, pen in hand on paper. Puts head down [2] and writes. Lifts head and directs his gaze [7] at the computer screen and uses his left index finger to point at screen. His mouth moves with no audible sound as he continues to face the screen. Head down [9] continues to write))

3

((Licks lips as he glances [2] at the screen. Head down [2] continues writing))

4

((Lifts head and directs gaze [5] at screen, head down [8] writing))

5

((Raises head while continuing to write, puffs cheeks, exhales heavily, gazes [8] at the screen and places hand over mouth. Rubs chin with left index finger and thumb while gazing at the screen with symmetrical, lateral mouth stretching evident by distinctive naso-labial furrow extending lateral to the mouth, slight opening of the mouth with upper and lower teeth visible and slight shortening of the philtrum. Places hand over mouth again. Then removes hand, head down [8], continues to write)).

6

((Glances [2,2,2] at screen and head down continues to write [5,6,2], on three occasions))

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Fragment 6.1. Concentration and confidence (cont.) 7

((Gazes [4] at screen, with finger pointing to screen and mouth moves with no audible sound, licks lips, slight crease of glabella with tightened lips. Head down [7 ] continues to write))

8

((Raises head, stops writing. Flicks back through earlier pages in his notebook making previous class notes visible to the video as he gazes [10] at these notes from a previous lesson))

9

((Glances [3] at screen and moves mouth with no audible sound, then head down [14] continues to write))

10

((Adjacent student says something, directed at Tim, but unrelated to the topic. Tim looks at the student, says “yes yes” and then continues writing))

11

((Gazes [5] at screen with pen touching his chin and then head down [7] continues to write))

12

((Glances [2,3,2,2,2] at screen and then head down [7,6,4,4,6] continues to write on five occasions))

13

((Gazes [4] at screen. A student from behind Tim calls his name and says something. Tim does not respond to the call, he keeps his gaze directed at the screen and then head down [5] continues to write))

14

((Gazes [5] at screen, his mouth moves with no audible sounds. Eyes and head move back and forth slightly in a lateral plane as he gazes at the screen, then head down [3] continues to write))

15

((Gazes [7] at screen, inhales heavily with an open mouth, makes a symmetrical lateral stretch of the mouth evident by an open mouth, upper teeth concealed, lower teeth revealed, very distinctive naso-labial furrow extending the crease lateral to the mouth. Then head down [4] continues to write))

16

((Gazes at screen [6], head down [3] continues to write))

17

((Glances [3,2,2] at screen, then head down [2,4,4] continues to write on three occasions))

18

((Gazes [4] at screen, then head down continues to write [4] ))

19

((Glances [2,3,2,2,2,1] at the screen, then head down [4,3,6,2,2,2] continues to write on six occasions))

at turn 10 an adjacent student spoke to Tim about an unrelated topic and Tim responded by glancing at the student, uttering “yes yes” and then continuing to write his notes. A similar incident occurred at turn 13 when a student from behind Tim called his name and said something, but Tim did not respond. Tim maintained his 112

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visual focus on the computer screen and then continued to write. These two instances also contribute to the moral quality of Tim’s situation because they illustrate the boundaries of Tim’s experience from an interactional perspective. That is, his concentration on the reading and writing excluded him from adjacent face-to-face interaction with his peers. This has implications as the situation unfolds. Emotions and Oral Reading During these four minutes of silent work, Tim was intensely concentrating on studying his research topic, as evident by his focus on reading from the computer, reading from his prior notes at turn 8 and his ongoing note-taking. In the context of doing online research, we interpreted Tim’s glance and gaze actions as acts of reading because there was a tendency for Tim to make mouth movements with no audible sound, simultaneous with glance/gaze actions. This tendency was observed in other studies as a form of oral reading. Oral reading involves uttering the words aloud, or making inaudible mouth movements, wherein both methods of reading (audible and inaudible) have been shown to be more effective than silent reading (Forrin, Macleod, & Ozubko, 2012). In addition, the micro-fixation of the eye during instances of oral reading tends to occur over a longer duration compared with silent reading (Rayner, 1998), suggesting a high level of attentiveness by Tim in the situations we have described. Our interpretation of Tim’s glance/gaze actions is therefore important because his actions not only illustrate what he is doing, but are indicative of his intensity and focus in the act of oral reading. Experiences of Emotional Energy Tim’s emotional experience of intense concentration, evident in these data (Fragment 6.1), is important in the context of his online learning experience, as a form of asynchronous social interaction. To appreciate the importance of this experience we refer to the concept of emotional energy that is described in relation to face-toface or synchronous interaction (Collins, 2004). Emotional energy becomes evident in the attraction of people toward situations of intense mutual focus or concentration around shared events, objects or ideas. Mutual focus and concentration are treated as indicators of the experience of collective emotional energy in situations of successful face-to-face social interaction. In the context of Tim interacting with the teachergenerated research questions, and the online information generated by some author, we propose that Tim’s experience of concentration may be considered a collective experience of emotional energy within an asynchronous social interaction. This perspective of Tim’s experience is supported by his resistance to join his peers on other topics of interest, possibly because of the positive experiences of his emotional energy in his asynchronous interaction with Mr. D and the webpage author. Tim’s actions suggest a positive experience of concentration that maintained his attraction toward, and entrainment on, the research questions and the online information. 113

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In face-to-face interaction, attraction and entrainment is described as an experience of confidence and dependence between the parties to the interaction (Collins, 2004). That is, Tim’s high levels of concentration and entrainment on his science task may be regarded as evidence of confidence. In the situation illustrated through Fragment 6.1, Tim’s confidence was further evident through facial actions at turn 5 where he raised his head while writing, puffed his cheeks and exhaled while looking at his notes. In other studies, puffing the cheeks during cognitive activities may be associated with the experience of confidence (Alter, Oppenheimer, Epley, & Eyre, 2007) and/or an absence of intense mental effort (Tourangeau & Ellsworth, 1979). The continuity of Tim’s confidence was further evident through turns 7 to 10 and beyond. At turn 7, Tim glances at the computer screen and licks his lips, evidencing concentration as indicated earlier. These actions are followed by the slight creasing of his glabella (central forehead) and the tightening of his lips before returning to write notes (turn 7). These actions add complexity to the situation as the slightly creased glabella is associated with frowning (Ekman et al., 2002). In contrast to the other indicators of confidence, frowning may be associated with a lack of confidence, particularly in relation to a need for increased levels of mental effort during cognitive activities (Alter et al., 2007). The intensity of Tim’s mental effort at turn 7 is further indicated by the tightening of his lips that may be indicative of intensifying levels of concentration (Rozin & Cohen, 2003) and possibly determination that may also be indicated by lip tightening (Kraut & Johnson, 1979). Despite the contrasting evidence of the momentary frown suggesting a challenge to Tim’s experience of confidence, his subsequent actions indicate continuity in his experience of confidence and his attraction to the situation of ongoing concentration. This continuity was evident as he returned to writing in turn 7, referred to his prior lesson notes (evident in the video) at turn 9 and continued to read and write at turn 10, despite an interruption. Within this brief sequence of turns from 7 to 10, Tim’s action of referring to his past notes is also important from the perspective of maintaining his emotional energy. Within the context of interaction ritual theory (Collins, 2004), the ideas in Tim’s notes may be viewed as outcomes or symbols from a prior classroom interaction, where Tim has experienced sufficient emotional energy to record his ideas for future reference. By relating back to these ideas and linking the prior interactional experience with the present, Tim was able to maintain his focus and experience of emotional energy in the present situation. This suggests that Tim’s ideas from his prior notes were not just a cognitive resource, but also an emotional resource that contributed to his current experience of ongoing confidence and concentration. Tim’s continuity within the asynchronous social interaction beyond the momentary frown in turn 7, suggests the frown may have been a moment of disjuncture or dis-fluency in the flow of his experience that may have challenged Tim’s confidence. Disjuncture or dis-fluency refers to an interruption to the flow of the social interaction, and a possible threat to the experience of emotional energy. On this occasion, Tim’s response to this disjuncture was to re-enact ideas from a 114

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prior interaction by reviewing ideas from his notes. With these past ideas as an emotional resource to retain his confidence, the maintenance of Tim’s experience of confidence, concentration and engagement in asynchronous interaction continued. This means that after turn 7, the completion of Fragment 6.1 may be described as having a mundane quality because of its fluency and lack of dramatic emotional experience. The mundanity of Fragment 6.1 is itself an important element of the emotional experience as it evidences a successful social interaction (Collins, 2004). On this basis we treat Fragment 6.1 as an example of a successful asynchronous social interaction where Tim maintains high levels of concentration and confidence within his online learning experience. Fluctuating Confidence The transition from Fragment 6.1 to Fragment 6.2 is marked by evidence of a fluctuation in Tim’s emotional experience that leads to the transformation of his learning situation. Fragment 6.2 commences with an intense series of facial actions indicative of a possible reduction in Tim’s level of confidence. For example, at turn 20, Tim is staring at the computer screen, making inaudible mouth movements as he reads (Forrin et al., 2012), when an extreme frown is evidenced by four creases in the forehead (the glabella), very distinctive lower eyelid and eye corner furrows, shortening of the furrow between the nose and top lip by 30% (the philtrum), mouth opening, eyebrow separation reduced by 33% and a very distinctive creasing from the side of the nose to the chin (the naso-labial furrow) (Ekman et al., 2002). Tim then licks his lips before continuing to write. The moments in turn 20 (Fragment 6.2) characterize Tim’s facial actions as extreme frowning indicative of an abrupt increase in mental effort and a reduction in his level of confidence (Alter et al., 2007), all of which collectively form part of his emotional experience in this situation. Unlike the earlier example of a slight frown in turn 7 (Fragment 6.1), this particular instance was considered extreme when Fragment 6.2. Fluctuating confidence Turn

Tim’s Actions

20

((Gazes [11] at screen with slight glabella creasing, his mouth is partially open, then puffs cheeks, then exhales heavily, then mouth moves with no audible sounds produced, as his eyes move laterally across the screen with intense frown indicated by 4 creases in the glabella, very distinctive lower eyelid and eye corner furrows, philtrum shortening by 30%, mouth opening, eyebrow separation reduced by 33% and a very distinctive nasolabial furrow. He then licks his lips as he puts his head down [7] continues to write.))

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Fragment 6.2. Fluctuating confidence (cont.)

116

21

((Glances [3,2] at screen, then head down continues to write [5,4] on two occasions))

22

((Gazes [5] at screen, then head down [4] continues to write))

23

((Gazes [7] at screen with 2 creases in glabella, lips tightened, rolls tongue in left cheek with his pen at the side of mouth. Lips tighten, pen central over mouth, then suddenly opens his mouth as he puts his head down continues to write [10] ))

24

((Glances [2] at screen, then head down [4] continues to write [4]))

25

((Gazes [4] at the screen, slight mouth movement with no audible sound, then head down [3] continues to write))

26

((Glances [3] at screen, then head down [2] continues to write.))

27

((Gazes [4] at screen, then head down [2] mouth opens continues to write))

28

((Glances [2,2] at screen, head down continues to write on two occasions [2,3] ))

29

((Sits up with head and shoulders in a vertical plane, raises his hand and turns his head in a posterior direction and pauses. The teacher can be heard in the direction of Tim’s gaze speaking to another student. Tim then gazes [9] at the screen with his hand over his mouth, slight crease of glabella, inaudible mouth movements, head down [5] continues to write))

30

((Glances [2] at screen, head down [3] continues to write))

31

((Gazes [4] at screen, makes a distinctive symmetrical bi-lateral stretch of the mouth evident by slight naso-labial furrow, lips together, slight philtrum shortening, and distinctive lip corner creases. Then head down [5] continues to write.))

32

((Gazes [4] at screen, mouth moves with no audible sounds, slight crease of glabella, then head down [7] continues to write ))

33

((Glances [2] at screen, then head down [4] continues to write.))

34

((Glances [2] at screen, licks lips then head down [2] continues to write))

35

((Glances [2] at screen, then head down [2] continues to write. Mouth moves with no audible sounds, while writing. ))

36

((Glances [2,2] at screen, then head down continues [2,4] to write on two occasions))

ONLINE AND FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING IN SCIENCE

Fragment 6.2. Fluctuating confidence (cont.) 37

((Gazes [4] at screen, breaths in deeply, moves mouth laterally, then head down continues to write [3]))

38

((Glances [2,2,2] at screen, then head down [6,2,6] continues to write on three occasions))

39

((Gazes [4] at screen, licks lips and head down [6] continues writing))

40

((Gazes at screen [7], head and eyes move laterally, then head down [7] continues to write))

41

((Glances [3] at screen, mouth moves with no audible sound, then head down [4] continues to write))

42

((Glances [3,3,2] at screen, then head down [2,3,7] continues to write))

43

((Raises his head and body in a vertical plane, turns head in a posterior direction, raises arm and hand and faces in the direction of the teacher who can be heard on the video speaking to other students. Tim remains in this position, alternating his arm raises left to right and back to left, until the teacher walks toward Tim in the video))

44

((The teacher comes into video view, sits beside Tim and a conversation commences.))

multiple facial actions were observed at the same time using facial action coding (Ekman et al., 2002). The moment at which these measures were taken is shown in Figure 6.1, Panel B, with a comparative relaxed, or neutral, facial position for Tim shown in Figure 6.1, Panel A. This instance of the extreme frown (turn 20 and Figure 6.1, Panel B) may be treated as an important element in the emotion that Tim was experiencing, but it was not a singular turning point for transformation. The series of turns

Panel A

Panel B

Figure 6.1. Neutral face and extreme frown

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throughout Fragment 6.2 provide evidence of ongoing fluctuations in the intensity of Tim’s experience of emotional energy. The mundane, undramatic quality of Tim’s emotional energy throughout Fragment 6.1 transforms over the course of Fragment 6.2, evident in Tim’s responsiveness to the unfolding situation. Understanding Intensity Fluctuations To illustrate this point, we refer to Figure 6.2 below that shows a graphical representation of Tim’s glance, gaze and head actions over the duration of Fragments 6.1 and 6.2. Figure 6.2 shows the average time of each screen glance/ gaze or reading, paired with each head down movement that involved writing. These durations are measured in seconds and are calculated as a moving average of 5 occasions of action, to enable smoothing of the data and illustration of the underlying trends (Bollinger, 2002). Important moments are marked as turns from Fragments 6.1 and 6.2. For example, turn 7 is marked as T7.

Figure 6.2. Glance/gaze time and head-down time calculated as a moving average of five actions over the duration of Fragments 6.1 and 6.2

As discussed earlier, turn 7 involved a momentary frown suggesting a challenge to Tim’s confidence and emotional energy. We may think of this frown as evidence of disjuncture that interrupts the earlier fluency in his attentiveness. The notion of disjuncture draws from our ethnomethodological orientation, and is typically portrayed as a disruption in the flow of conversation (Garfinkel, 1967). In the context of this situation, we interpret disjuncture as a breach in the fluency of Tim’s silent analytical work involving reading and writing. Tim’s response to this dis-fluency was to draw upon ideas from an earlier classroom interaction by looking through his notes. In Figure 6.2, the increase in the average time for each glance/gaze and each 118

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turn of writing with his head down may be viewed as a response to the challenge he faced at turn 7 based on the sequential nature of these actions. As seen in Figure 6.2 the remainder of Fragment 6.1, up to the point of turn 20, was characterized by decreasing glance/gaze times and writing times, suggesting a continuous flow in Tim’s pace of reading and writing that was free from disjuncture. Returning to our earlier discussion of turn 20 at the commencement of Fragment 6.2, we can see that this fragment is characterized by ongoing fluctuation in the effort Tim is experiencing. For example, after the extreme frown at turn 20, the length of his gaze time increases, and the length of his head down or writing time also increases. At the peak (action 32) in Figure 6.2, following turn 20, the average gaze time and head down time was peaking at the same time that turn 23 was unfolding. In turn 23, Tim experiences two creases in the glabella, suggesting a mild frown, but at the same time there are two occasions of lip tightening suggesting a high level of concentration (Rozen & Cohen, 2003). As shown in the transcript, the instantaneous gaze time and head down time at turn 23 was 7s and 10s, respectively. These data suggest that the peak in Figure 6.2 following the extreme frown at turn 20 was associated with an intensification of concentration by Tim. Once this momentary challenge faced by Tim was overcome, he then reverted to shorter glance times and head down times, until the next challenge arose immediately prior to turn 29. The next challenge to Tim’s confidence becomes evident because in turn 29, Tim sits upright, turns his head in the direction of the teacher’s voice, evident in the video, and raises his arm and hand. The teacher could be heard on the video speaking with another student. In classroom contexts it is usual practice for students to raise their hand when they need the teacher’s assistance. By seeking the teacher at this moment, it is evident that Tim has encountered another challenge to his confidence about the ideas he is researching. With no response from the teacher, Tim returns to gaze at the computer screen for 9 seconds, which involves a slight glabella crease, mouth moving with no audible sound, and then his head is directed downwards for 5 seconds as he writes. This pattern of increased gaze time and head down time continues through turns 31 and 32 creating the peak in Figure 6.2 at action 42. In the absence of the teacher, we interpreted Tim’s actions as evidence of an increase in his level of concentration, enabling him to overcome the challenge to his confidence that was identified through his intense frown and subsequent actions. The final challenge experienced by Tim becomes evident at turn 37. Tim gazes at the screen for 4s, and breathes deeply before continuing to write. Once again, a longer gaze follows this moment as Tim also directs his head down; two actions that are suggestive of an increase in concentration and effort. On this occasion however, Tim reaches a point where he is unable to continue with learning through this asynchronous form of interaction with just himself, the computer screen and his notebook. This limitation to Tim’s online inquiry becomes evident at turn 42 as he turns toward the teacher’s voice and remains holding his arm in the air, until the teacher arrives at the end of Fragment 6.2. 119

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Emotion, Micro-Experiences and Reasoning So far we have analyzed Tim’s actions as indicators of his asynchronous experience of undramatic emotional energy. This is evident through his facial actions and bodily gestures that suggest an underlying experience of confidence that fluctuates with momentary troughs and peaks. Each rise in gaze time and downward head tilt or writing time is associated with a minor event in Tim’s learning. Learning becomes more evident as he begins to speak about formal scientific concepts in the fragments that will follow. Across Fragments 6.1 and 6.2, Tim’s learning takes place through silent reasoning that is evident through his asynchronous interaction, mediated through various artefacts. From an ethnomethodological perspective, Eric Livingston (2006, p. 407) describes similar acts of reasoning in the context of a checkers game where he explains how “each player reasons separately; their conversation is incidental to the game; they spend a lot of time looking at the checkerboard.” The rules of the game and player reasoning in relation to the rules become evident through their embodied actions, rather than any conversation that may take place. In Tim’s case, his reasoning is mediated through the microexperiences we identified that have an emotional character, but may also be considered evidence of his learning through reasoning. These micro-experiences include time spent looking at the computer screen and writing, looking through his prior notes, and instances where he looks for teacher assistance. These embodied actions are indicative of Tim’s reasoning as a means of seeking different sources of information to confirm or dis-confirm his ideas, which remain unarticulated up to this point. As both an emotional experience, and a form of reasoning through asynchronous, mediated interaction, Fragment 6.2 may be treated as a series of smaller emotional fluctuations, each of which influences the way in which Tim responds to his evolving situation. These smaller events also accumulate to the point where, at the end of Fragment 6.2, Tim becomes more intensively committed to seeking assistance from his teacher. The continuity of Tim’s underlying confidence is evident in the way he re-asserts himself to maintain his concentration throughout Fragments 6.1 and 6.2. This continuity in his confidence is further evident in the way that he waits for a teacher response at turn 43. His persistence in waiting is followed by a new interaction that informs further our interpretation of these first two fragments. TRANSFORMATION: INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE EMOTIONAL ENERGY

After turn 44 in Fragment 6.2, Mr. D approaches Tim and a face-to-face interaction between the two rapidly unfolds. Through our following analyses we interpret this interaction as characterized by high intensity emotional energy experienced by Tim, which is evident in the way he commences the interaction with Mr. D. In the exchanges of this interaction, Tim addresses Mr. D as if his teacher had been 120

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present throughout the events unfolding in Fragments 6.1 and 6.2. Tim’s utterances display continuity between his previous solo deliberations, while interacting with his computer and notes, and his new conversation with Mr. D. Face-to-Face Interaction in Transformation This continuity in the intensity of Tim’s confidence is evident in Fragment 6.3 where Tim commences speaking while Mr. D is attempting to sit down. That is, before Mr. D is physically in position to engage in dialogue through visual focus on Tim, Tim engages Mr. D in the interaction. This is evident from turn 45, where Tim utters the words “so:: when that,” as Mr. D pulls a chair out from beneath the desk. Tim continues with “by emitted electrons” as Mr. D sits and adjusts his reading glasses (turn 45). Already in the latter utterance, Tim is beginning to introduce details into the interaction. By adjusting his glasses Mr. D is still positioning for the conversation that Tim has already commenced. Tim then continues in turn 45, elaborating further details, with “it affects one of the neutrons and carbon fourteen decays into (.) uhm.” At turn 46, Mr. D finally responds with “yep [yep].” Fragment 6.3. Face-to-face interaction in transformation Turn

Speaker

Transcript

45

Tim

46 47 48 49 50 51

Mr. D Tim Mr. D Tim Mr. D Tim

so:: when that ((Mr. D pulls out his chair at ‘so’)) by emitted electrons ((Mr. D sits and adjusted his glasses at ‘electrons’)) it affects one of the neutrons and carbon fourteen decays into (.) uhm ((2.70SPS)) yep[yep] ((1.00SPS)) [nitr]ogen fourteen (.) ((5.00SPS) so::: (1.5) ((2.00SPS)) would that be the process ((3.00 SPS)) sorry’ ((3.33 SPS)) would that be the process ((3.00 SPS))

Fragment 6.3 provides evidence of how Tim’s learning situation is transformed from an asynchronous to a synchronous learning experience through a heightened experience of confidence and concentration. This change takes place as he transitions from his interaction with the computer and his notes in Fragments 6.1 and 6.2, to his physically co-present interaction with Mr. D. As soon as Mr. D arrives to speak with Tim, their co-presence is sufficient for Tim to continue with his previous asynchronous interaction, by re-enacting his ideas in front of Mr. D, through his speech gestures at turns 45 and 47. But this interaction is not fully mature as a successful face-to-face interaction because Tim and Mr. D have not yet experienced a high level of collective emotional energy together. 121

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The deficiency in collective emotional energy in Fragment 6.3 is evident in the dis-fluent and divergent features of their interaction. For example, at turn 45, Tim is making utterances to provide descriptions of what he had previously read in relation to carbon-14 and beta decay. At the same time, it is evident that Mr. D is not sharing the same ideas as Tim, as he utters “yep” at turn 46. “Yep” is similar to the utterance of “yeah,” interpreted in conversational contexts as having three possible meanings (Lambertz, 2011). “Yep” may indicate alignment in terms of shared opinion, it may indicate agreement with a particular idea stronger than alignment, or it may act as a continuer. As a continuer an utterance such as ‘yeah’ or ‘yep’ is an action that keeps the conversation flowing without any clear evidence of agreement. The utterance enables the listener to show interest while allowing the speaker to continue (cf. Lambertz, 2011). In the context of Fragment 6.3, Mr. D’s utterance of “yep” acts as a simple continuer, because Tim continues his previous utterance with turn 47, where he overlaps Mr. D’s second “[yep]” with the start of the word “[nitr]ogen” evident by the square brackets in the transcript. Throughout Fragment 6.3 Mr. D performs no meaningful actions to contribute to the topic raised by Tim. Tim also gives no time for any further response, as he continues to speak after Mr. D’s utterance, and maintains the flow of his statements, consistent with his asynchronous experience of intense emotional energy and confidence. In addition to this continuation, Tim explicitly asks for confirmation of agreement at turn 49 with “would that be the process?” This question at turn 49 suggests that Tim takes Mr. D’s initial “yep” at line 46 as a continuer because Tim still needs to seek agreement through his question. The divergence or disjuncture between Tim and Mr. D provides evidence of a lack of collective emotional energy between them, and this is further evident as Mr. D makes a second, elongated response of “so::” at turn 48. Mr. D’s utterance, adds nothing to Tim’s topic. It only slows the conversation by creating a pause with the extension of the vowel sound on “so.” Tim then continues by explicitly seeking confirmation of his ideas by asking “would that be the process” (turn 49). Once again Tim continues as if Mr. D were part of the previous asynchronous interaction. Tim’s continuation, suggests his earlier collective emotional energy had carried over from Fragments 6.1 and 6.2, but it was only experienced collectively from Tim’s prior asynchronous and introspective stand point. 0U '¶V UHVSRQVH LV WR XWWHU WKH ZRUG ³VRUU\‫ ´ޗ‬DW WXUQ  ZLWK D ULVLQJ SLWFK VKRZQE\XVLQJµ‫¶ޗ‬LQWKHWUDQVFULSW7KHSURVRGLFIHDWXUHRISLWFKLQWKLVVLWXDWLRQ is consistent with other studies associating it with the speakers’ attempt to resolve disjuncture (Szczepek Reed, 2010). At turn 50, the word “sorry” acts only as a further extension of time because it adds no meaning to Tim’s ideas. It merely invites Tim to repeat his question (turn 51). Emotional Energy and Confirmation of Understanding Final resolution of the dis-fluency and divergence within the interaction between Mr. D and Tim starts to become evident at turn 62, in Fragment 6.4 below, 122

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when Mr. D asks Tim “so what’s happening there ((glances at notebook)) in that last bit.” Fragment 6.4. Emotional energy and confirmation understanding Turn

Speaker

Transcript

62

Mr. D

so what’s happening there ((glances at notebook)) in that last bit ((3.33SPS))

63

Tim

is beta decay (.) in beta decay the electron decays and then the beta decay .hhh ((shakes head slightly)) no(.) so it breaks down the neutron ((3.73SPS))

64

Mr. D

yeah well what happens is one of the neutrons [breaks up] [becomes unstable]

65

Tim

part of it becomes the [electron] that

66

Mr. D

goes away the decay

((4.00SPS)) ((6.67SPS)) ((5.00SPS))

[yeah] 67

Tim

((nods head and licks lips)) and then whats left if your neutral

68

Mr. D

and you lose a negative charge

((3.00SPS))

69

Tim

[and then you]

((5.00SPS))

70

Mr. D

[what does the charge] become ((continues with hand gestures)) ((6.49SPS))

71

Tim

POSITIVE ((Looks at Mr. D, points index finger toward Mr. D)) ((4.82SPS))

72

Mr. D

positive and that’s why it becomes a proton so

((6.00SPS))

73

Tim

and that’s why it becomes nitrogen

((4.92SPS))

74

Mr. D

yeah so as soon as you change the number of [protons from six to seven you’ve created nitrogen] ((3.23SPS))

75

Tim

[yeah so like (.) so that’s how many (.) oh ok so] ((2.50SPS))

Leading to the moment of turn 62, Mr. D is listening to Tim and reading his notes from Fragments 6.1 and 6.2. Fragment 6.4 is about the content of Tim’s notes, and Mr. D’s question causes Tim to pause. Tim’s response at turn 63 is characterized by uncertainty evident by Tim’s pause after the first utterance of “beta decay(.)” and his inhalation while shaking his head “.hhh ((shakes head slightly))” (turn 63). In addition to this, after shaking his head, Tim changed direction in his answer by rejecting his first utterances and making a new statement with “no(.) so it breaks down the neutron” (turn 63). The “no(.)” served as a self-correction as evidenced by his next statement about the neutron breaking down. This situation at the start of 123

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Fragment 6.4 evidences the transformation of Tim’s asynchronous emotional energy into synchronous emotional energy as his co-presence with Mr. D begins to achieve mutual focus around the sharing of similar ideas. Emotional Intensity, Convergence and Concepts This transformation becomes evident from the point of Tim’s uncertainty in turn 63, which is followed by Mr. D’s response at turn 64 where he presents an explanation for Tim. At turn 64 Mr. D explains “yeah well what happens is one of the neutrons [breaks up].” By making this utterance Mr. D is starting to reveal his own understanding of the topic, thereby enabling Tim to confirm his understanding. Tim’s understanding of the scientific ideas at this point in turn 63 is evident in his utterance of the words “becomes unstable.” In these early turns of Fragment 6.4, Tim is finally gaining confirmation from the teacher about his understanding of the topic he is studying. As Tim continues to seek confirmation of his conceptual understanding the emotional energy of this situation transforms. This is evident through our ethnomethodological orientation that makes visible the convergence of speech gestures, the rapid overlapping of words and mutual completion of sentences, and the bodily gestures of both Tim and Mr. D. For example, in Fragment 6.3 Tim’s average speech rate was 4.3 syllables per second (SPS) and Mr. D’s speech rate was 2.7 SPS. In contrast, for Fragment 6.4 Tim’s speech rate was 4.5 SPS and Mr. D’s speech rate was 4.4 SPS. The change in Mr. D’s speech rate to match Tim’s speech rate is important as it shows convergence in the style, or prosody, of their speech gestures. This convergence is considered a factor in identifying emotional energy (Roth & Tobin, 2010). Convergence was also evident in the speech overlaps (Schegloff, 2000) that we interpreted in this situation as evidence of mutual focus and heightened emotional energy. Speech overlaps are observable in Fragment 6.4 at turns 64–65 where Tim overlaps Mr. D’s utterance midway through turn 64 with “[yeah]” and makes a nodding gesture with his head indicating agreement (Stivers, 2008). In turn 68, Mr. D then continues his sentence with “and then what’s left if you’re neutral and you lose a negative charge.” As Mr. D completes this turn Tim continues Mr. D’s statement with “and then you” at turn 69, providing evidence of his entrainment on Mr. D’s statement in turn 68. Evidence of emotional energy continues further where Mr. D overlaps Tim’s turn 69 as he utters “[what does the charge] become” in turn 70. We interpret this conversation between Tim and Mr. D as an example of sharing-the-floor as simultaneous speakers (Schegloff, 2000), practicing the orderly co-construction of similar ideas by sharing understandings. This simultaneity involves Tim and Mr. D being highly attuned in gestural and conceptual entrainment (Davis, 2017), we interpret in our analyses as evidence of high intensity emotional energy. High intensity emotional energy is evident further after Mr. D’s question of “[what does 124

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the charge] become” (turn 70). Tim replies emphatically with “POSITIVE” and raises his index finger in alignment with his eye gaze directly toward Mr. D, as evident in the video. The emotional energy ensues through another instance of continuation at turn 72 where Mr. D states “positive and that’s why it becomes a proton so” (turn 72) and without any pause Tim continues Mr. D’s sentence for him with “and that’s why it becomes nitrogen” (turn 73). Mr. D then follows Tim’s statement in a similar way at turn 74 with “yeah” to agree with Tim, and then with “so as soon as you change the number of protons from [six to seven you’ve created nitrogen].” In effect through turns 72–74, Tim and Mr. D completed their shared explanation of beta decay where they each contributed parts of the same sentence. Emotional Intensity and Embodiment of Concepts We identified, in Fragment 6.4, a further layer of evidence for the intensity of emotional energy in the form of ongoing hand gestures, nodding and alignment of physical gaze. These data were interpreted as evidence of a strong mutual focus and an intense experience of collective emotional energy. Visual evidence of these gestures is shown below in Figure 6.3. In Figure 6.3, Mr. D and Tim sustain shared visual focus on one another as seen in panels A and B. Then, Tim’s visual focus shifts to Mr. D’s hands in Panel C. This sequence suggests that in the exchanges related to panels A and B, Tim may not require the additional representation afforded by Mr. D’s hand gesture. Perhaps Tim’s idea about number of protons is stable and the gesture adds no new information for his conceptual development. In contrast, Mr. D’s hand gestures entrain Tim’s physical gaze in Panel C as indicated by Tim’s eye entrainment toward the hand gestures. What this suggests is that the additional representation of the nitrogen atoms performed by Mr. D’s hands may be useful to the next step in Tim’s conceptual development. If we return to Tim’s lack of attention to the hands in Panels A and B, what this suggests in light of Panel C, is that Tim may not have seen the hand configuration as relevant to the utterances about protons, but may have taken the gesture to represent a nitrogen atom. Tim’s glance also coincides with Mr. D’s utterance “you’ve created nitrogen.” The sequence of utterances and Tim’s gaze direction suggest that the hand gesture becomes relevant only when the new object, nitrogen, appears in the dialogue through Mr. D’s utterance. For Tim, nitrogen becomes physically present in the interaction in Panel C. As an example of the intensity of physical gestures during Fragment 6.4, Figure 6.3 provides evidence of an intense experience of emotional energy through these moments. The ongoing eye contact throughout this interaction is important because eye contact is one of the primary forms of interpersonal encounter where, like touch, it provides a primary means of both sending and receiving communication in precisely the same moment (Heron, 1970). For this reason, eye contact, direction of gaze, and glances are considered to be evidence of attentiveness and mutual focus on shared 125

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Turn

Speaker

Transcript

74

Mr. D

75

Tim

yeah as soon as you change the number of [protons] [yeah]

74

Mr. D

75

Tim

74

Mr. D

75

Tim

Panel A From [six to seven] [so like]

Panel B [you’ve created nitrogen] [0so that’s how many(.) oh ok so0]

Panel C Figure 6.3. Embodiment of concepts

objects (Canadas & Lupianez, 2012), such as gestures and speech utterances as the performance of scientific ideas. THE LEARNING EVENT AS EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE AND TRANSFORMATION OF UNDERSTANDING

This study provides a fine-grained analysis of a learning event as a year 9 student grapples with an online science inquiry task by engaging asynchronously with an anonymous author and the research questions set by his teacher. During the online learning experience, the student displays a high level of concentration and confidence that we interpret as an intense experience of undramatic emotional energy. This 126

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experience is not homogenous over its duration. What we have documented with the student’s experience of this learning event is a series of micro-fluctuations in emotional energy and embodied actions that we may regard as micro-experiences, within the larger emotional experience we have come to understand over the duration of the learning event. Our observation of micro-experiences within a larger emotional experience is important for our understanding of learning events during science lessons. Through this study we have found that the learning event is comprised of different layers of concentric and eccentric micro-experiences dependent on fluctuating emotional energy and human responses to those experiences. Tim is a student with a high level of social competence, evident in his ability to respond when challenged and to take action in transforming the social situation to maintain his experience of emotional energy. Another student with less sophisticated social skills could have been distracted by his or her peers. These observations inform our understanding of learning in science because they illustrate the inter-play between emotional experience and cognitive engagement that enabled Tim to transform his understanding of unconfirmed science ideas into confirmed scientific knowledge. The manner in which Tim’s knowledge transformation took place may be understood by making some brief theoretical generalizations about this study. Firstly, while the learning event through online and face-to-face interaction was our unit of analysis, we found numerous micro-experiences as constituents of the overall event. This was evident in the underlying, mundane tone of undramatic emotional energy that fluctuated over time (cf. Collins, 2004). That is, the mundane experience of undramatic emotional energy was overlaid by momentary ruptures associated with simultaneous and/or subsequent responses or actions being taken within particular situations throughout the event. Secondly, these emotional fluctuations could be paired with fluctuations in cognitive effort and actions directed toward improved understanding about scientific ideas. The interplay between emotional micro-experiences and gradual cognitive changes (understanding ideas) is discussed in a previous study of a Year 8 science class by Bellocchi and Ritchie (2015). In their study, Bellocchi and Ritchie (2015) observe how a transformation in student understanding was followed by evidence of intensified emotional experiences, identified as the discrete emotions of pride and triumph. Our present study builds on this understanding of an emotion-cognition inter-play by describing the learning event in our study in terms of Adam Moore’s (2011) layering notion of social transformation. Moore (2011) describes social practices and relations as continually transforming through subtle and cumulative steps that give rise to transformations over time. Our study of Tim’s learning event may be described in Moore’s terminology leading us toward a generalization about student learning in terms of cumulative micro-experiences that constitute the overall event. Our study therefore contributes to the earlier work of Ritchie and Beer Newlands (2017) by building a fine-grained understanding of Tim’s learning event

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that points to the possibility for new, micro-sociological approaches to understand learning in school science classrooms. Thirdly, the online and face-to-face context of our study situation contributes further to our understanding of learning science via asynchronous interaction. Collins (2004) suggests that people engaging with materials and texts in isolated situations are engaging in introspection as a third order ritual of social interaction. This form of interaction is treated by Collins (2004) as weaker than face-to-face interaction in terms of its successful production of emotional energy. In a study of first and second order rituals of social interaction, Bellocchi, James Davis, and Donna King (2017) concluded that studies of introspection as third order rituals of asynchronous social interaction are the next frontier for this area of research. The online context of our present study has extended our exploration of Tim’s experience into this new frontier of third order rituals. As suggested by Bellocchi et al. (2017), our ethnomethodological orientation has been useful in accessing evidence to enhance our understanding of undramatic, but intense, experiences of emotional energy during introspection. As an initial study in this direction, we identify a need to understand more about the relationship between dramatic-undramatic situations and the intensity of emotional energy. Unravelling this relationship between notions of dramatic and undramatic and how we may measure the intensity of emotional energy is a further complexity that will need to be addressed in future research. Finally, the analysis of the learning event in this chapter points to further complexities around the particular structure of social interaction such as the form of technologies used, which may influence the sense of co-presence in asynchronous interaction. In a different context, this complexity was addressed in a previous investigation by Bellocchi et al. (2016) involving pre-service science teachers who experienced improved emotional energy and social bonds with the online lecturer as the quality of interaction was improved using video recordings to communicate. That study suggests asynchronous interactions may be successful depending on the conditions and technologies used in the interaction. In our present study, Tim engaged in an asynchronous interaction, but the teacher was in the same room and could be heard in the background speaking to other students. This may have contributed to Tim’s experience of social bonding with his teacher and may therefore explain his high level of emotional energy throughout the entire learning event. The strength of Tim’s social bond with the teacher was evident in the way he referred to previous class notes and in raising his hand to attract the teacher’s attention. In essence, by Tim being aware of the teacher’s presence in the room, this awareness may have contributed to a stronger sense of emotional energy and social bonding in this situation. This suggests that online learning in a classroom situation may be mediated by the physical presence of the teacher within the room, even if they are not always available for face-to-face interaction with particular students.

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EMOTIVE-COGNITIVE INTERPLAY IN SCIENCE EDUCATION RESEARCH

Our study of this learning event highlights the interplay between emotion and cognition in learning school science. The experience of emotions fluctuate across the life of this event illustrating the role of emotion in re-directing student focus, as cognitive challenges interrupted the continuity of student learning. That is, microexperiences as constituents of the learning event re-directed the social situation enabling the student to engage in a new situation, to transform unconfirmed information into valid scientific knowledge. In this way we may say that momentto-moment student responsiveness to emotional experiences contributed to the transformation of the interactional situation and student understanding of scientific ideas. The fine-grained narrative that this study presents, contributes toward an emergent micro-sociology of learning in science education contexts (cf. Bellocchi, 2017). Our micro-sociological perspective that seeks to explain how learning is enacted through experiences of learning events makes the emotion-cognition inter-play visible to science education researchers. As such it introduces the possibility for innovations in science education theory where the classroom context and the student experience are at the forefront of our future theoretical constructions. REFERENCES Alter, A. L., Oppenheimer, D. M., Epley, N., & Eyre, R. N. (2007). Overcoming intuition: Metacognitive difficulty activates analytic reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 569–576. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.136.4.569 Bellocchi, A. (2017). Interaction ritual approaches to emotion and cognition in science learning experiences. In A. Bellocchi, K. Otrel-Cass, & C. Quigley (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 85–105). Dordrecht: Springer. Bellocchi, A., Davis, J. P., & King, D. (2017). Science demonstrations as mediators of interaction ritual chains: Temporal transitions from mundane to intense emotional energy. In S. M. Ritchie & K. G. Tobin (Eds.), Eventful learning in science education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Bellocchi, A., Mills, K. A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Emotional experiences of preservice science teachers in online learning: The formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 629–652. doi:10.1007/s11422-015-9673-9 Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/ sce.21159 Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London: Penguin. Bollinger, J. (2002). Bollinger on bollinger bands. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Canadas, E., & Lupianez, J. (2012). Spatial interference between gaze direction and gaze location: A study on the eye contact effect. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 1586–1598. doi:10.1080/17470218.2012.659190 Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Davis, J. P. (2017). Emotions, social beings & ethnomethods: Understanding analogical reasoning in everyday science classrooms. In A. Bellocchi, K. Otrel-Cass, & C. Quigley (Eds.), Exploring

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J. P. DAVIS & A. BELLOCCHI emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 121–140). Dordrecht: Springer. Dewey, J. (1894). The theory of emotion: Emotional attitudes. The Psychological Review, 1, 553–569. Durkheim, E., & Mauss, M. (1903/1963). Primitive classification. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Hager, J. C. (2002). Facial action coding system: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Forrin, N. D., MacLeod, C. M., & Ozubko, J. D. (2012). Widening the boundaries of the production effect. Memory & Cognition, 40, 1046–1055. doi:10.3758/s13421-012-0210-8 Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Heron, J. (1970). The phenomenology of social encounter: The gaze. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 31, 243–264. Kraut, R. E., & Johnson, R. E. (1979). Social and emotional messages of smiling: An ethological approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1539–1553. Lambertz, K. (2011). Back-channelling: The use of yeah and mm to portray engaged listenership. Griffith Working Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication, 4, 11–18. Liberman, K. (2013). More studies in ethnomethodology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Livingston, E. (2006). Ethnomethodological studies of mediated interaction and mundane expertise. The Sociological Review, 54, 405–425. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962/2012). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge. Moore, A. (2011). The eventfulness of social reproduction. Sociological Theory, 29, 294–314, 341. Olitsky, S. (2007). Promoting student engagement in science: Interaction rituals and the pursuit of a community of practice. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44, 33–56. doi:10.1002/ tea.20128 Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372–422. Reeves, J. (1993). The face of interest. Motivation and Emotion, 17, 353–375. Ritchie, S. M., & Beers Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 107–119). Dordrecht: Springer. Ritchie, S. M., Hudson, P., Bellocchi, A., Henderson, S., King, D., & Tobin, K. (2016). Evolution of selfreporting methods for identifying discrete emotions in science classrooms. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 577–593. doi:10.1007/s11422-014-9607-y Rozin, R., & Cohen, A. B. (2003). High frequency of facial expressions corresponding to confusion, concentration, and worry in an analysis of naturally occurring facial expressions of Americans. Emotion, 3, 68–75. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.3.1.68 Schegloff, E. A. (2000). Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language in Society, 29, 1–63. Sewell, W. H. Jr. (2005). Logics of history: Social theory and social transformation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Silverman, D. (1998). Harvey sacks: Social science and conversation analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103, 677–680. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1671815?origin=JSTOR-pdf Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41, 31–57. doi:10.1080/ 08351810701691123 Szczepek Reed, B. (2010). Beyond the particular: Prosody and the coordination of actions. Language and Speech, 55, 13–34. doi:10.1177/0023830911428871 Tourangeau, R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1979). The role of facial response in the experience of emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1519–1531.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

James P. Davis is a lecturer and researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. His current research focuses on the micro-sociology of emotions in high school science classrooms, and research applications of ethnomethodology to understand better the enactment of school science pedagogy. Alberto Bellocchi is a Principal Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is currently the recipient of a 3-year funded research fellowship focusing on the interplay between social bonds and learning. His broader research program addresses teaching and learning within university preservice teacher education classes and high school science classrooms.

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LOUISA TOMAS, DONNA KING, SENKA HENDERSON, DONNA RIGANO AND MARYAM SANDHU

7. THE RESOLUTION OF FRUSTRATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSES The Role of the Classroom Teacher

ABSTRACT

Learning science can be frustrating work, particularly in middle school, where the resolution of negative emotions like frustration is critical to empower students’ successful learning and encourage positive, ongoing engagement in science. In this chapter, we examine the resolution of frustration in two case study middle school science classes. The first case explores the experiences of a Year 8 science class, and their frustration associated with completing a challenging task in a unit focused on coal seam gas mining. The second case examines the frustration experienced by a single student who struggled to understand a Year 9 chemistry topic. In both cases, the student’s frustration was successfully regulated and resolved through two very different approaches adopted by their classroom teachers, which led to feelings of pride and happiness. These two cases are analysed using a model of emotion regulation, so as to understand better how these teachers’ actions influenced their students’ emotions. Analyses revealed that the teachers employed different extrinsic regulation strategies that were responsive to their students’ emotions and learning needs, particularly cognitive change and situation modification strategies. The findings reveal that teachers can play a very important role in supporting their students to successfully regulate their negative emotions so that learning can proceed, when it otherwise might not. Keywords: frustration, emotion, emotion regulation, school science, negative emotions The importance of developing students’ positive affective attributes during science instruction is well documented within the literature. For example, many studies have explored classroom interventions aimed at developing students’ interest in science (e.g., Ritchie, Tomas, & Tones, 2011); positive attitudes towards science (e.g., Tomas, Ritchie, & Tones, 2011); and positive emotional responses in science classrooms (e.g., King, Ritchie, Henderson, Sandhu, & Boland, 2015). Such studies are based on the premise that positive learning experiences in science classes are necessary to

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_007

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support students’ waning interest, particularly in light of the concerns surrounding students’ disenchantment with school science (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003). While the embodiment of strong emotions about a science topic can lead to increased interest and continued engagement in science (Collins, 2004), negative emotions must be carefully managed so that they don’t present a barrier to learning. For example, achieving poorly on a science test might elicit feelings of disappointment and sadness; unsuccessful interactions in ongoing group work might elicit annoyance and frustration; and not understanding a particular concept or how to complete a task could lead to feelings of shame and embarrassment. Such negative emotions are part-andparcel of teaching and learning in science; yet, studies have tended to focus on novel or engaging interventions aimed at minimising the arousal of such emotions (or other affective attributes, such as low interest) in the first place. What is needed is a better understanding of how negative emotions can be successfully regulated on a daily basis as teachers enact the curriculum. In this chapter, we explore this issue by investigating how science teachers successfully regulate their students’ negative emotions – particularly frustration – so as to lead to desired learning outcomes in science. LEARNING AND INTERACTING TOGETHER: THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL ENERGY AND EMOTION REGULATION IN SCIENCE

The social milieu of classrooms gives rise to a multitude of learning experiences and social interactions that elicit students’ emotions, both positive and negative. Randall Collins’s (2004) theory of social action offers insight into how interest and learning is cultivated through social interactions in science classrooms. Collins posits that group membership and boundaries are fostered when people gather and focus their attention on a common object or activity. A group’s emotional energy, or collective “long-term mood” (Collins, 2004, p. 107), is derived from the interaction rituals that arise between members of the group, and contributes to the emergence and reproduction of social solidarity. According to Collins (2004), a group’s emotional energy is significant because people are motivated to attain more emotional energy through successful interaction rituals. In other words, successful interaction rituals generate motivating emotions that lead to high emotional energy. Conversely, failed interaction rituals lead to low emotional energy and demotivate group participants. In a classroom context, student engagement is connected to the emotional energy residing in the interactions that occur between students and their teacher (Milne & Otieno, 2007). Science classroom experiences that build emotional energy are likely to motivate students to pursue further experiences that generate high levels of emotional energy (Tomas, Rigano, & Ritchie, 2016). The science teacher is responsible for initiating, supporting and monitoring interaction rituals that build emotional energy and lead to feelings of group membership and solidarity. There is greater awareness about how teachers influence and are influenced by the emotional climate in schools (Zembylas, 2007), and more recently in science classrooms (Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu, Sandhu, Henderson, & Roth, 2013). 134

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A teacher’s ability to create a positive emotional climate is considered crucial to achieving learning outcomes. Failure to live up to expectations is linked to the arousal of negative emotions, which in turn, shape future teaching practices. In the event that failed interaction rituals give rise to negative emotions in the science classroom, students’ ability to regulate their emotions becomes important so that they can focus their attention and apply the necessary mental processes for learning (Blair, 2002). Emotion regulation refers to “the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions” (Gross, 1998, p. 275). While it is often viewed hedonically, as a desire to decrease one’s negative emotional states and increase their positive ones (Pekrun, 2006), emotion regulation is complex, comprising efforts to increase or decrease one’s experience of positive or negative emotions (Gross, 2014). Emotion regulation involves activating a goal to modify one’s emotional experience, and engaging processes for changing the trajectory or dynamics of the emotions, such as their magnitude and duration, or offsetting behavioural, experiential, and physiological responses (Gross, 2014). Regulation strategies can be employed consciously when a person recognises and understands their emotions, so as to behave a certain way or achieve a desired goal (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002); however, emotion regulation also can occur without conscious awareness, when triggered by environmental cues (Boekaerts, 2011). In the context of the middle school science classroom, the expression of negative emotions in a supportive classroom environment may have positive outcomes for students. For example, the frustration elicited by a difficult task could be perceived as a precursor for positive emotions such as pride and happiness, once task mastery is achieved (see King, Ritchie, Sandhu, Henderson, & Boland, 2016). In other circumstances, however, unresolved negative emotions or the ongoing perpetuation of low emotional energy can impact negatively on classroom interactions, and students’ interest in and attitudes toward science (King et al., 2015; Olitsky & Milne, 2012). To persist under these circumstances, students must seek successful interaction rituals that build emotional energy, group membership, and solidarity (Kershner, Warwick, Mercer, Kleine, & Staarman, 2014). In this chapter, we draw upon Gross’s (1998) process model of emotion regulation, a conceptual framework that offers one way of “organizing the myriad forms of emotion regulation that are encountered in everyday life” (Gross & Thompson, 2007, p. 10). The model is based on the premise that regulation strategies differ in when they impact on an individual’s emotional experience on a continuum of time; either before or after behavioural, experiential, and physiological emotion response tendencies arise (Gross, 1998). Gross posits that strategies employed early in the emotion-generative process give rise to a different profile of affective, cognitive and social consequences, compared to strategies that are employed later on (e.g., whether they increase or decrease one’s emotion experience, or decrease behavioural expression) (Gross, 2002). According to this model, emotion regulation strategies can be broadly categorised as either antecedent-focused or response-focused. The 135

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first refers to strategies that are employed before one’s appraisal of a situation fully activates emotion response tendencies (e.g., a student choosing to view a science project as an opportunity to show the teacher what she has learned, rather than as a test she is likely to fail). Response-focused emotion regulation is employed once an emotion is already in progress and response tendencies have been created (e.g., a teacher choosing not to show his anxiety about teaching a new science class). Within these two categories are five families of emotion regulation processes that represent distinct points in the emotion generative process (Gross & Thompson, 2007). The first two families can shape a person’s situation so as to influence the emotions that are elicited. Situation selection involves taking actions that alter the likelihood that a person will find herself in a situation that she expects will give rise to particular emotions, whether they be desirable or not (e.g., approaching or avoiding particular people, places or objects). Situation modification concerns modifying a situation (i.e., a person’s external environment) so as to alter its emotional impact. When it is not possible to change, or modify a situation, attentional deployment can change the focus of his attention by seeking distractions, concentrating on a task, or thinking deeply about his feelings and their consequences. Attentional deployment may be considered an “internal version” of situation modification (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Cognitive change involves changing how one thinks about a situation; appraising a situation with a view to modify its emotional significance. These four families of regulation processes are antecedent-focused, and influence whether or not particular emotional responses are triggered (Gross, 1998, 2002). The fifth group, response modulation, is response-focused in origin, and concerns efforts to change emotion response tendencies as directly as possible once they have been elicited (Gross, 2002). Drugs, food, physical exercise or deep breathing techniques can modulate one’s emotional response, as can conscious efforts to suppress positive or negative emotion-expressive behaviour (Gross, 2014). At this point, it is important to clarify whether emotion regulation refers to intrinsic processes (regulation in self), extrinsic processes (regulation in others), or to both. While Gross’s (1998) early definition of emotion regulation “emphasizes regulation in self” (p. 275), further definitions acknowledge the role of others in influencing a person’s emotions (e.g., Thompson, 1994). For example, Ross Thompson (1994) asserts that, “emotion regulation encompasses not only acquired strategies of emotion self-management but also the variety of external influences by means of which emotion is regulated. This is because a considerable amount of emotion regulation occurs through the interventions of others” (p. 28, original emphasis). This definition recognises that the development of one’s capacity for self-regulation occurs within a broader sociocultural context that presents many external regulatory influences. Such influences are crucial for the development of meaningful, longlasting relationships (Thompson, 1994), and are particularly salient as children grow and develop (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Gross and Thompson (2007) recognise that both internal and external regulatory processes are essential, and suggest that the terms “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” are used for clarity. 136

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We found that Gross’s (1998) process model of emotion regulation offered great utility in helping us to think about how teachers (like the ones in our study) can play a role in influencing or facilitating students’ emotion regulation with a view to support their engagement and learning in science. In Table 7.1, we consider how the model can be applied in a classroom context, focusing on the role of the teacher. In this context, the distinction between antecedent- and response-focused strategies becomes less important, as teachers are often required to react to students’ emotion response tendencies, once the emotion has unfolded; however, we do acknowledge that teachers can pre-empt their students’ behaviour or reactions, and may intervene, accordingly. As shown in Table 7.1, teachers can help students to regulate their Table 7.1. A conceptualisation of the extrinsic emotion regulation strategies that a teacher can employ to influence students’ emotions in the classroom (adapted from Gross, 1998, 2002, 2014; Gross & Thompson, 2007) Emotion regulation Explanation process

Example

Situation selection

The teacher helps students to understand the features of situations that make them emotional, and guides them to consider whether they should approach or avoid particular situations, people or objects so as to regulate emotion.

When selecting laboratory partners, students are encouraged to avoid pairings that might elicit frustration or anger.

Situation modification

The teacher supports students to modify a situation so as to regulate its emotional impact.

The teacher helps students in a dysfunctional group to assign roles to each member so that they can cooperate and work more effectively.

Attentional deployment

The teacher guides students to shift the focus of their attention by seeking a distraction, concentrating intently on a given task or topic, or ruminating on a problem.

A teacher helps to alleviate a student’s anxiety before presenting to the class by requiring her to focus on the sense of achievement she will experience when she is finished.

Cognitive change

The teacher helps students to decide which meaning they will assign to a situation.

The teacher suggests that students view a failed science experiment as an opportunity to reflect on and learn from their experience.

Response modulation

The teacher employs strategies to modulate or influence students’ emotion response tendencies.

The teacher employs mindfulness techniques to calm and relax students at the end of a difficult lesson.

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emotions in the science classroom, if they are in-tune with how students are feeling and/or aware of their emotion response tendencies. For example, a teacher can assist students to regulate feelings of sadness or disappointment elicited by a failed science experiment by encouraging them to view the experience as an opportunity to learn and develop their science inquiry skills. We now present two cases that begin to explore ways in which students can be supported to regulate their frustration in the science classroom. The first case arose from a study that investigated students’ regulation of negative emotions during ongoing group work, as they collaborated on a project about a socio-scientific issue (Tomas, Rigano, & Ritchie, 2016). The second case is drawn from a study that explored students’ frustration when learning introductory chemistry concepts. Both cases offer insights into how classroom teachers can support students to regulate negative emotions, like frustration, that might otherwise serve to impede their engagement and learning. After presenting each case below, we discuss their implications for our understanding of emotion regulation in science and for classroom practice, and outline directions for further research. CASE 1: REGULATING STUDENTS’ FRUSTRATION DURING WHOLE-CLASS INSTRUCTION

In this first case, we examine how a Year 8 science teacher, Miss Murphy (pseudonym), recognised her students’ low emotional energy and regulated students’ frustration to achieve a specific learning goal. This case occurred during a unit of work focused on Australia’s energy future (spanning 9-weeks, three lessons per week), in which students explored Australia’s current sources of energy and energy consumption, and the role that renewable energy sources might play in the future. The socioscientific issue of coal seam gas (CSG) mining was a key focus of the unit. As the main assessment task, students were required to work in small groups to plan, film, edit and produce short videos about CSG mining that explored the science behind the process and evaluated research evidence to present an informed position on the issue. Preparation for the task included direct teaching of relevant key concepts; an exploration of renewable and non-renewable energy sources; building models of renewable energy sources and using them to conduct energy experiments; watching videos about sources of energy and answering questions; short research tasks; and worksheets. Two complimentary sources of data were used to gain an insight into students’ emotional arousal over the course of the unit: a student emotion diary and video recordings of science lessons. The emotion diary requires students to identify the most salient emotions they experience during class at the end of each lesson, such as happiness, enjoyment, pride, anxiety, frustration and disgust. It also asks students to score their level of interest during the lesson on a scale of 1 (‘very bored’) to 10 (‘very interested’). 138

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Emotion data from the students’ diary entries were analysed quantitatively by counting the frequency that each emotion was reported each lesson. Mean interest scores on a scale of 1–10 were calculated by averaging students’ ratings for each lesson. Collectively, these data were presented graphically and used heuristically to identify significant classroom events characterised by more frequent reporting of particular emotions and fluctuations in self-reported interest. Any qualitative data provided in the diary (i.e., explanations of why particular emotions were elicited) were coded manually and analysed inductively to identify prominent themes. Although the emotion diaries do not provide data regarding ‘in the moment’ emotional experiences (Wosnitza & Volet, 2005), they are useful to guide qualitative analysis of video recordings and observations of science lessons by identifying significant classroom events worthy of closer investigation, as signaled by trends in students’ emotions and interest levels over the course of the unit. Figure 7.1 presents a summary of students’ mean interest levels over the 9-week period. Overall, students’ mean interest scores varied between 5.7 (lesson 4.1) and 9.1 (lesson 8.1), noting that scores higher than 5 represented ‘interested’, while those less than 5 represented ‘bored’. The mean interest score for the entire unit was 7.7, which suggests that this group of students was generally interested and engaged. A visual analysis of Figure 7.1 reveals a number of peaks and troughs in students’ interest. While interest fluctuated, any drops were generally shortlived and followed by an increase in interest in the next lesson. The lowest level of student interest was recorded in lesson 4.1 (M = 5.7; Figure 7.1, point a). While the range in students’ interest scores was relatively low (R = 3.4), these fluctuations are nonetheless significant in the context of these students’ perceptions, and led us to examine the corresponding emotions data arising from these lessons more closely. In fact, it was an examination of lesson 4.1 that identified the case presented herein.

Figure 7.1. Students’ mean interest levels across the course of the energy unit. Note that the lesson numbers are formatted such that the first digit represents the week (weeks 1–10), while the second digit corresponds to the lesson number in a given week (lessons 1–3). From L. Tomas, D. Rigano & S. M. Ritchie (2016), Students’ regulation of their emotions in a science classroom, Journal of Research in Science Teaching. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Reproduced with permission.

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Figure 7.2 presents on overall count of each of the emotions reported by students in their emotion diaries. Given that students generally expressed quite high levels of interest throughout the unit of work, it is not surprising that positive emotions were reported most frequently; namely, excitement, happiness and enjoyment. Low counts of negative emotions and other emotions/feelings were reported (i.e., enthusiasm, low confidence, argumentative, tired, unsure, bored, confused, irritated and weird), with the exception of frustration, which stands out as being reported much more frequently than the other negative emotions. Closer examination illustrates how students’ emotions varied lesson by lesson. In Figure 7.2, it is evident that the positive emotions of excitement, happiness and enjoyment dominated students’ perceptions of their experiences, while frustration is clearly reported more frequently than the other negative emotions. A detailed count of each of the emotions reported in students’ emotion diaries for six weeks of the school term is presented in Figure 7.3 (see Tomas, Rigano, & Ritchie, 2016, for data for the whole term). Lesson 4.1 – characterised by the lowest level of reported student interest (Figure 7.1, point a) – presented much lower counts of positive emotions than most other lessons, and noticeably higher counts of frustration (Figure 7.3, point a). During this lesson, students were engaged in a task that required them to summarise a text about CSG mining. Students continued with this task in lesson 4.2. In contrast to the preceding lesson, this lesson was marked by much lower counts of frustration and the highest count for pride for the entire

Figure 7.2. An overall count of each of the emotions reported by students in their emotion diaries. From L. Tomas, D. Rigano & S. M. Ritchie (2016), Students’ regulation of their emotions in a science classroom, Journal of Research in Science Teaching. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Reproduced with permission.

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unit. Higher counts of frustration were also recorded at other times. For example, in lesson 6.2, students began planning and scripting their videos in small groups (see Figure 7.3). Students continued filming and editing their videos in lessons 8.2 to 10.1. These lessons also yielded consistently higher counts of frustration than previous lessons, and corresponded to a steady decline in students’ interest (Figure 7.2). An analysis of these trends also identified a significant classroom event that provided fruitful insights into the ways in which students regulate their negative emotions during ongoing group work (Tomas, Rigano, & Ritchie, 2016); however, for the purposes of this chapter, we will focus on the events that occurred in lessons 4.1 and 4.2 (Figure 7.3, point a). At the beginning of week 4 of the unit, students had not commenced work on scripting or filming the CSG mining video task; instead, they were learning about CSG mining in preparation for writing their scripts. During lesson 4.1, Miss Murphy

Figure 7.3. A detailed count of each of the emotions reported by students in the emotion diaries, in lessons 3.2–5.1. Note that the lessons are numbered such that the first digit represents the week (weeks 3–5), while the second digit corresponds to the lesson number in a given week (lessons 1–3)

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provided the class with a piece of expository text about CSG mining. Students were required to extract the key points from the text to write a summary of the important information about CSG mining that should be included in their video scripts. To assist students in completing the task, Miss Murphy instructed the class on how to summarise a text using a four-step process (preview, read, evaluate and summarise); however, this instruction was decontextualised, as it did not refer to the features of scientific texts that students might encounter (e.g., scientific terms, data, visual representations, scientific claims). At the same time, the students found the scientific content of the text difficult to interpret and understand. The group’s emotional energy during this lesson was low given the high cognitive demand of the task and their apparent inability to complete it successfully. In their emotion diaries for this lesson, students reported a lower level of interest compared to preceding lessons (M = 5.7, Figure 7.1, point a), and identified predominantly negative emotions in their diaries (frustration, annoyance and confusion; Figure 7.3, point a). Table 7.2 represents a typical emotion diary entry for this lesson. Table 7.2. A typical emotion diary entry for lesson 4.1 Lesson

Emotion/s

Explanation

4.1

Frustration Annoyed

I didn’t understand summaries. I want to be able to do it.

Interest rating 6

Miss Murphy collected students’ emotion diaries at the end of the lesson, glancing briefly at the entries. Sensing the group’s low emotional energy (particularly as she expected the task to have been completed), she asked how they felt during the lesson. Students responded by calling out comments like “Frustrated!,” “Confused!” and “It [the task] was hard.” Their teacher acknowledged their responses by saying that she was happy to hear this, much to the students’ surprise (as indicated by audible gasps of surprise and vocalisations such as “What?!”). Miss Murphy went on to explain that their negative emotions meant they were learning something new, and that they were uncomfortable about finding it challenging to do. She further explained that these feelings would motivate them to learn how to complete the task successfully. At the start of the following lesson (lesson 4.2), Miss Murphy began by reviewing the task from the previous afternoon, as illustrated by the following excerpt: Miss Murphy Students Miss Murphy Students Miss Murphy Students 142

Where did we get up to yesterday? Which stage [of summarising a text]? Did we preview? ((collectively)) Yes Did we read the text? ((collectively)) Yes Did we evaluate? ((collectively))Yes

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Miss Murphy Students Miss Murphy

Did we evaluate well? ((collectively)) Nooo Noooo ((shaking her head)). I think that was, ah, where we kind of got to a point where we were like “Aw, this text is quite hard. I’m not really sure what the authors’ main point is.” Okay? And then the lesson ended, and there was a lot of frustration, and we didn’t quite get to the end, and not everybody was satisfied with what they learnt. So, that’s where we’re going to pick up today. We’re going to start with the evaluate part of the process.

Over the course of the lesson, Miss Murphy asked the class what might help to make the task easier to complete. In discussion with their teacher, the students decided that reading through the text together as a class and in small groups, and discussing the article with their peers would help them to clarify their understanding as well as how to approach summarising the text. This lesson ended more positively compared to the previous lesson. By the end, students had completed written summaries in their books and expressed satisfaction that they had learned a new skill. Students’ responses in their emotion diaries for lesson 4.2 revealed higher levels of interest than the previous lesson (Figure 7.1, point a). At the same time, while much lower counts of frustration were reported, students more frequently reported feeling proud (Table 7.3). Table 7.3. A typical emotion diary entry for lesson 4.2 Lesson

Emotion/s

Explanation

Interest rating

4.2

Pride

I finally get it.

9

In this case, recognising her students’ negative emotions had significant consequences for the emotional energy in Miss Murphy’s classroom, and for her students’ learning. The emotion diaries helped Miss Murphy to identify the frustration that was elicited by the task, which she openly acknowledged and addressed quickly through her pedagogical approach in the following lesson. In this way, it appeared that her responsive and timely instruction supported students to regulate their negative emotions so that they could persist with a challenging task. This led to a resolution of students’ frustration and enabled them to complete the task successfully, restoring the emotional energy of the class and leading to greater levels of interest (M = 7.2), pride, happiness, and enjoyment. While Miss Murphy’s strategy to resolve students’ frustrations centred on her ability to acknowledge and respond to the collective mood of the group, and adjust her whole-class instruction accordingly, in the following case, this is contrasted by the teacher’s strategy for resolving frustration through interactions with an individual student in his Year 9 science class. 143

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CASE 2: THE RESOLUTION OF AN INDIVIDUAL STUDENT’S FRUSTRATION THROUGH ONE-ON-ONE INTERACTIONS

The second case arose from an interpretive study spanning a 9-week period where students were learning introductory chemistry concepts. In this study, a student’s feelings of frustration and sadness were resolved when she was afforded time to revisit new concepts through a one-on-one exchange with her teacher (King et al., 2015). In this case, we present an event where the teacher, Mr. Boyd (pseudonym), responded to the frustration expressed by one case study student, Greta (pseudonym), ameliorating her negative emotions. Greta stood out in the study because she often displayed negative emotions overtly, expressing her frustration through utterances and gestures. She also wrote insightful comments in her emotion diary indicating reasons for her emotions; for example, “when I didn’t understand what sir was talking about” accompanied a record of frustration. Furthermore, Greta appeared to withdraw from class at times. Mr. Boyd described her as a student who “lacked confidence with science and if something became difficult she shut down instead of persevering.” She presented as an interesting case for further investigation given her negative emotions suggested that she was at risk of “giving up.” We examine the teacher’s response to Greta’s expressed emotions and how the one-on-one interaction resolved her negative emotions and gave way to more positive ones. Importantly, we highlight Greta’s acknowledgement of learning about chemical combustion reactions through this exchange. In the same way as the previous case, students completed emotion diaries and recorded their levels of interest on a 10-point scale at the end of each lesson. In addition, the lessons were also observed and video recorded to identify any notable instances of students’ outward expressions of emotions, as signaled by particular vocalisations, gestures, and behaviours. Given that spontaneous facial expressions can be accurate indicators of emotions, images of students’ faces (captured by the classroom video recordings) were analysed qualitatively to provide evidence of in-the-moment emotional arousal using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (Ekman & Friesen, 1978; Keltner & Ekman, 2000). This anatomically based system measures visible facial behaviours and has been used extensively in empirical studies of facial measurement (Tomas & Ritchie, 2012). In this case, manual procedures for interpreting students’ spontaneous facial expressions captured on video were applied, according to Ekman and Friesen (1975). This analysis complemented the self-reported data recorded in the emotion diaries. The event illustrated by this case occurred in the second lesson of the third week of the unit (Lesson 3.2, see Figure 7.4, point a). This lesson stood out initially because it was one of three lessons where there was a marked drop in students’ selfreported mean interest score and predominately negative emotions were recorded in the emotion diaries (see Figure 7.4). We had observed Greta’s expressed emotions during Lesson 3.2, which were intense at times, and analysed her interactions with the teacher’s insights into how Mr. Boyd supported her to regulate her negative emotions. 144

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Figure 7.4. Graph showing students’ mean interest levels across the chemistry unit. Average interest for Lesson 2 in Week 3 dropped to 6.1. Note that the lesson numbers are formatted such that the first digit represents the week (weeks 1–8), while the second digit corresponds to the lesson number in a given week (lessons 1–3)

In this lesson, Mr. Boyd was teaching his students about combustion reactions, and single replacement and double replacement reactions through a whole-class explanation, using the whiteboard to illustrate examples. Greta’s negative emotions were evident when she asked the teacher a question nearly an hour into the lesson: “Sir, you didn’t do capital letters,” referring to the lower-case letters he used for explaining a general synthesis reaction: “a + b Æ ab.” The teacher paused briefly before he laughed and replied, “Ohh … Greta you can fix this, it’s okay.” Greta shook her head back and forth while mumbling “mm..mm,” indicating she disagreed with his answer. From our observations, it appeared that Greta was not sure she could “fix it,” or perhaps she wasn’t sure what needed “fixing.” She continued to look down at her laptop with an unhappy facial expression. We were already aware that Greta found the science concepts difficult from previous lessons; however, in this lesson, she appeared to be particularly unhappy. Mr. Boyd continued the lesson and asked the class to complete a short worksheet on their laptops that required them to search for an example of each of the three different types of chemical reactions. After this, he walked around the room to gauge students’ progress, pausing to look at Greta’s laptop computer, as she had not begun the task. Mr. Boyd was aware of her previous emotional cues that suggested a lack of solidarity with the rest of the class. Greta’s posture was slumped and her eyes were downcast, rarely looking up at the teacher. Her low emotional energy was obvious through her gestures and stood out from the rest of the class. Mr. Boyd crouched down beside her and began the following exchange where he reinforced the science concepts. Importantly, there was a transformation of Greta’s emotions from negative to positive: 01 Mr. Boyd Greta. 02 Greta Hm ((hardly audible)) 145

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03 Mr. Boyd Okay, you’re looking freaking out, what’s up? ((speaking softly)) 04 Greta I don’t know (pause). I don’t get it ((looking down; Figure 7.5a. Then, she wipes her tears; Figure 7.5b.)) 05 Mr. Boyd Okay, so, do you understand kind of what’s happening here? ((pointing at Greta’s computer monitor)) 06 Greta Yeah it’s just a combustion [reaction]. 07 Mr. Boyd Okay, combustion … ((Mr. Boyd goes on to explain how to recognise a combustion reaction in simple terms)) … If you are having problems with this stuff, just read over tonight, just try to make you understand a bit or explain it to someone. So, if you want, try to explain it to Catherine now and go “ok, this is what double replacement is … this is what single replacement is.” Try and do that sort of stuff … or when you get home, do you have a little teddy bear? Is it a cute teddy bear? 08 Greta No ((not looking)) 09 Mr. Boyd Do you have aaa little stuffed ducky? 10 Greta No ((shakes head)) 11 Mr. Boyd Turtle? 12 Greta ((shakes head)) 13 Mr. Boyd Any little stuffed toy? 14 Greta No ((smiles while still looking down)) 15 Mr. Boyd … Do you have a pet? 16 Greta No 17 Catherine Yes, you have a dog. ((joins the conversation)) 18 Greta No ((smiles for the first time)) 19 Mr. Boyd ((smiles)) Do you have anything that has a face? 20 Greta My brother ((she laughs, looking up at Mr. Boyd)) 21 Mr. Boyd Awesome, how old is your brother? ((while smiling – speaks excitedly and more loudly, and stands up)) 22 Greta Four. 23 Mr. Boyd Cool, he is the best toy ever. 24 Greta ((Greta laughs and looks up at Mr. Boyd; Figure 7.5c.)) 25 Mr. Boyd So, explain this to him, he’ll have no idea what you are saying, he’ll just go “what’s those words?” 26 Greta No, he’ll probably tell me to shut up, he’ll tell me he’s sick of me talking. ((Mr. Boyd, Greta and Catherine burst into loud laughter at the same time; Figure 7.6) This vignette can be categorised as an interaction ritual due to the close proximity of teacher and student, and their mutual focus on Greta’s lack of understanding and 146

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shared emotional mood (Collins, 2004). Initially, Mr. Boyd spoke softly to Greta and crouched down beside her. Greta acknowledged that she didn’t understand the task (turn 04) and wiped tears from her eyes. Her facial expression is indicative of sadness, as the corners of her lips are drawn down and her eyebrows are raised as she wipes her eyes (Ekman, 2003; Figure 7.5a, b). Greta’s downward gaze is also characteristic of sadness, and suggests that she was experiencing shame or guilt, presumably because she was struggling to understand the learning material (Ekman, 2003).

Figure 7.5. (a) Greta is sad and looks down. (b) Greta wipes her tears. (c) Greta is happy

Figure 7.6. Mr. Boyd and Greta laugh in synchrony

Mr. Boyd responded by giving Greta a simplified explanation of combustion reactions (turn 07). Following this, he offered her some suggestions to revise by reading through the work again at home that night and trying to explain the concepts to someone else. At the end of the turn (07), he begins to “cheer her up” by suggesting 147

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possible objects or people who could be recipients of her new knowledge, such as a teddy bear or her little brother. Greta smiles (turn 18) and eventually laughs at the idea of her little brother being used as a “toy” to listen to her explanation of types of chemical reactions (turns 20–26 30) (Figure 7.5c). At this point, Greta and Mr. Boyd’s body movements are synchronised as their hands move to their respective faces and they laugh together (Figure 7.6). Greta’s facial expression is that of a ‘felt smile’ (her mouth is open and her teeth are parted as the corners of the lips are pulled up towards the cheek bones, and naso-labial folds extend out from the nose and down the area beyond the corners of the mouth). This is a genuine and spontaneous expression of positive emotion (Ekman, 2003). Through his interaction with Greta, Mr. Boyd successfully shifted her focus away from her despair at not understanding the concepts by quietly explaining combustion reactions again, and empowering her to consolidate her understanding through simple revision strategies using a humorous exchange. Mr. Boyd concluded the conversation by suggesting that she pretend to explain the science ideas to the famous pop band “One Direction.” Greta smiled and appeared to clasp her hands in excitement. Mr. Boyd had turned this exchange into a successful interaction ritual that transformed Greta’s emotions from sad to happy. In this one-on-one exchange, the teacher used humour as a strategy to support Greta to regulate her negative emotions that arose from learning challenging science concepts. When asked about his use of humour in the classroom, Mr. Boyd confirmed that he employed humour frequently in his teaching: “I often use humour [that is] related to what we are doing to get the students engaged, or I use ‘cool’ information about that topic.” He went on to explain that he often referred to humour for helping students “to get through the mental barriers of the content,” as demonstrated by his exchange with Greta. We observed Mr. Boyd use humour and one-on-one interactions many times with students throughout the course of the term. He would use this individual approach to revisit science concepts (see King et al., 2015), provide alternative explanations using different strategies and forms of representations (e.g., diagrams, role play and demonstrations), and discuss ways in which students could revise their learning at home. After the exchange between Greta and Mr. Boyd, Donna (second listed author) approached Greta and asked her some questions about what had transpired. While the researcher did not hear their conversation first hand, she had observed Greta’s obvious transformation of emotions, as signaled by a marked change in her posture and her behaviour (i.e., she was sitting straight in her chair, looking up and interacting with her friends). Greta was able to explain the characteristics of a combustion reaction, which, in this case, illustrates the importance of Mr. Boyd’s intervention in supporting her to regulate her negative emotions so that learning could proceed: Donna Greta 148

Did that conversation with Mr. Boyd help you, just then? Ahh, yeah.

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Donna Greta Donna Greta Donna Greta

Was he explaining anything to you? I didn’t hear it, what was he explaining to you? Um … just making sure that I understood the combustion and decomposition, and he explained and I seem to get it now. You get it now? How did he explain it? He said, just look at, um, where the carbon dioxide is [on the] left side [pause], um, the … and something else, H2O I think is on [the] right hand side, and that’s nearly guaranteed to be combustion. Yep. Um, yeah. That helped me understand.

TEACHERS’ EXTRINSIC REGULATION OF THEIR STUDENTS’ FRUSTRATION IN SCIENCE CLASSES: INSIGHTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CLASSROOM PRACTICE

My main idea of science, is that if the students enjoy it, they will remember it and hopefully learn it. I like to have students smile in class and be actively engaged. As science is a subject that many students have trouble with and it is seen as a very hard subject, there is often the huge negative emotions (every year there will be some students in tears or really angry because they “don’t get it”). (Mr. Boyd, email communication, emphasis added) This excerpt from an end-of-project email from Mr. Boyd serves to illustrate his approach to teaching science; that is, to help his students learn by fostering an engaging and enjoyable learning environment. This approach is reflected in his use of humour in the classroom, as illustrated by the second case in this chapter. At the same time, it is clear in this excerpt that Mr. Boyd is cognisant of the ‘huge negative emotions’ that a ‘hard subject’ like science can elicit. For both Mr. Boyd and Miss Murphy, being aware of their students’ negative emotions had significant implications for engagement and learning. In the first case, Miss Murphy’s intervention extrinsically regulated her students’ negative emotions arising from a challenging task, such that they persisted and completed the task successfully. In analysing Miss Murphy’s approach, there appear to be two important aspects of her intervention. First, Miss Murphy recognised the low emotional energy of her class as she collected her students’ emotion diaries at the end of the lesson. She also noticed that her students seemed to struggle with what she expected to be a relatively straight forward task of summarising a piece of expository text about CSG. Collectively, these observations prompted her to ask how her students were feeling. This acknowledgement of their emotions in the first instance was important, as it would have likely helped to validate her students’ emotions, such that they felt they were being listened to and that they mattered. While her students openly expressed their frustration and confusion at not properly comprehending or finishing the task, Miss Murphy explained that she was happy to 149

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hear about their negative emotions, as it meant that they were uncomfortable about learning something new. Furthermore, she explained that her students’ uncomfortable emotions would serve to motivate them to complete the task successfully. In this way, Miss Murphy acknowledged her students’ feelings of frustration and confusion, and prompted them to view the situation in a positive light. Drawing on our framework presented in Table 7.1, this approach may be viewed as a cognitive change strategy; helping students to think differently about a difficult situation that was eliciting negative emotions, to help them persevere with the task. The second notable aspect of Miss Murphy’s intervention was that this simple exchange between her and students about their emotions informed her pedagogical choices for the next lesson, which represented another regulation strategy. The next day, Miss Murphy revisited their progress and acknowledged that they found the ‘evaluate’ component of the task difficult and frustrating. She asked her students how they thought they could come to evaluate the text more effectively, which gave rise to a more collaborative, student-centred way forward. By changing her instructional approach to help her students complete the task, Miss Murphy employed a situation modification strategy (Table 7.1). In this way, helping her students to evaluate the text through her pedagogical approach changed a difficult situation that was eliciting frustration. By the end of the lesson, the students had completed the task successfully, giving rise to higher counts of positive emotions, particularly pride, and higher levels of self-reported interest. These findings are consistent with Bellocchi and Ritchie’s (2015) claims that negative emotions, like frustration, are transformed when students come to understand new science concepts, and that the feeling of pride is associated with mastering challenging science activities. In this case, had it not been for Miss Murphy’s recognition and open acknowledgement of her students’ negative emotions; her suggestion that their uncomfortable feelings would have positive implications for their learning (a cognitive change regulation strategy); and her responsive pedagogy that addressed the source of her students’ frustration (a situation modification strategy), it is unlikely that her students would have experienced the pride associated with persisting with a challenging task and completing it successfully. An analysis of the second case presented in this chapter reveals that, like the first case, without Mr. Boyd’s emotionally responsive intervention, it is unlikely that Greta would have persisted with learning new and challenging science concepts. Mr. Boyd employed three different extrinsic situation modification strategies at three points during his exchange with Greta that gave rise to a successful interaction ritual so that learning could proceed. First, Mr. Boyd offered Greta a one-to-one explanation of the science concepts that afforded her a simple way of recognising the characteristics of a combustion reaction when viewing a chemical equation. Like Miss Murphy’s responsive pedagogy in the previous case, this instructional approach represents a situation modification strategy; that is, changing the situation, one in which Greta didn’t understand the science, through direct instruction. This strategy

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was appropriate given the circumstances, and responded to Greta’s expression of sadness and despair at not understanding combustion reactions. Second, Mr. Boyd offered Greta some different revision strategies (i.e., reading over the material again in the evening, and explaining the concepts to someone else) to help consolidate her understanding. Mr. Boyd’s rationale for this approach was that by explaining it to others, “it gives you another way of remembering it … another connection in your brain to the information” (email communication). He also believed that explaining combustion reactions out loud would be beneficial to Greta because “it will give her some more confidence in her knowledge” and “repeating the concept surely helps her to understand the work more fully.” This approach also may be viewed as a situation modification strategy (Table 7.1), as presenting ways to revise the material modified the situation and gave Greta a tangible and positive course of action, thereby regulating the emotional impact of the situation. Third, Mr. Boyd changed the way in which he responded to Greta’s emotional cues over the course of the exchange. At first, he appeared to approach her with care and sensitivity, so as not to ‘single her out’ in front of her peers when she was visibly upset. He spoke to her quietly and crouched down to her level, perhaps in an attempt to build solidarity in response to her expression of negative emotions. In the middle of the exchange, after explaining the science concepts again, Mr. Boyd changed his approach, and perhaps sensing that Greta was calmer after his science explanation, employed humour when suggesting who or what might be recipient of her new science knowledge (i.e., stuffed toys, her little brother, her favourite pop band). As Mr. Boyd explained in a later email to the second author, he used humour “so that it might increase her interest and add fun to her learning.” Again, this approach is a situation modification strategy, as injecting humour into the exchange modified the situation by cheering Greta up. In another way, it may have served as an attentional deployment strategy, distracting Greta from her feelings of sadness. At the end of the exchange, Greta appears to be happy, and, as illustrated by her conversation with the researcher later in the lesson, she has a better understanding of how to recognise a combustion reaction. The two case studies presented here illustrate that when students are confronted with the high cognitive demand of learning science, they may experience negative emotions that can prevent them from persevering with the challenging task of learning something new. In each case, the science teacher played a significant role in helping their students to manage their frustrations by employing different strategies that were responsive to their classroom contexts. In such a way, these students may view frustration differently next time, as an antecedent to happiness and satisfaction when they come to understand new concepts or complete a task successfully (King et al., 2015). In the first case study, frustration and low levels of interest were associated with a writing activity that was cognitively demanding of students. Miss Murphy addressed the low emotional energy of her class by explicitly acknowledging their negative

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emotions and suggesting their uncomfortable feelings could be viewed positively. It appears that her employment of a cognitive change strategy supported her students to regulate their emotions by helping them to think differently about their frustration, such that they were encouraged to persevere with the difficult task and subsequently experience pride associated with developing a new skill. This was also facilitated by Miss Murphy’s pedagogical choices that included a more student-centred approach in response to her students’ learning needs. In the second case study, Mr. Boyd adopted a more individualised approach for a student who was struggling with her learning. He used one-to-one teaching to help explain the material in a more simplified manner, and provided suggestions for consolidating and revising her learning. Classroom observations revealed that individualised instruction was a common ritual employed by Mr. Boyd to address negative emotional arousal. He also responded appropriately to the student’s emotional cues at different times, beginning with quiet care and sensitivity, and finishing with humour and laughter. Through this process, Mr. Boyd employed different situation modification strategies that appear to have helped Greta to regulate her emotions so that she did not continue to despair in her lack of understanding, and learning could proceed. In both cases, the teachers’ interventions gave rise to successful interaction rituals that transformed their students’ negative emotions into pride and happiness. Collins (2004) explains that “emotional energy is what individuals seek; situations are attractive or unattractive to them to the extent that the interaction ritual is successful in providing emotional energy” (p. 44). The feelings of pride that Miss Murphy’s students experienced were elicited by their teacher’s acknowledgement of their frustration and responsive pedagogy, while Greta’s happiness stemmed from Mr. Boyd’s persistence to find a way to transform her negative emotions through individualised instruction and humour. In both cases, the teachers’ interventions transformed unsuccessful interaction rituals and restored positive emotional energy. Importantly, both teachers recognised their students’ negative emotions and chose to address them. This research highlights the importance of teachers being cognisant of unsuccessful interaction rituals and low emotional energy in the classroom, so that they can employ timely and appropriate strategies to help their students regulate their negative emotions, and restore feelings of group membership and solidarity, and high emotional energy. An understanding of the emotional energy of the class can also inform instructional decisions that help students develop a sustained interest in science. In this chapter, we illustrate the important role that science teachers can play in extrinsically regulating their students’ emotions so that they can successfully resolve feelings of frustration and sadness that might otherwise impede their learning in cognitively demanding contexts. Drawing on Collins’s (2004) theory of social action, it helps us to understand better how students’ emotional energy resides in the interaction rituals in which they engage. It also begins to illuminate 152

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the different regulation strategies that teachers can employ that are responsive in diverse circumstances. For us, Gross’s (1998) process model of emotion regulation provided a useful framework for conceptualising these different approaches. This framework also could assist teachers to understand better how they can extrinsically regulate their students’ emotions and support the development of their students’ intrinsic regulatory processes. We believe that the delivery of professional learning in schools that specifically focuses on emotion regulation could greatly benefit the establishment of emotionally responsive, productive and engaging learning environments. This experience also has reminded us that, as science educators, students’ affective attributes may not always be attended to as diligently as cognitive ones, as we become preoccupied with whether or not students are making ‘good progress’ on achieving intended learning outcomes in science (Bellocchi, Quigley, & Otrel-Cass, 2017). Like the teachers in our study, being aware of students’ emotions and providing appropriate support to regulate their feelings can have significant implications for students’ engagement and learning in the science classroom. While Mr. Boyd was able to respond to his students’ overt emotion response tendencies, Miss Murphy was assisted by the use of an emotion diary that helped her to recognise the collective emotional energy of the class. Emotion diaries can be effective tools for teachers to inform instructional decisions that best support students’ emotion regulation and learning in the science classroom, and may serve to enhance students’ ability to regulate their emotions by making them more cognisant of their feelings and those of their peers (cf. Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002). Understanding better students’ emotion regulation in different educational contexts remains an under-researched line of inquiry (Jacobs & Gross, 2014). While we think that this study has made some progress in addressing this need, further studies are required to explore both students’ self-regulation strategies in science, and the teacher’s role in supporting the development of students’ emotion regulation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, administered by the Queensland University of Technology under Grant LP110200368. REFERENCES Bellocchi, A., Quigley, C. F., & Otrel-Cass, K. (2017). Emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education: Theoretical foundations. In A. Bellocchi, C. F. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 1–6). Dordrecht: Springer International Publishing. Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/ sce.21159

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L. TOMAS ET AL. Blair, C. (2002). School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of child functioning at school entry. American Psychologist, 57, 111–127. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.57.2.111 Boekaerts, M. (2011). Emotions, emotion regulation, and self-regulation of learning. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 408–425). New York, NY: Routledge. Cole, P. M., Martin, S. E., & Dennis, T. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and directions for child development research. Child development, 75, 317–333. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00673.x Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions revealed. Understanding faces and feelings. London: Phoenix. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ekman, P., & Friesen. W. V. (1978). Facial action coding system: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of general psychology, 2, 271–299. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271 Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39, 281–291. doi:10.1017/S0048577201393198 Gross, J. J. (2014). Emotion regulation: Conceptual and empirical foundations. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 3–20). New York, NY: Guilford Publications. Gross, J. J., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). Emotion regulation: Conceptual foundations. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 3–24). New York, NY: Routledge. Jacobs, S. E., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Emotion regulation in education: Conceptual foundations, current applications and future directions. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 183–201). New York, NY: Routledge. Keltner, D., & Ekman, P. (2000). Facial expression of emotion. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 236–249). New York, NY: Guilford Publications Inc. Kershner, R., Warwick, P., Mercer, N., & Kleine Staarman, J. (2014). Primary children’s management of themselves and others in collaborative group work: ‘Sometimes it takes patience…’. Education 3–13, 42(2), 201–216. doi:10.1080/03004279.2012.670255 King, D., Ritchie, S., Henderson, S., Sandhu, M., & Boland, B. (2015). I am so frustrated! The transformation of negative emotions in year 9 chemistry. Paper presented at the European Science Education Research Association, Helsinki, Finland. Matthews, G., Zeidner, M., & Roberts, R. D. (2002). Emotional intelligence: Science and myth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Milne, C., & Otieno, T. (2007). Understanding engagement: Science demonstrations and emotional energy. Science Education, 10, 523–553. doi:10.1002/sce.20203 Olitsky, S., & Milne, C. (2012). Understanding engagement in science education: The psychological and the social. In B. J. Fraser, K. Tobin, & C. J. McRobbie (Eds.), Second international handbook of science education (pp. 19–33). Dordrecht: Springer. Osborne, B., Simon, S., & Collins, S. (2003). Attitudes towards science: A review of the literature and its implications. International Journal of Science Education, 25, 1049–1079. doi:10.1080/ 0950069032000032199 Pekrun, R. (2006). The control–value theory of achievement emotions: Assumptions, corollaries, and implications for educational research and practice. Educational Psychology Review, 18, 315–341. doi:10.1007/s10648-006-9029-9 Ritchie, S. M, Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., Sandhu, S., Henderson, S., & Roth, W.-M. (2013). Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50, 137–161. doi:10.1002/tea.21060 Ritchie, S. M., Tomas, L., & Tones, M. (2011). Writing stories to enhance scientific literacy. International Journal of Science Education, 33, 685–707. doi:10.1080/09500691003728039

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THE RESOLUTION OF FRUSTRATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSES Thompson, R. A. (1994). Emotion regulation: A theme in search of definition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(2–3), 25–52. Tomas, L., Rigano, D., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Students’ regulation of their emotions in a science classroom. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53, 234–260. doi:10.1002/tea.21304 Tomas, L., & Ritchie, S. M. (2012). Positive emotional responses to hybridized writing about a socioscientific issue. Research in Science Education, 41, 25–49. doi:10.1007/s11165-011-9255-0 Tomas, L., Ritchie, S. M., & Tones, M. (2011). Attitudinal impact of hybridized writing about a socioscientific issue. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48, 878–900. doi:10.1002/tea.20431 Wosnitza, M., & Volet, S. (2005). Origin, direction and impact of emotions in social online learning. Learning and Instruction, 15, 449–464. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2005.07.009 Zembylas, M. (2007). The power and the politics of emotions in teaching. In P. A. Schutz & R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in education (pp. 285–301). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Inc.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Louisa Tomas is a researcher and Associate Professor in Teacher Education at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. She completed her doctoral studies while working as a secondary science teacher in North Queensland. Louisa’s research has been focused on Science and Sustainability Education in both middle school and pre-service teacher education contexts. Her research primarily explores curricula and pedagogical approaches that engage diverse students in the learning of science and enhance the development of scientific literacy. Most recently, her research has investigated middle school students’ emotional responses and emotion regulation while learning about controversial issues in science. Donna King is an Associate Professor in science education. Her research in science education spans three interconnecting fields: the emotional engagement of students in science in the middle years, using engineering contexts for teaching science and context-based science education. An outcome of this work is the development and implementation of innovative context-based units where teachers have adopted new pedagogical approaches for teaching science. Recently, she completed a project with a team of researchers from the Queensland University of Technology and the Department of Education and Training to establish a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Hub for schools where teachers worked with industry partners to connect STEM in the classroom with real-world STEM. She was recently invited to be the co-chief editor of the international journal Research in Science Education.

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Senka Henderson is a researcher and lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. Senka’s first career developed a background in pharmacology, biochemistry and drug discovery, and she has worked in research laboratories investigating new discoveries in carbohydrate chemistry. In her second career as an educator she has worked on three science education research projects exploring the emotions of pre-service science teachers in university settings and students in high school science classrooms. Currently she is involved in science education research at both QUT and Murdoch University, in Western Australia. Senka is also teaching science education at the Faculty of Education, QUT. Donna Rigano is the project manager of two Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) projects at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, where she also teaches Science and Mathematics Education. She first trained as a biochemist, researching amino acid metabolism in tumour cells. She entered the education field through a university-industry collaborative research project. Her current research interests are emotions in classroom science, student engagement with STEM in context and math pedagogy in preservice teacher education. Maryam Sandhu is a research assistant at the Queensland University of Technology. Her main focus is analysing classroom data in terms of students’ and teachers’ emotions during teaching and learning by applying different research methodologies, utilizing various software and Ekman facial expression recognition. She has worked on several research projects related to emotions, emotional climate in classrooms and mindfulness with the other co-authors.

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8. “THIS IS NOT A SEX-EDUCATION CLASS, THIS IS BIOLOGY!” Students’ Regulation of Their Emotions in Science

ABSTRACT

The arousal of negative emotions like frustration, embarrassment, disgust, shame and even anger are commonplace in science classrooms. In spite of teachers’ best efforts to provide engaging learning experiences that stimulate students’ curiosity and interest, and evoke positive emotions like enjoyment and happiness, everyday occurrences can lead to negative experiences: a poor result on a science test, disagreements during group work, not understanding a new concept, or even sitting through a mundane lesson. In circumstances such as these, students need to regulate their negative emotions so that they remain engaged and ready to learn. In this chapter, we examine the emotion regulation strategies employed by Year 8 students in order to manage negative emotions like embarrassment and shame as they learnt about assisted reproductive technology. In this case, students employed strategies to deal with the embarrassment they experienced during a lesson on human reproduction, like choosing to divert their attention and acknowledging that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. In this class, the science teacher also played an important role in helping some students to manage their shame, disgust, and embarrassment extrinsically. In this example, the teacher’s ability to identify how her students were feeling was important. To this end, we also outline a key data source for our research and discuss its utility in the science classroom: the emotion diary, a self-report instrument for identifying students’ emotions. The findings of our research highlight the different ways in which students’ emotions can be elicited in the science classroom, and that when learning about a controversial issue, it’s not always the issue itself that elicits the strongest feelings. At the end of the chapter, we discuss the implications of our research for supporting students’ emotion regulation in the science classroom, and identify avenues for further research. Keywords: education

emotion, school science, emotion regulation, emotion diary, sex

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_008

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Science in schools is often portrayed as a purely cognitive endeavor; yet, affective dimensions such as interest, attitudes, values and emotions play a central role in learning and teaching, and in supporting students’ wellbeing in educational settings (Bellocchi, Quigley, & Otrel-Cass, 2017). Adolescence is a period of heightened emotional experience (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). At the same time, opportunities for emotional experiences abound in the science classroom. Indeed, it is often the experiences that evoke strong emotions, such as “The elephant’s toothpaste was so cool!” and “I really flunked that science test!” that students most often recall with gusto and enthusiasm, or with disappointment and unpleasant feelings. Emotional experiences – albeit positive or negative – tend to be memorable and significant in students’ minds. Numerous studies have shown that emotions play a critical role in students’ motivation (Tuan, Chin, & Shieh, 2005), engagement (Tobin, 2005), attitudes (Broughton, Sinatra, & Nussbaum, 2013) and interest in science (Ainley & Ainley, 2011). While the arousal of positive emotions like happiness and excitement can lead to positive student outcomes in science, the arousal of negative emotions can interfere with their willingness to engage and participate in the classroom. For example, a student might experience feelings of embarrassment and shame when s/he doesn’t understand an important science concept, and withdraw from participating in a lesson. Situations like this, and others, which elicit negative emotions, are commonplace within science classrooms, and call for students to be able to regulate their emotions so that they remain engaged and open to learning. In this chapter, we examine the regulation of Year 8 science students’ emotions as they are engaged in a unit of work that explores the controversial socio-scientific issue of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Like ART, “[m]any controversial issues have a basis in science. The issue may arise because of scientific developments or it may be that scientific endeavor is seen as a way of solving the problem” (Oulton, Dillon, & Grace, 2004, p. 413). Students often encounter controversial issues in the media or in their everyday lives. Such issues are considered controversial because they divide different societal groups based on cultural differences, religious beliefs, and moral standpoints, and solutions are often difficult to find as they require consideration of complex environmental, social, political, and economic factors (Oulton et al., 2004). Since the emergence of Science-Technology-Society in science education in the 1970s, the inclusion of controversial issues in the school science curriculum has long been advocated as a way of developing the knowledge and skills necessary for scientifically literate citizens to participate in discourse, debates, and decision-making around issues that may impact their lives (Levinson, 2006). In this study, we were interested to learn how students engaged emotionally with the controversial issue they were learning about, and how they regulated their emotions on a daily basis. Before exploring this case, we begin by defining emotion regulation and revisiting a conceptual framework that helped us to think about emotion regulation in a classroom context. 158

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EMOTION REGULATION IN THE SECONDARY SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

In spite of teachers’ best efforts to provide engaging and interesting learning experiences in science, the arousal of students’ emotions – usually negative emotions – can challenge the best-laid plans. In these circumstances, students’ ability to regulate their emotions becomes important so that they can focus their attention on learning (Blair, 2002). Emotion regulation refers to both deliberate and automatic “processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express [them]” (Gross, 1998, p. 275). It can occur unconsciously, triggered by environmental cues (Boekaerts, 2011), or it can be motivated by a desire to behave in a certain way or achieve a particular goal (Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002). An understanding of emotion regulation in secondary science students is important given that adolescents experience negative and mixed emotions more frequently (compared to children or adults), and react more strongly to situations that elicit emotional responses (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). Emotion regulation also plays a central role in the emotional experiences of adolescents, and is critical to their ability to adjust to socio-emotional challenges and developmental changes, which include significant growth in their cognitive functioning (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). Despite the increase in adolescents’ cognitive functioning, regulating negative emotions in the science classroom like frustration, anger, and shame is a cognitively demanding task that can impede students’ ability to learn (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). This is significant, not only because students may abandon a learning activity if negative emotions arise, but because negative emotions that remain unresolved can erode other important affective attributes, such as students’ interest in and attitudes toward science (Olitsky & Milne, 2012). In these circumstances, students must be supported to regulate their emotions so that learning can proceed. In the context of our research, Gross’s (1998) process model of emotion regulation presents a useful framework to consider how students can intrinsically regulate their own emotions in science, and how teachers can play a role in extrinsically facilitating their students’ emotion regulation with a view to support their engagement and learning (a detailed description of the process model of emotion regulation can be found in Tomas, King, Henderson, Rigano and Sandhu, Chapter 7, this volume). For example: A student might avoid pairing with a laboratory partner with whom s/he cannot work effectively, to avoid feelings of frustration or anger (situation selection). A teacher helps students who are bickering in their group to assign roles so that they can cooperate and complete a task successfully (situation modification). A student chooses to focus on the sense of achievement that she will feel when she finishes a science test, so as to distract her from her anxiety (attentional deployment). 159

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A teacher assists a student to regulate feelings of sadness and disappointment elicited by a failed science experiment by encouraging him to view the experience as an opportunity to learn and refine his science inquiry skills (cognitive change). A teacher employs mindfulness and breathing techniques at the end of a difficult lesson to calm and relax students (response modulation). We have investigated Year 8 students’ emotion regulation during their study of the controversial issue of ART. In this study, the students wrote a series of short stories that integrated scientific information about ART (Stephen Ritchie and LouisaTomas [2012] provide an overview of the pedagogy of ‘hydbridised narratives’ in science classrooms). We anticipated that this learning context would provide fruitful ground for examining students’ emotion regulation, as we expected that that this controversial topic would arouse students’ emotions. In the following sections, we explore the ways in which students regulated their emotions in science. Interestingly, we found that the complex moral and ethical issues associated with ART failed to elicit a strong emotional response in students. Instead, it was learning about human reproduction, in preparation for engaging with ART, which led students to experience a number of uncomfortable emotions. For these students, intrinsic regulation strategies were also important; however, the classroom teacher also supported her students to extrinsically regulate their emotions in the context of an embarrassing topic. The emotion regulation strategies employed were critical in helping learning to proceed. Before presenting the case, we begin by outlining a key data source for our study, the emotion diary (see Tomas, Rigano, & Ritchie, 2016). This self-report instrument presents a reliable and useful way of eliciting students’ emotions in class. At the end of the chapter, we finish by presenting a discussion of the implications of our findings for classroom practice and further research. FINDING OUT WHAT STUDENTS ARE FEELING: THE EMOTION DIARY

Knowing exactly what students are feeling can be a challenging task. Indeed, asking students how they feel is a question that perhaps we don’t often associate with learning in science. In our studies, we used a diary to discover which emotions students were experiencing as the units unfolded. The emotion diary was adapted from the work of Zembylas (2008) by a team of researchers that included Stephen Ritchie, Alberto Bellocchi, Donna King and the first author (Louisa Tomas) when we commenced our program of emotions research in science education in 2012. The diary requires students to complete an entry at the end of each lesson that identifies the most salient emotions they experienced during class. Students select the emotions they most strongly experienced from a table of nine emotion labels: excitement, happiness, enjoyment, pride, anxiety, frustration, disgust, annoyed and disappointment (Figure 8.1). A tenth option is provided for students to indicate another emotion of their choice, such as enthusiasm, anger or 160

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embarrassment. Each label is accompanied by an ‘emoji’ to help students identify the emotions. Students are prompted to provide a brief explanation of what they were doing or what happened when they experienced the emotion, and at what or whom the emotion was directed. Each diary entry also requires students to indicate their level of interest during the lesson on a 10-point scale (1 = ‘very bored’, 10 = ‘very interested’, and a neutral midpoint is provided). Given that Turner (2007) has suggested that interest and boredom are ‘cognitive states’ as opposed to emotions (see also, Do & Schallert, 2004), the scale is simply used heuristically to track students’ interest over time. Such data are particularly valuable for identifying significant events worthy of closer examination (for example, one might examine what transpired during a lesson that produced very low levels of interest). In this chapter, we do not explore students’ interest. Instead, we focus on their self-reported emotions with a view to understand how they can regulate them. The interest scale has been used in emotions research to generate data about middle school science writing (Tomas et al., 2016), identify discrete emotions (Ritchie et al., 2016) and link positive emotions to science learning (King, Ritchie, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2015). To help students use the diary correctly, we spent some time during the first lesson of the study reviewing the diary as a class. First, we discussed how students might recognize an emotion, such as experiencing a particular feeling, or sensing a physiological (bodily) change (e.g., their heart rate or breathing changes). Then, students were given the opportunity to share how they recognize particular emotions (e.g., “I know when I’m embarrassed, because I can feel my face going red” – a physiological response). Next, the emotion labels in the diary were reviewed, and students were invited to share examples of situations that elicited each emotion for them (e.g., “I felt proud when I improved on my last science assignment”). Finally, students were provided with an opportunity to complete a practice entry in their diaries.

Figure 8.1. An excerpt from the emotion diary

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LEARNING ABOUT AN EMBARRASSING TOPIC: REGULATING UNCOMFORTABLE EMOTIONS

This investigation was conducted in a co-educational Year 8 science class with their teacher, Miss Stevens (pseudonym), as they worked on a 10-week unit of work about ART. As part of the unit, students learned about medical applications of ART in humans, as well as agricultural applications (e.g., for selective breeding of livestock). The final assessment task required students to write a short story about an application of ART of their choice, which taught the reader about ART through the inclusion of scientific information. In this case, we were surprised to find that it was some of the early science content of the unit, and not socio-scientific issue itself (or even the final assessment task), which elicited challenging emotions, and called for a range of emotion regulation strategies so that students could remain focused on their learning. In the second lesson of the unit, Miss Stevens began by teaching her students about male and female reproductive systems. Activities during this lesson included a whole-class review of male and female reproductive parts and function; learning about the menstrual cycle; labeling diagrams and bookwork. According to students’ emotion diaries, negative emotions dominated their experiences of the lesson. The following entries are representative of the emotions and their accompanying explanations reported across the class: Embarrassment: “It just feels weird to learn about this.” Disgust: “We’re doing puberty and the reproductive system. I am uncomfortable.” Shame: “It was awkward talking with the boys.” Awkward: “The subject that we are learning is really uncomfortable.” During end-of-project interviews, when asked about which aspects of the unit elicited the most memorable emotions, students often recalled the uncomfortable feelings associated with learning about the human reproductive system. It was the regulation of embarrassment and disgust that helped students to remain engaged with their learning. For example, Damien recalled his interest in learning about agricultural applications of ART. When asked whether he recalled any strong emotions about the topic, he explained that he felt disgusted by some of the content; however, he gradually became more interested as he learned more: I guess, at first, I kind of felt disgusted because it was just about bodies. I wasn’t really comfortable with it at first, but then after learning about it, I got really engaged and really interested in actually learning about it. (Damien, Excerpt 3) The disgust that Damien experienced during the human reproduction lesson was recorded in his emotion diary: “Because of the gross but natural things we’re learning about.” As the interview progressed, Damien explained how he managed 162

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his feelings: the interest stimulated by the story-writing assessment prompted him to focus on the task at hand, rather than the “gross” aspects of what he was learning: Researcher Damien

So, did the writing of the story make it more interesting for you? Yeah, because then I stopped – that was when I stopped thinking of how gross it was and just thought of creative or funny ideas about this ART so I could actually get my work done.

This excerpt suggests that Damien came to intrinsically regulate his uncomfortable emotions by focusing his attention on creative and funny ideas for his story about ART, instead of dwelling on the ‘disgusting’ nature of the science content – an attentional deployment strategy. Some students demonstrated great maturity in dealing with the embarrassing subject matter and intrinsically regulating their emotions. When Joel was asked at interview whether he had any strong emotions about the topic, he recalled his embarrassment and how he dealt with his feelings: Joel

The first few lessons, they were a little bit embarrassing a few of them. Just because [of] things to do with the reproductive system. Researcher Okay, so the topic was a bit embarrassing? In fact, I notice in your diary you say it’s embarrassing for the whole class? Joel Yeah, because a lot of people just go, “I don’t want to look at that Researcher Okay, that’s fair enough. How did you get over that? Joel Sort of, just got used to it and said to myself, “This is not a sexeducation class, this is biology, just put up with it!” Researcher Put up with it? [Laughs] Joel It’s biology … I was like this isn’t something I should be embarrassed about, this is just another form of science, I should just get over it … I acknowledged that this was science. By thinking differently about learning about uncomfortable subject matter, Joel employed a cognitive change strategy. In this way, he assigned a less embarrassing meaning to the content that he was learning, by acknowledging that it was “just another form of science.” While Damien and Joel were able to shift their attention, or think differently about the source of their emotions, Caitlin, required support from the classroom teacher to extrinsically regulate her feelings. She recorded disgust in her emotion diary: “I had to read very detailed texts about what happens to males during puberty.” At interview, Caitlin explained that it was Miss Stevens’ acknowledgement of the awkward nature of the subject matter that helped her to manage her uncomfortable emotions: “I think when the teacher, she said to us that she knows that it’s a bit awkward for us, but it’s also awkward for her, so just get through it. I think that for me would have helped” (Caitlin). Miss Stevens explained that she managed her students’ embarrassment by openly acknowledging their feelings, focusing on the purpose of learning about reproduction, and normalizing the scientific names of reproductive parts by using 163

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them consistently. Collectively, these strategies constituted situation modification, as they changed the nature of the situation that was eliciting uncomfortable emotions for her students: Miss Stevens I did want to acknowledge that they felt that way [embarrassed]. I thought that was important and that that was actually science. I wanted to try to give it some purpose. Why are we learning this? It’s not actually to gross you out, it’s an integral part of biology… Researcher So, you did explicitly say, “I know this is an embarrassing topic”? Miss Stevens Yeah, I said it at the start, but I also said it again after I read some of their emotions [in the diaries]. Obviously, I feel uncomfortable too and that’s why I’m really strict about using scientific terms and calling them [i.e., reproductive parts] as they are … Then they seemed to cross a threshold where they said, “Well, this is just science, get over it. Use the terms because they’re scientific terms.” I think nobody remained embarrassed. UNDERSTANDING HOW STUDENTS REGULATE THEIR EMOTIONS

This chapter has explored a case wherein students experienced negative emotions like disgust, embarrassment and shame while learning science. Cases like this are undoubtedly commonplace in schools, and in this way, are not remarkable. What is important, however, is understanding better how the students in this case managed their negative emotions so that they remained engaged and focused on their learning. Adolescents’ capacity to regulate their emotions tends to increase with age, and is shaped by their social experiences and relationships (Thompson, 1994). Adolescents progressively demonstrate a greater understanding of emotional situations, and the development of a more sophisticated repertoire of regulation strategies (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). As illustrated by the examples of emotion regulation employed by Damien and Joel, these students demonstrated great maturity to intrinsically regulate their emotions in the face of challenging circumstances. As exemplified by the difficulties that Josh experienced working with his peers, the need for effective emotion regulation is particularly high in social situations (Bell & Calkins, 2000). Indeed, in a classroom context, students are required to meet sociocultural expectations and norms in expressing their emotions on a daily basis. Effective emotion regulation is also necessary if students are to attain situational goals (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). In this case, Damien focused his attention on writing a creative and funny story about ART to distract him from his feelings of disgust, while Joel consciously decided that he shouldn’t be embarrassed about learning biology. Collectively, the intrinsic regulation strategies employed by these students are illustrative of some adolescents’ enhanced capacity to reflect and act on their own emotional states (compared to younger children), and to employ more sophisticated 164

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regulatory strategies, such as reassessment of the situation eliciting particular emotions and positive self-talk (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). In other circumstances, like Caitlin’s, students who find it difficult to regulate their emotions on their own may require support from their teacher to do so. Caitlin’s feelings of disgust were extrinsically regulated when Miss Stevens openly acknowledged her students’ feelings and her own, and conceded that she was uncomfortable, too. She explained the importance of what they were learning, and normalized embarrassing terms by using them correctly and in context. In this way, she modified an uncomfortable situation, which helped Caitlin to deal with her negative emotions associated with learning about human reproduction. Miss Stevens’s actions in this example are significant. Had she not have seized the opportunity to acknowledge and deal with her students’ embarrassment, the outcome for students like Caitlin could have been very different. Miss Stevens could have ignored or dismissed her students’ emotions associated with the topic, but instead, she acknowledged them and shared her own. This is important given that Orlander and Wickman (2011) described how very few students can suppress their emotional responses by separating body and mind in classroom encounters. In reviewing Joel and Damien’s experiences of the reproduction unit, it is unclear as to precisely what it was about the subject matter that was perceived as gross, disgusting or embarrassing. Rather than the purely biological functions of the male and female reproductive systems, it could be that it was the links that students made to human sexuality, such as sexual arousal, that elicited uncomfortable emotions. Indeed, this seems likely, given that viewing the science content from a purely biological perspective alleviated the embarrassment and proved to be a useful regulation strategy for Joel. This raises questions about how science teachers should best respond to embarrassing subject matter, like human reproduction, in a middle school context. Interestingly, Miss Stevens’s strategy, like Joel’s, was to view the learning material “as integral part of biology”, and be “really strict about using scientific terms”. Miss Stevens’s response parallels the findings reported in Orlander and Wickman’s (2011) study of students’ experiences during a sex education class. In their study, the content of the lesson was restricted to books due to the embarrassing subject matter; however, students longed for the opportunity to discuss the embarrassing nature of the topic because they considered their bodily reactions (including feelings of embarrassment and shame) to be an important part of the learning. These findings suggest that excluding ideas about human sexuality and pleasure when learning about human reproduction serves to perpetuate the cognitive-affective dichotomy traditionally associated with learning in science, which may do little to support students’ capacity to intrinsically regulate their uncomfortable emotions in this context. Given that bodily experiences establish the context in which meaning making takes place, it is unlikely that learning will proceed if these emotions are not regulated successfully. As outlined at the start of this chapter, we expected that engaging middle-school students with a controversial socio-scientific issue like ART would elicit strong 165

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emotions as students learned about the complex interplay of scientific, personal and social factors, and the implications for people affected by this issue. This, however, was not the case, and students’ emotion diaries recorded few emotions associated with ART itself. Perhaps this was because the students did not relate personally to ART, which failed to foster an emotional connection with the issue. While further discussion of this finding is beyond the scope of this chapter, it potentially offers an important consideration for developing science curricula that include the study of controversial socio-scientific issues. Collectively, our experiences in this and related research on regulating frustration during group work (see Tomas et al., Chapter 7, this volume) and positive and negative emotions during science activities (Tomas et al., 2016) have highlighted a range of circumstances that can elicit negative emotions from students, and call for the employment of effective regulatory strategies to support their engagement and learning. For example, a teacher’s pedagogical choices and teaching strategies can elicit frustration and anger when they fail to engage students as planned (cf. Josh and Tim’s group work experience); learning about particular science content can elicit uncomfortable feelings like embarrassment and shame (cf. Miss Stevens’s students as they learned about human reproduction); and cognitively demanding (i.e., challenging) science activities can elicit frustration when students just ‘don’t get it’ (Tomas et al., Chapter 7, this volume) and tasks are challenging (Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015). It would be reasonable to expect, too, that if students can relate to the controversial issues that they are learning, then a whole range of emotions could be experienced if they felt invested in the problem or its possible solutions. What we can draw from this is that it is important that science teachers are mindful of the myriad opportunities that can elicit emotional responses from students, so that they can support their emotional awareness and regulation. In this way, negative emotions like frustration, anger, disgust and embarrassment can be more effectively managed and perhaps transformed into positive feelings such pride, happiness and triumph. The case presented herein serves to illustrate the important role that emotion regulation plays in the science classroom. While students’ intrinsic emotion regulation may go unnoticed, teachers have a critical role to play in extrinsically regulating feelings that might otherwise impede their learning in collaborative, embarrassing or cognitively demanding contexts. Gross’s (1998) process model of emotion regulation provides a useful framework for teachers to understand better how they can extrinsically regulate their students’ emotions, and support the development of their students’ intrinsic regulatory processes. We believe that such work happens implicitly on a daily basis in science classrooms. A framework like this can be valuable in making these practices explicit, so as to enhance their effectiveness and improve outcomes for students. The delivery of professional development in schools that focuses on emotion regulation could also build teachers’ capacity to support their students’ regulatory processes and advance the establishment of emotionally responsive, supportive and engaging learning environments in science. 166

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Helping students to regulate their emotions calls for teachers to be in-tune with their students’ feelings. This can be challenging, particularly when dealing with young adolescents in the science classroom. In this case, Miss Stevens consulted her students’ emotion diaries to help her respond to the collective embarrassment of her class as they learned about reproduction (see also, Miss Murphy’s use of the emotion diary in Tomas et al., Chapter 7, this volume). In this way, emotion diaries can be useful tools to inform teachers’ pedagogical decisions with a view to support students’ emotion regulation and learning in science. This may be particularly so for early career teachers. Typically, these teachers can be overwhelmed with issues related to beginning teaching, and they may miss the signs that would cue them into the range of emotions students in their classrooms are experiencing. Using emotion diaries may serve as a practical tool to help them identify the occasions when strong emotions could potentially interfere with desired learning outcomes, and alert them to the need to address these emotions. Emotion diaries can also support students directly by enhancing their emotional awareness, which, in turn, can help them to intrinsically regulate their feelings in healthy ways. This is important as adolescents commonly employ ‘expressive suppression’ as a regulatory strategy, which entails inhibiting one’s outward expressions of emotions (e.g., hiding one’s frustration or anger). Habitual use of this strategy has been shown to compromise adolescents’ socioemotional adjustment and cognitive functioning (Riediger & Klipker, 2014). FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN FACILITATING EMOTION REGULATION

This chapter has begun to explore ways in which students can intrinsically regulate their emotions in science, and the role that teachers can play in supporting students to manage their emotions extrinsically. This can be facilitated through the use of a tool like the emotion diary, which can present a useful way of identifying students’ emotions so as to inform instructional decisions. It has also highlighted some of the different ways in which negative emotions can be elicited, an understanding of which is important if teachers are to be proactive in developing supportive learning environments that help students to regulate their feelings. Indeed, while the role that specific emotions play during science instruction remains under-researched (Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015), so, too, does the role of emotion regulation in this context, and effective strategies for supporting students to regulate their emotions. In this chapter, we have just scratched the surface regarding the usefulness of understanding better the role of emotion regulation in the science classroom. As Gross (2014) asserts, the development of research-informed, classroom-based interventions are needed to teach students healthier patterns of emotion regulation. This calls for further inquiry into the ways that science teachers can help students to extrinsically regulate their emotions, including pedagogies that might work to broaden students’ repertoire of effective regulatory techniques in a learning environment. Strategies such as cooperative learning, cogenerative dialogue and 167

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mindfulness warrant investigation, as do their implications for students’ engagement, learning and wellbeing in science. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, administered by the Queensland University of Technology under Grant LP110200368. REFERENCES Ainley, M., & Ainley, J. (2011). Student engagement with science in early adolescence: The contribution of enjoyment to students’ continuing interest in learning about science. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36, 4–12. doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.08.001 Baumeister, R., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego-depletion: Is the active self a limited resource. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1252–1265. Bell, K. L., & Calkins, S. D. (2000). Relationships as inputs and outputs of emotion regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 11(3), 160–163. doi:10.1207/S15327965PLI1103_04 Bellocchi, A., Quigley, C. F., & Otrel-Cass, K. (2017). Emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education: Theoretical foundations. In A. Bellocchi, C. F. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research (pp. 1–6). Dordrecht: Springer International Publishing. Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/sce.21159 Blair, C. (2002). School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of child functioning at school entry. American Psychologist, 57, 111–127. doi:10.1037//0003066X.57.2.111 Boekaerts, M. (2011). Emotions, emotion regulation, and self-regulation of learning. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 408–425). New York, NY: Routledge. Broughton, S. H., Sinatra, G. M., & Nussbaum, E. M. (2013). “Pluto has been a planet my whole life!” Emotions, attitudes, and conceptual change in elementary students’ learning about Pluto’s reclassification. Research in Science Education, 43, 529–550. doi:10.1007/s11165-011-9274-x Do, S. L., & Schallert, D. L. (2004). Emotions and classroom talks: Toward a model of the role of affect in students’ experiences of classroom discourse. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 619–634. Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2, 271–299. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271 Gross, J. J. (2014). Emotion regulation: Conceptual and empirical foundations. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 3–20). New York, NY: Guilford Publications. King, D., Ritchie, S., Sandhu, M., & Henderson, S. (2015). Emotionally intense science activities. International Journal of Science Education, 37, 1886–1914. doi:10.1080/09500693.2015.1055850 Levinson, R. (2006). Towards a theoretical framework for teaching controversial socio-scientific issues. International Journal of Science Education, 28, 1201–1224. doi:org/10.1080/09500690600560753 Matthews, G., Zeidner, M., & Roberts, R. D. (2002). Emotional intelligence: Science and myth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Olitsky, S., & Milne, C. (2012). Understanding engagement in science education: The psychological and the social. In B. J. Fraser, K. Tobin, & C. J. McRobbie (Eds.), Second international handbook of science education (pp. 19–33). Dordrecht: Springer. Orlander, A., & Wickman, P. (2011). Bodily experiences in secondary school biology. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 6, 569–594. doi:10.1007/s11422-010-9292-4 Oulton, C., Dillon, J., & Grace, M. M. (2004). Reconceptualizing the teaching of controversial issues. International Journal of Science Education, 26, 411–423. doi:10.1080/0950069032000072746

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“THIS IS NOT A SEX-EDUCATION CLASS, THIS IS BIOLOGY!” Riediger, M., & Klipker, K. (2014). Emotion regulation in adolescence. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd ed., pp. 187–202). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Ritchie, S. M., Hudson, P., Bellocchi, A., Henderson, S., King, D., & Tobin, K. (2016). Evolution of selfreporting methods for identifying discrete emotions in science classrooms. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 577–593. doi:10.1177/1754073914554775 Ritchie, S. M., & Tomas, L. (2012). Hybridized writing for scientific literacy: Pedagogy and evidence. In R. M. Gillies (Ed.), Pedagogy: New developments in the learning sciences (pp. 213–226). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Thompson, R. A. (1994). Emotion regulation: A theme in search of definition. Monographs of the society for research in child development, 59(2–3), 25–52. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.1994.tb01276.x Tobin, K. (2005). Building enacted science curricula on the capital of learners. Science Education, 89, 577–594. doi:10.1002/sce.20064 Tomas, L. (2012). Writing narratives about a socioscientific issue: Engaging students and learning science. Teaching Science: The Journal of the Australian Science Teachers Association, 58(4), 24–28. Tomas, L., Rigano, D., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Students’ regulation of their emotions in a science classroom. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53, 234–260. doi:10.1002/tea.21304 Tuan, H. L., Chin, C. C., & Shieh, S. H. (2005). The development of a questionnaire for assessing students’ motivation toward science learning. International Journal of Science Education, 27, 639–654. doi:10.1080/0950069042000323737 Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: A sociological theory. New York, NY: Routledge. Zembylas, M. (2008). Adult learners’ emotions in online learning. Distance Education, 29(1), 71–87. doi:10.1080/01587910802004852

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Louisa Tomas is a researcher and Associate Professor in Teacher Education at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. She completed her doctoral studies while working as a secondary science teacher in North Queensland. Louisa’s research has been focused on Science and Sustainability Education in both middle school and pre-service teacher education contexts. Her research primarily explores curricula and pedagogical approaches that engage diverse students in the learning of science and enhance the development of scientific literacy. Most recently, her research has investigated middle school students’ emotional responses and emotion regulation while learning about controversial issues in science. Donna Rigano is the project manager of two Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) projects at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, where she also teaches Science and Mathematics Education. She first trained as a biochemist, researching amino acid metabolism in tumour cells. She entered the education field through a university-industry collaborative research project. Her current research interests are emotions in classroom science, student engagement with STEM in context and maths pedagogy in preservice teacher education. 169

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9. COGENERATIVE DIALOGUE AND CLASSROOM EMOTIONAL CLIMATE Engaging with Difficult Students

ABSTRACT

This ethnographic case study explores the emotional climate of a beginning science teacher’s Year 10 classroom and examines the ongoing use of cogenerative dialogue as a tool to transform teaching and learning. Classroom emotional climate has been linked to student academic outcomes, engagement in the learning process and student behavior. In this study, cogenerative dialogue was implemented in an Australian school setting to gain insight into classroom emotional climate and as a tool to reengage students who are disengaged from secondary science learning. The use of cogenerative dialogue to create shared understandings of classroom happenings has been found to improve teaching and learning in secondary schools. Randall Collins’ Interaction Ritual Theory provided a lens through which classroom interactions between the teacher and her students were examined in relation to their contributing effect on classroom emotional climate. In this multi-faceted study, data were collected using observations of classroom interactions, interviews and cogenerative dialogue. Further, student perceptions of emotional climate were recorded during classroom lessons using TurningPoint™ technology. An important contribution of this study is the understanding that unsuccessful classroom interactions involving a difficult and disruptive student perpetuated a cycle of non-membership in the classroom and further unsuccessful interactions with the classroom teacher. However, introducing cogenerative dialogue where this student experienced successful interactions with the classroom teacher, provided impetus for the student to transfer his membership of cogenerative dialogue into the classroom setting. This created a cycle of positive interactions with the classroom teacher, reaffirming the student’s membership of the classroom group. Further, this student gained positive emotional energy from interactions in the classroom and rated emotional climate as more positive. This study highlights the effectiveness of cogenerative dialogue in a beginning science teacher’s classroom to transform students’ perceptions of emotional climate. Keywords: cogenerative dialogue, emotional climate, interaction rituals, science teaching, teacher affiliation

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_009

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In this chapter, I analyze the classroom emotional climate ratings of a Year 10 student, and how these ratings change after his participation in cogenerative dialogue (cogen). This relationship between emotional climate and cogenerative dialogue is examined in the context of a Year 10 biology class. The measurement of classroom emotional climate in a secondary school setting, extends previous research by Kenneth Tobin, Stephen Ritchie, Jenny Oakley, Victoria Mergard, and Peter Hudson (2013), which identified that variations in classroom emotional climate were influenced by the interactions between a classroom teacher and her students. The examination of classroom interactions is framed by Randall Collins’s (2004) Interaction Ritual (IR) Theory. This is a theory of interactions in space and time, of individuals or groups, in social situations. Drawing from the traditions of Emile Durkheim and Erving Goffman, IR theory is a sociological theory of how successful and unsuccessful interactions occur and the outcomes of these interactions. IR theory states that each individual within an interaction is “the precipitate of past interactional situations and an ingredient of each new situation” (Collins, 2004, p. 5). The use of cogen as a tool to engage students in classroom learning extends previous research on cogen (e.g., LaVan, 2004), through the examination of how participation in cogen mediated changes in a ‘difficult’ student’s ratings of classroom emotional climate. The significant contribution of this chapter is the understanding of how membership from cogen can be transferred into the classroom setting. CLASSROOM EMOTIONAL CLIMATE

Emotional climate is defined as “sets of emotions or feelings that are shared by groups of individuals implicated in common social structures and process” (Barbalet, 1995, p. 23). Emotional climate is a collective state of emotional arousal that can be negatively or positively valenced. Within a classroom context, emotional climate is a significant component of the learning environment that influences all other aspects of the learning environment (Evans, Harvey, Buckley, & Yan, 2009). Emotional climate in a classroom is related to interactions that occur in that setting, particularly the interactions and relationship between the students and the classroom teacher (Evans et al., 2009) and how the students perceive this relationship (Brackett, Reyes, Rivers, Elbertson, & Salovey, 2011). The perception students have of the relationship with their teacher is known as teacher affiliation (Brackett et al., 2011). Positive teacher affiliation has been linked to improved classroom engagement (Klem & Connell, 2004). Furthermore, teachers who interact with their students using a relational approach, that is, connecting with students and catering for their individual emotional needs, are more likely to engender cooperation and trust in students who exhibit inappropriate classroom behavior (Gregory & Ripski, 2008). Evans et al. (2009) state, “the relationship

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between teacher and students in the class is the essence of classroom emotional climate” (p. 141). Emotional climate is not consistent in a particular classroom over a period of time. Evans et al. (2009) argued that this notion of consistency has arisen from studies that utilise retrospective surveys or interviews of students or other observers. Classroom emotional climate can vary moment-to-moment, as can the emotions experienced by individuals within the classroom. In recent studies of emotional climate in a secondary science classroom, Tobin et al. (2013) and Jenny Oakley (2016) found that emotional climate varies considerably over the course of a teaching episode (or classroom lesson). In Oakley’s (2016) study, Year 10 students rated the emotional climate of classroom science lessons in 3-minute intervals and it was found that variability in emotional climate was influenced by the interactions that were occurring within the classroom between the teacher and her students. Successful interactions between the classroom teacher and her students resulted in positive classroom emotional climate. According to Interaction Ritual Theory (Collins, 2004) there must be two initiating ingredients for successful interactions to occur. These are bodily copresence and barriers to outside involvement. As Collins (2004) explains, bodily co-presence or “physical assembly of the group” (p. 33) is more likely to engender successful interactions rather than, for example, talking over the telephone (p. 54). The other initiating ingredient, barriers to outside involvement, is somewhat more complex; it can involve physical barriers such as the walls of a classroom or nonphysical barriers that prevent outsiders from participating in the interaction. These non-physical barriers can include the shared emotion of an interaction, such as at a funeral (Collins, 2004, p. 48) where the emotional energy of the participants is exclusionary to those outside of the ritual. Barriers to outsiders in an interaction give participants “a sense of who is taking part and who is excluded” (Collins, 2004, p. 48). According to Collins (2004), successful interactions occur when the initiating ingredients (bodily co-presence and barriers to outsiders) “feed into mutual focus and emotional entrainment” (p. 146) of the participants. These successful interactions can be characterised by synchronised body movements, positive collective emotion including collective effervescence (Tobin et al., 2013), dialogical turn-taking and overlapping speech, and mutual focus of attention. A long-term outcome of successful interactions is positive emotional energy. Collins (2004) describes emotional energy derived from successful interactions as “a feeling of confidence, courage to take action, boldness in taking initiative” (p. 39) and argues that participants who experience positive emotional energy in an encounter seek to reproduce such interactions to recreate and re-experience this positive emotional energy. As such, rituals are repeated, becoming interaction ritual chains.

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Unsuccessful interactions on the other hand, are those where a shared mood is not established, participants in the interaction do not have a mutual focus, and synchrony of talk, gestures and body movements do not occur (Collins, 2004). COGENERATIVE DIALOGUE

Cogen has been used as a methodological tool and as a teaching tool for a number of years in the United States (Tobin & Roth, 2006). During cogen, the classroom teacher and a small group of students come together on an equal footing to generate a shared understanding of what is happening in the classroom. Studies using cogen as a research methodology and pedagogical tool explain cogen as having specific characteristics. Participants in cogen should be willing participants and the dialogue that occurs should be equally shared among participants. A shared understanding of what is being discussed is reached and an action plan to improve teaching and learning is generated (e.g., LaVan, 2004). A significant difference between cogen and other student-voice initiatives is the removal, as much as possible, of the power differential between the classroom teacher and her students (Stith & Roth, 2010). Further, the responsibility of enacting change from the plans of action falls upon both the teacher and the student participants of cogen. As a methodological tool, cogen can afford researchers, who act as facilitators of cogen, insights into the perspectives of participants and how the participants interact to generate a shared understanding of their classroom environment. As a teaching and learning tool, cogen can serve to transform the teaching and learning that occurs in the classroom, the interactions and relationships within that space and the classroom emotional climate (Otulaja, 2010). Cogen can be a powerful tool to transform teaching and learning environments for the benefit of all stakeholders. In any classroom, a goal of the teacher is to generate positive emotional energy and solidarity within the classroom (Otulaja, 2010). These expectation states, if not met, can arouse negatively valenced emotions (Turner, 2009) in the teacher. Similarly, a classroom lacking in solidarity and mutual focus, often has a more negatively valenced emotional climate. The creation of a positive learning community can be facilitated through the use of cogen. Sarah Kate LaVan’s (2004) use of cogen illustrates the potential of cogen to facilitate the enactment of positive change in the classroom. Before cogen was introduced, the researcher observed that many students had a negative attitude towards science and that interactions in the classroom did not afford a sense of shared positive emotion or mutual focus. Students displayed emotions of animosity and frustration towards the teacher and the teacher reported that she often felt angry with her students. LaVan found that students began valuing each other as resources, as evidenced by the respect shown to others through mutual focus and synchronous attention and body actions. Similarly, Femi Otulaja’s (2010) research found that cogen could be used to transform the “social and working relationships” (p. 77) between the teacher and her students. 174

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STUDY CONTEXT AND METHODS

Study Context This study was conducted in a Year 10 science classroom in an independent secondary school on the outskirts of Brisbane, Australia. The classroom teacher Ashley, was in her third year of teaching. This study focuses on Cody, a 15-year-old male student in Ashley’s classroom and explores how participation in cogen improved Cody’s recorded perceptions of the emotional climate in Ashley’s classroom. Methodology This study is informed by Stake’s (2005) interpretive perspective of case studies, alongside common understandings of ethnography (Walters, 2007). Interpretive research in education is concerned with the meanings attached to human experiences in social life (Erickson, 1986). These meanings are derived not only from the researcher, but also from those being studied (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993). In this study, an interpretive approach afforded me an opportunity to examine classroom emotional climate from both emic (insider) and etic (outsider) perspectives (Creswell, 2008) and to co-construct with the research participants (Grbich, 2007) authentic understandings and meaningful interpretations (Dey, 1993) of teacherstudent interactions (i.e., interactions between the teacher and her students) and classroom emotional climate. Researchers operating from an interpretive perspective acknowledge that actions are contextualised and consider that what occurs in the classroom is influenced by individuals within that space (Erickson, 1986). The social and cultural organisation of the classroom within which individuals interact and make meaning of their own and others’ actions is specific and distinctive to that context. Similarly, interpretive researchers assume that actions and meanings attached to those actions are specific and distinctive in time (Erickson, 1986). That is, social interaction, even between individuals who interact recurrently (as in a classroom setting) can differ momentto-moment. Thus, interpretive fieldwork involving immersion in the context of the study (Stake, 2005) has allowed me to capture and make sense of moment-to-moment emotional climate of the classroom and teacher-student interactions (interactions between the teacher and her students). An ethnographic case study design afforded me an opportunity to immerse myself in the context to make sense of moment-tomoment actions and the meanings individuals attached to those actions. Frederick Erickson (1986) positions ethnography as a form of interpretive research. Central to the definition of ethnography is culture, which refers to aspects of human behavior including language, interactions, rituals and structures (Creswell, 2008). In this study, the interactions and rituals within the structure of the classroom were investigated. Using ethnographic techniques, the meanings attached to the experiences of the teacher and her students were examined. 175

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Methods Over the course of 12 months, data were collected from 48 classroom lessons and 10 cogens. Further, interviews were held with both Ashley (the classroom teacher) and Cody (the student). TurningPoint™ is an interactive audience response software application that was used to collect data on the emotional climate of Ashley’s classroom. The students in Ashley’s class were allocated a keypad that was wirelessly connected to the Turning Point™ software. Emotional climate data were collected over 16 lessons during this study. During these lessons (EC Lessons), I would sound a bell approximately every three minutes and the students would use their keypad to record their perceptions of the emotional climate within the classroom over the previous three-minute time period. Students rated the emotional climate on a five point scale of 5, highly positive; 4, slightly positive; 3, neutral; 2, slightly negative; and 1, highly negative. These data were analyzed to determine how students (as a whole and individually) perceived the classroom emotional climate at each three-minute interval and as an average during each lesson. Cody’s recorded perceptions of classroom emotional climate were collected and analyzed for 13 lessons only, as he was absent for three of these lessons. Data were extracted from the video and audio recordings of each lesson, as well as each cogen. Conversation analysis of interactions between Cody and the classroom teacher Ashley during lessons and cogen, was undertaken. Ten cogens (running for no longer than 45 minutes) were held with Ashley and a small group of students over the course of this study. Cody attended two of these cogens; one in the middle of the study (cogen 3) and one towards the end of the study (cogen 9). Although it is ideal for students participating in cogen to differ from one another in terms of, for example, gender and classroom conduct (LaVan, 2004), participation in cogen by students in this study was on a voluntary basis. Ashley and I discussed how we would invite students to participate in cogen, and decided that we would prefer students to volunteer as they would be more likely to be enthusiastic and open to the discussions in cogen if they were willing participants, rather than if they participated through a sense of obligation. Video and audio recordings, artefacts (plans of action) and my field notes (made at the conclusion of each cogen) provided rich data to support or contradict data collected about what was happening in the classroom. Cogen provided information about what events or interactions were particularly significant to the students and the teacher. What was talked about in cogen helped drive the analysis of data. That is, the emic perspective influenced the decision making processes of what classroom events and interactions were salient to my research. For example, in the first cogen, student participants discussed Cody’s disruptive behavior in the classroom. Thus, Cody and his behavior and classroom interactions became a focus of data analysis. Analysis of the conversations naturally occurring in the classroom and during cogen provided data about how the conversations occurred, the relationships of 176

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those involved in the conversations and how the teacher and students produced their own actions and understood and dealt with the actions of others (Grbich, 2007). Non-verbal communication, including facial expressions, gestures and body movements, was coded on the transcripts used for conversation analysis and examined to afford insight into interactions (Gray & Ambady, 2006) between Cody and the teacher. CODY BEFORE COGEN

Ashley considered Cody to be the most disruptive student in her Year 10 science class, constantly calling out, arguing, and being disrespectful. In an informal interview after my first visit to Ashley’s classroom, Ashley described Cody as “totally disruptive” and “annoying”. Ashley had a deficit view of Cody, his behavior, and his contributions to the climate of the classroom, and stated that Cody was her most “difficult” student. From observations made in the classroom, it was evident why Cody was considered to be the most disruptive and difficult student in the classroom. Cody was outspoken in his opinions and would question Ashley by calling out without raising his hand. He would also interject inappropriate comments during classroom discussion. In a videotaped lesson on evolution, Cody actively participated and in the first six minutes, had called out seven times. An example of Cody’s interjections during Ashley’s teaching is presented in Fragment 9.1. Fragment 9.1. Interruptions

Turn 01 02 03 04 05 06

Ashley: This is what Charles Darwin said about evolutionary theory. Cody: Was he from Darwin? Ashley: No ((Ashley reads from Powerpoint)) Cody (interrupts): What happened to the stuff about God making man? Ashley (T): We:ll Cody: Adam wasn’t a monkey

Fragment 9.1 provides a clear example of how Cody would interrupt Ashley’s teaching. In this excerpt, Cody’s interjection at turn 02 with an unnecessary comment was acknowledged by Ashley. However, this acknowledgement was abrupt and she quickly resumed her teaching. Cody’s interjection at turn 04 and 06 were said in a serious tone in a loud voice that all students could hear. Ashley’s frustration at turn 06 was evidenced by her audible exhalation of breath, raised eyebrows and narrowing of the lips.

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Not all lessons showed evidence of this type of disruptive behavior by Cody. Ashley found other behaviors that were less obvious or more “low level” behavior such as talking while she was direct teaching to be “extremely irritating” (Interview 9). In the first minutes of the fourth videotaped lesson, Cody was spoken to 4 times about talking while the teacher was talking. These were short interactions such as “shoosh,” that escalated throughout the lesson to “Are you right there?” and “If you keep talking you will have to leave.” Furthermore, Cody would often disrupt others in a physical manner such as throwing rubbish to the front of the room towards the bin, or tickling or poking Anna, a female student, who regularly sat next to him. While Cody often disrupted the teacher and other students, he occasionally would withdraw from what was happening around him for brief periods. In many lessons, Cody could be seen crossing his arms on his desk, laying his head on his arms and closing his eyes. When questioned about this behavior, Cody explained “Sometimes it’s just so boring. I know the stuff. Miss’s a good teacher but I get so tired of it. Even if I’ve got something to say she won’t listen so I don’t bother. Most of the time it’s Ok but sometimes I can’t be bothered” (cogen 3). Also, Cody’s behavior was distracting for some of his peers. In the first cogen, of which Cody was not a part, the four student participants discussed his behavior. Melanie found him distracting because he was so loud; while Elizabeth was irritated that Cody never seemed to do any work but still knew all the answers. This is evident in Fragment 9.2 from the first cogen. Fragment 9.2. Discussing Cody

Turn 01

02 03 04 05

Elizabeth: I have spares now so I can get my work done. I can’t do anything in class. I don’t like Cody. He’s distracting and then he comes in the next lesson knowing everything. I don’t know how he does it. Ashley: I feel he makes half of it up on the spot just quietly. Elizabeth: Does he? Yeah but how does he know all the answers? Melanie: Maybe he just copies you (looks directly at Ashley) and he just copies the board. Elizabeth: He copies me and he like asks me what’s happening and I’m barely like understanding it and he just comes in knowing everything and I’m like…

Following this cogen, Ashley and I talked about what the students had discussed in cogen, and Ashley expressed her frustration that Cody’s behavior including him “calling out all the time” was annoying the other students in her class. 178

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I asked Ashley if she would consider having Cody participate in cogen. The answer was an emphatic “no.” Ashley did not think it would be worthwhile and was worried about the balance of power between Cody and her. She felt that her authority could be undermined (Flutter, 2007), as evidenced in this quote from the interview: “He’ll use it against me. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. It’ll all be rubbish.” At the next cogen (cogen 2), Cody’s behavior in the classroom again was a significant topic of discussion, initiated by the students themselves. Following the cogen, Ashley decided to select Cody to participate in the next cogen if he volunteered. In Fragment 9.3, Ashley describes her decision. Fragment 9.3. Including Cody in cogen

It’s not like he’s getting worse, I’m just getting more annoyed because it’s so constant. I feel like he’s forever interrupting, and these last two cogens, well it’s getting to the kids too. I need him to see that it just can’t keep going. He needs to know … well he’s affecting everyone else. … I mean Cody’s driving everyone nuts, maybe if I get to know him I can do something different. Prior to participating in cogen, Cody participated in six lessons where emotional climate data were collected (EC Lessons). At each interval in each of these 6 lessons, Cody rated the emotional climate consistently as a 1 (very negative) or 2 (slightly negative). Further, in the second lesson, Cody did not record any data, and when asked why, he replied “Miss, it didn’t even register as a 1.” Overall, Cody’s average emotional climate rating across these six lessons was 1.1. This is in contrast to how

Figure 9.1. Cody’s ratings of classroom emotional climate before participating in cogen

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other students rated the emotional climate at each interval, which was reflective of the interactions that were occurring between Ashley and the students in the class (Oakley, 2016). The whole class average emotional climate rating was 3.4 over these six lessons, compared to Cody’s average rating of 1.1. The average emotional climate ratings for these six lessons are displayed in Figure 9.1. This figure shows the average emotional climate rating for each lesson using the data collected from each student in the class, as well as Cody’s average emotional climate rating for each lesson. THE COGEN WITH CODY

Cody and three other students (Alice, Anna and Andrew) who volunteered to be part of cogen, attended the third cogen of this study. As previously discussed with Ashley, I opened the cogen by asking Cody how the science class was going for him. Cody expressed his frustration about constantly being at the center of Ashley’s jokes. I asked him how his jokes in class compared to the jokes that Ashley made. “It’s different comments. (Ashley) makes it about me.” Cody placed emphasis on the word about and complained that Ashley always told him he smelt funny. “She’s trying to be funny but it’s not working.” Ashley struggled to respond to Cody’s comments; “I’m not sure what to say.” Cody did clarify that he thought Ashley was a good teacher. He claimed to enjoy what science was about (that is, the content), but not having to sit and listen to it being taught as expressed in Fragment 9.4. Fragment 9.4. I enjoy it but…

It’s not always the teacher… I enjoy doing it but not like the lessons and stuff. I enjoy like pracs and like learning all the stuff but I don’t like having to sit through it. Interestingly, Cody blamed Jeff, another student in the class, for a lot of his disruptive behavior in the classroom. In Fragment 9.5, Cody discusses Jeff as a negative influence, and also comes to a realization that his own behavior could be disruptive to other students. The dialogue continued around Cody’s behavior in the classroom. The students agreed that while Cody was funny he was disruptive in the classroom. The true essence of cogen was evident during the dialogue between Ashley and her students. Ashley attempted to generate a shared understanding of different perspectives. Ashley acknowledged the need for fun and laughter in the science classroom, while the students understood Ashley’s need to sometimes “just get things done” and the necessity of dealing with inappropriate behavior. 180

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Fragment 9.5. Disturbing other students

Turn 01 02 03 04 05

Cody: I notice that it has got a lot better since Jeff has gone to Thailand. Researcher: So why’s it changed for you? Cody: I don’t get as distracted. I think Jeff is just an influence on me, a negative one. Ashley: So if he disturbs you, do you disturb other people? Cody: Um, not intentionally, but yes, I guess. Fragment 9.6. Cody is funny but disruptive

Turn 01 02 03

Andrew: He’s disruptive enough to make it funny, but he is disruptive. It gives us a good break. Researcher: How does that work for you (Ashley)? Ashley: Sometimes it works, like sometimes we need to have a little giggle break but sometimes we need, when I’m like in the middle of saying something and I find that hard. Fragment 9.7. Let it go

Turn 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Ashley: I like it when we have like discussions and stuff and people get involved. I really want that. It’s just when we’re trying to do other work it can sometimes be a bit frustrating. Alice: Yep I get that cause it’s like everyone else might want to learn and it’s like hard if someone’s disrupting the class and interrupting all the time. Anna: Yeah sometimes it’s hard to listen. Researcher: As a student? Anna: Yeah and it’s hard to concentrate Cody: (Ashley) disrupts more by dealing with it. I think (Ashley) should just let it go and everything’d be fine. You know like not interrupt. Just ignore it. Alice: But no-one would learn anything. Cody: Everyone has different ways of learning. Alice: But what about the ones who want to listen? Anna: She’s got you there.

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Fragment 9.7. Let it go (cont.)

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Alice: That’s you ((directed at Cody)). When you start talking you’re not even talking about the work so… Ashley: Yeah I hear what you’re saying ((directed at Cody)) and sometimes it’s easier to just let it go but then if I let it go then I let more go and then I let more go and what’s… Cody: It just builds up. Ashley: Where’s the line? What do I let go and what do I not let go? Sometimes you just sort of have to like… Cody: Stop. You have to stop it. Alice: That’s your job. Ashley: I’m not supposed to let it go.

In turns 02, 03 and 05 students acknowledged Ashley’s occasional frustration at student interruptions in the classroom. However, at turn 06 Cody put forth a different perspective; that is, Ashley’s response to students’ interruptions as more disruptive than the interruption. However, after further discussion, at turn 15 Cody seemed to recognize that Ashley did have to stop the disruptive behavior of her students. Despite Cody initially stating that it was more disruptive when Ashley interrupted the class to deal with behavior issues, he also agreed that it was Ashley’s job to stop them. This shared awareness (Collins 2004) of Ashley’s responsibilities can be seen in the dialogue in Fragment 9.7 when on two occasions (turn 13 and turn 15), Cody interrupted to either complete Ashley’s sentence or demonstrate his understanding of the situation. The dialogue continued between Ashley and her students and an action plan was generated. This action plan stemmed directly from the shared understanding of Ashley’s responsibilities as a teacher. The students decided that Ashley needed to stop students’ inappropriate or disruptive behavior. Ashley deemed the cogen to be a success, although not initially. Immediately after the students had left the room at the conclusion of the cogen, I asked Ashley how she thought it had gone. Her response was “The majority of that wasn’t real.” That evening in an informal telephone interview, I asked Ashley to clarify what she meant by that statement. This excerpt is taken directly from the audiotape made of that interview. Ashley and I continued to discuss the cogen and she expressed that she felt it had been very successful. The cogen had allowed Ashley to share with these students the problems she was having in the classroom and she voiced that they were very receptive to what she had to say. She expressed surprise that Cody had seemed to understand her point of view and acknowledged that it was good getting to know him a bit better. I asked Ashley about whether she thought that the cogen may elicit a change in Cody’s behavior or engagement in the classroom and she was unsure replying that she would wait and see. 182

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Fragment 9.8. Teacher reflection on cogen

Researcher: Ashley:

Researcher: Ashley:

So after the cogen you said “The majority of that wasn’t real” What did you mean? Well I thought the cogen went really well, but straight after… well I guess I found it a bit confrontational. The bit about how I should ignore behavior, it’s true. I’m just so tired and things get to me more. I know better ways to do it but it’s hard when you’re tired it’s so easy to get frustrated. What bits did you feel weren’t real? It was more how I was feeling straight after. All that stuff about me making jokes about how Cody smells. But now I guess, maybe even though they were jokes, maybe I’m not really separating you know the boundary between being their friend and being their teacher. So I go from joking one minute to getting angry the next. I think the joking’s good but maybe it needs to be about other stuff; you know the funny stuff about the crocodiles, not actually about the students.

CODY AFTER COGEN

Cody rated the emotional climate of the lesson immediately after cogen as neutral (mean = 3.0), as compared to his previous highest mean rating of 1.9. This improvement in emotional climate rating was not an unexpected finding. Throughout the study, it was found that all students who were involved in cogen, rated the lesson following the cogen as slightly higher, on average, than other classroom lessons. Further, it was found, that despite students who were involved in cogen rating the lesson following the cogen as more positive than other lessons, this increase in rating was not sustained for the rest of the lessons following the cogen lesson. That is, there were no sustained increases in emotional climate ratings across the course of the study. However, Cody’s ratings of classroom emotional climate were an exception. Unlike other students involved in cogen who did not show sustained improvement in their ratings of emotional climate, participation in cogen appeared to transform Cody’s ongoing ratings of emotional climate. Before being involved in cogen, Cody’s ratings of the previous lessons had been quite negative (mean = 1.1). However, Cody rated the majority of lessons after this cogen as positive. Cody’s involvement in cogen mediated an ongoing improvement in his ratings of classroom emotional climate. Figure 9.2 illustrates Cody’s average ratings of each lesson throughout the course of the study. EC Lesson 7 was the first EC Lesson following his participation in cogen. The gaps in the data at EC Lesson 11, 12 and 14 were classroom lessons where Cody was absent. 183

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Figure 9.2. Improvements in Cody’s classroom emotional climate ratings

Figure 9.2 illustrates that Cody’s overall mean ratings of emotional climate improved on an upward trend following the cogen, and stayed more positive throughout the course of the study. Before participating in cogen, Cody’s average emotional climate rating was 1.1. Cody’s average emotional climate rating for the seven lessons following the cogen was 3.6. UNDERSTANDING THE COGEN

During a cogen held towards the end of the study (cogen 9) students were asked to express their thoughts about the benefits of cogen and come up with an action plan for cogen beyond this study. During this cogen, Cody expressed that his relationship with Ashley had changed due to his participation in cogen 3. Indeed, Ashley’s reflection on cogen 3 prompted a variation in her teaching methodology. Following this cogen, I was used as a co-teacher during 14 lessons to enable Ashley to respond to the cogen comments by spending more time and paying greater attention to Cody and other small groups. In this role, I worked with designated small groups during discussion and activity times, as well as individual students as they completed individual learning tasks. In relation to Cody, this enabled Ashley “to spend some real time (with Cody). Really let (him) know that I am interested. The cogen was good; I’ve got to keep working on getting the relationship right” (Interview after cogen 3). In a practical lesson the week following cogen 3 with Cody, Ashley utilized my presence in the classroom to work with and supervise the class, while she worked specifically with Cody and one of Cody’s friends Anna. No emotional climate data were collected during this lesson, but in an informal interview at the conclusion of the lesson, Cody said that he would have rated the whole lesson as a 5 (very positive). 184

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Anna argued that the reason Ashley spent the whole lesson with them was that in the cogen, Ashley would have seen that “We were fun. We keep it lively.” Similarly, Cody attributed Ashley’s interactions with him and Anna during the lesson, to their participation in cogen as illustrated in Fragment 9.9. Fragment 9.9. She decided to spend time with us

She saw our opinions at the cogen. She saw we were interested in our work, so she decided to spend the time with us where before I think because she didn’t know what we thought that we struggled in class she just thought she wouldn’t spend time with us. During cogen 9, Cody credited his participation in cogen 3 as the catalyst for transforming his relationship with Ashley as expressed in the comment in Fragment 9.10. Fragment 9.10. She started to like me

It made what I thought change. I started taking it seriously, you know the learning and stuff. It was good. She got what I was saying and she was interested. She’s a good teacher but I thought she thought I was really you know like not a good student, but then we talked about it and her opinion changed. She saw I was interested in my work. I think she started to like me, like she didn’t really before, I just annoyed her, but now she gets me more, yeah. Cody explained that his relationship with Ashley had improved. He expressed that the cogen changed Ashley’s opinion of him. In turn, he started to take his science class more seriously. I observed that Cody would attempt to complete any written work required by Ashley, whereas before cogen he had not. Furthermore, he admitted that he tried to behave better in class and “not call out as much.” Indeed, the video recordings of classroom lessons after Cogen 3, demonstrated that Cody’s behavior and actions in the classroom had transformed to some degree. Specifically, he did not call out inappropriate comments as often, although he was still forward in calling out on-topic comments. His side discussions with his friends continued, but these were less in frequency and duration. Moreover, Ashley believed that Cody’s behavior had improved significantly in her class, although the Year 10 coordinator had told her that “his behavior in other classes is just getting quite bad.” Towards the end of the school year, Ashley proclaimed that cogen “gave me the confidence I guess to talk to him and appreciate him differently.” Ashley attributed the change in Cody’s behavior and the transformation of her relationship with him to the shared understanding engendered through cogen. 185

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Cody, the ‘difficult’ student and the classroom teacher Ashley reasoned that cogen was the catalyst for transforming how they perceived and understood the other, and how they perceived their relationship. Cody considered that his relationship with Ashley had improved. This suggests that allowing students to have a meaningful voice can positively influence how students perceive their relationship with their teacher (Cook-Sather, 2007). Furthermore, this enhanced teacher affiliation may account for his improved behavior and engagement in the classroom (Klem & Connell, 2004) and his higher ratings of the classroom emotional climate. TRANSFERRING MEMBERSHIP OF COGEN TO THE CLASSROOM

This study provides analysis of the classroom emotional climate ratings of a Year 10 student before and after his participation in cogen. Prior to his involvement in cogen, Cody consistently rated the classroom emotional climate as negative. Further, his behavior in class was disruptive to the classroom teacher and other students and he was often disengaged from science learning. After participating in cogen, Cody’s ratings of emotional climate showed a sustained improvement, and he exhibited behaviors that indicated he was more engaged in his science learning, as well as being less disruptive. The observed teacher-student interactions before his participation in cogen revealed ongoing unsuccessful interactions when Cody was not engaging in the classroom learning activities, and when Cody was participating in verbal interactions with Ashley that were disruptive to the class. These ongoing failed interactions became interaction chains (Collins, 2004), situating Cody as a “nonmember” (Collins, 2004, p. 166) of the classroom group. Collins defines nonmembers as participants in an interaction that have bodily co-presence, yet barely participate and receive no emotional energy from the situational interactions. Collins describes such non-members as being oriented towards the group with the hope of being included, and often exhibiting behaviors such as shyness or “taking negative attention as better than no attention at all” (p. 354). Barriers to their membership include being outsiders to the solidarity and shared mood of the group, receiving no emotional energy from the situation and gaining no symbolic attachments (Collins, 2004, p. 116). Thus, barriers to outsiders can include barriers that exclude bodily copresent individuals from the interaction. Stacy Olitsky (2013) labels an individual who is bodily present but not entrained in the collective emotional experience, as an “IR-outsider” (p. 563). Olitsky explains that IR-outsiders may lose emotional energy and not develop a sense of identity associated with the classroom group if they are witness to, but not involved in, frequent successful interactions in the classroom. She explains further that witnessing successful rituals while not being entrained in the shared mood of the class “is more alienating than not being present at all” (p. 563).

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I suggest that whilst Ashley’s difficult student was bodily co-present in the classroom, before he participated in cogen, he was an outsider to the group and thus was unable to participate in the solidarity and shared mood of the classroom. That is, there were barriers to his inclusion in classroom interactions such as not being part of the shared mood of the group, not receiving emotional energy from the situation, and gaining no symbolic attachments (Collins, 2004, p. 116). This was evidenced by his low ratings of emotional climate during intervals when many other students rated the emotional climate as positive. Such marginal interactions (i.e., Cody was still present and hearing the discussions and occasionally talking to other students) could be described as having “partial group solidarity” (Olitsky, 2013, p. 565) where the boundaries of interaction exclude some students from participating in the solidarity and shared mood of the whole class. Furthermore, unsuccessful interactions with Ashley in lessons prior to cogen were common. Being on the fringes of group membership and observing successful interactions whilst not being a part of them, is alienating for non-members, and can result in a loss of emotional energy for them (Olitsky, 2013). If positive emotional energy can be gained from successful interactions that motivate individuals to want to engage in the situation again, then also the converse holds true (Collins, 2004). That is, non-members experience a loss of emotional energy when alienated from successful interactions, thus decreasing their desire to participate in further situations of this kind. Of course, in a secondary school setting, students often have little choice about their attendance in class, as is the case of this study. Therefore, non-members such as Cody find the classroom situation “unattractive” (Collins, p.44) and have little desire to be in class or participate, establishing the cycle that perpetuates their position as non-members experiencing failed interactions with the classroom teacher. It is evident that Cody’s unsuccessful and ongoing failed interactions with Ashley contributed to his non-membership of the classroom group, however, it is unclear how this non-membership began. Perhaps as Olitsky (2013) posits, non-membership arose from the concepts and rhetoric of science being inaccessible. Further, perhaps Cody’s expectation states (Turner, 2007) were unrealized as he engaged in interactions with Ashley. However, the scope of this study was not to gain insight into the beginning causes of students’ disengagement from science, but rather, to understand the cycle of non-membership and failed interactions, and to reengage students in the science classroom. Cody was an active participant in cogen, and was, as Collins (2004) describes, a member (p. 166) of the group; participating in the successful interactions as well as being part of the mutual focus and shared mood of the cogen group. Cogen is an interaction ritual itself. Cogen is a formal ritual (Collins, 2004) in that it is initiated by formal procedures such as the rules of cogen. Within cogen there is bodily co-presence of the cogen participants (Ashley and a small group of students). The structure of cogen, where all participants sit in a circle facing one another, is particularly conducive to successful interactions (Olitsky, 2007). Further, the other

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initiating ingredient to successful interactions – barriers to outsiders, is also present. These barriers are inherent in the rule of “what happens in cogen, stays in cogen” (La Van, 2004). That is, outsiders to the cogen are not privy to the discussions that occur in cogen. The barriers to outsiders do not preclude students who are participating in the cogen as compared to the barriers within the classroom that served to exclude Cody. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, student participation in cogen was voluntary. Cody, as well as most other students in the classroom, was eager to participate when provided with the opportunity. Cogen was not a forced ritual with unwilling participants forced to put on a show by participating (Collins, 2004, p. 53). Secondly, this eagerness to participate indicated a positive expectation state as the students entered the cogen where the students were an “ingredient” (Collins, 2004, p. 5) of the new situation bringing with them enthusiasm and positive emotional energy. The entrainment of a positive shared mood is more likely under these circumstances (Collins, 2004). The inclusion or membership of all cogen participants is assured further through the power status of the situation (Collins, 2004). In cogen, all participants are heard equally, and the classroom teacher holds no specific power or authority in the interactions. That is, the classroom teacher surrenders herself as expert allowing students to share their opinions and ideas freely (Schneider, 2010). Importantly, there is no differentiation of status within cogen, as all participants are centrally located to the interaction ritual (Collins, 2004, p. 118). Within cogen, participants had a shared mood that was evidenced through their turn taking and synchronicity of body movements and gestures. The participants were mutually focused on the topic of discussion in which all participants contributed. These contributions consisted of fairly even turn taking, indicating that all participants were central to the interactions. The cogen discussions were about different topics related to the classroom, including behavior, occurrences in the classroom, and Ashley. There were no barriers to the students contributing in terms of the content, as can be found in classrooms where the science content and rhetoric may exclude some students from membership. Further, cogen allowed students to have a voice that was heard openly and respectfully by Ashley, the other student participants, and myself as a researcher. Cogen allowed the relationship between the classroom teacher and students, particularly Cody, to be strengthened. Studies of student voice (e.g., O’Neill, 2010) indicate that students not only have valid information to share about what is happening in classrooms and schools, but that affording students the opportunity to voice their concerns can impact on a students’ relationships with the classroom teacher. This was evident in cogen 9 when Cody stated that during cogen Ashley was interested in what he had to say and that Ashley started to like him after cogen. Cogen as an intervention in Ashley’s classroom assisted in fostering Cody’s sense of group membership within the class. That is, the sense of belonging in the situation of cogen was transferrable to the classroom setting. Cody felt validated that Ashley had taken his ideas seriously – that his voice was heard, and he was able to transfer 188

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positive emotional energy from the situation of cogen into the classroom setting. This reinforces Sonam Rinchen’s (2014) finding that the mutual focus of attention and shared mood from cogen translated into the classroom. After participating in cogen, there were marked improvements in Cody’s engagement in the classroom and science learning activities, as well as a decrease in his disruptive behaviors. Cody became an active participant in the successful interactions that were occurring in the classroom. Collins (2004) recognizes the transferability of emotional energy from one situation to another and states that positive emotional energy from successful interactions “has a powerful motivating effect upon the individual” (p. 39), an effect that a person wants to experience again. Thus, the power of cogen in transforming difficult students’ emotional energy was such that Cody possibly entered the classroom setting after cogen with positive emotional energy and more positive expectation states. These expectation states for repeated successful interactions as experienced in cogen were realized through his active and positive engagement in interactions with Ashley. Collins recognizes this as a feedback loop, “a desire to reassemble” (p. 147) where participants “want to do the ritual again” (p. 146) and recreate the types of successful interactions experienced previously. While Collins discusses this in regards to the workplace, I posit that inclusion in ongoing cogen mediated the difficult student’s impetus to reproduce the successful interactions from the cogen into the classroom. Through cogen, this “desire to reassemble” (p. 147) and “do the ritual again” (p. 146) removed the barriers to Cody’s classroom membership. COGEN AFFORDS SUCCESS

Connecting with students who exhibit inappropriate classroom behavior can engender increased cooperation and trust between the teacher and students (Gregory & Ripski, 2008). Indeed, Cody articulated that he strived to be more cooperative in terms of his classroom behavior, after his participation in cogen. During cogen 9, Cody expressed that after cogen “I think she started to like me” and that “She got what I was saying and she was interested.” The findings of this study indicate that cogen can mediate positive transformations in the science classroom, particularly for those students who may exhibit inappropriate classroom behavior. These transformations may include enhanced interactions between the teacher and these students, sustained improvement of student perception of emotional climate and enriched teacher affiliation. An important finding of this study is that after participation in cogen, there was sustained improvement of emotional climate ratings by Ashley’s difficult student Cody. This is an important contribution to the body of research regarding student engagement in science. Research shows that many students are disengaging from science and are not pursuing studies in this area in the senior years of secondary school (Kennedy, Lyons, & Quinn, 2014). Furthermore, this finding is significant for beginning science teachers who often wish to leave the profession early in their career 189

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(Rennie, Goodrum, & Hackling, 2001). As teachers often cite student behavior as a factor in their decision to leave the profession (McKenzie, Kos, Walker, & Hong, 2007) or report that student-centered factors such as behavior and attitude affect quality of teaching (Rennie et al., 2001), cogen can offer teachers opportunities to understand better what is happening in their classroom, reflect on their teaching practice, and transform their practice and interactions with difficult students. This study situates cogen as an intervention that can broaden the barriers of participation for non-members enabling successful interactions and entrainment in the group emotional energy and mood. Participation in cogen, allows students, who may previously be situated outside the shared mood and successful interactions in the classroom, to transfer their membership of cogen into the classroom setting, resulting in improved teacher affiliation, successful classroom interactions and improved perceptions of classroom emotional climate. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, contract grant numbers DP0984394 supported the research presented in this chapter. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Research Council. REFERENCES Barbalet, J. M. (1995). Climates of fear and socio-political change. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 25, 15–33. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5914.1995.tb00264.x Brackett, M. A., Reyes, M. R., Rivers, S. E., Elbertson, N. A., & Salovey, P. (2011). Classroom emotional climate, teacher affiliation, and student conduct. Journal of Classroom Interaction, 46(1), 27–36. doi:10.1007/s12671-015-0422-7 Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cook-Sather, A. (2007). What would happen if we treated students as those with opinions that matter? The benefits to principals and teachers of supporting youth engagement in schools. NASSP Bulletin, 91, 343–362. Creswell, J. W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Dey, I. (1993). Qualitative data analysis: A user-friendly guide for social scientists. London: Routledge. Erikson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119–161). New York, NY: Macmillan. Evans, I. M., Harvey, S. T., Buckley, L., & Yan, E. (2009). Differentiating classroom climate concepts: Academic, management, and emotional environments. New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 4, 131–146. Flutter, J. (2007). Teacher development and pupil voice. Curriculum Journal, 18(3), 343–354. doi:10.1080/09585170701589983 Fraser, B. J. (1994). Research on classroom and school climate. In D. Gabel (Ed.), Handbook of research on science teaching and learning (pp. 527–564). New York, NY: Macmillan. Gray, H. M., & Ambady, N. (2006). Methods for the study of nonverbal communication. In V. Manusov & M. L. Patterson (Eds.), The Sage handbook of nonverbal communication (pp. 41–58). London: Sage Publications. Grbich, C. (2007). Qualitative data analysis: An introduction. London: Sage Publications.

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COGENERATIVE DIALOGUE AND CLASSROOM EMOTIONAL CLIMATE Gregory, A., & Ripski, M. B. (2008). Adolescent trust in teachers: Implications for behavior in the high school classroom. School Psychology Review, 37, 337–353. Kennedy, J., Lyons, T., & Quinn, F. (2014). The continuing decline of science and mathematics enrolments in Australian high schools. Teaching Science, 60(2), 34–46. Klem, A. M., & Connell, J. P. (2004). Relationships matter: linking teacher support to student engagement and achievement. The Journal of School Health, 74, 262–273. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2004.tb08283.x LaVan, S.-K. (2004). Cogenerating fluency in urban science classrooms (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (Accession Order No. AAT 3138043) LeCompte, M. D., & Preissle, J. (1993). Ethnography and qualitative design in educational research (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Academic Press. McKenzie, P., Kos, J., Walker, M., & Hong, J. (2007). Staff in Australia’s schools 2007. Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Retrieved July 1, 2010, from http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/1246540B-6D4A-4734-85FB-0C2C2D6D7F13/19904/ SiASsurveydatareport2007.pdf Oakley, J. L. (2016). Understanding emotional climate: Interaction rituals and cogenerative dialogue in a beginning science teacher’s classroom (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/ Olitsky, S. (2013). We teach as we are taught: Exploring the potential for emotional climate to enhance elementary science preservice teacher education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 8(3), 561–570. doi:10.1007/s11422-013-9530-7 O’Neill, T. B. (2010). Fostering spaces of student ownership in middle school science. Science, Equity and Excellence in Education, 43(1), 6–20. doi:10.1080/10665680903484909 Otulaja, F. S. (2010). Using cogenerative dialogue to afford the teaching and learning of biology in an urban high school (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (Accession Order No. AAT 3396455) Patrick, H., Ryan, A. M., & Kaplan, A. (2007). Early adolescents’ perceptions of the classroom social environment, motivational beliefs and engagement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(1), 83–98. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.99.1.83 Rennie, L. J., Goodrum, D., & Hackling, M. (2001). Science teaching and learning in Australian schools: Results of a national study. Research in Science Education, 31, 455–498. doi:10.1023/A:1013171905815 Rinchen, S. (2014). A study of the emotional climate of a science education class for pre-service teachers in Bhutan (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/ Ryan, A., & Patrick, H. (2001). The classroom social environment and changes in adolescents’ motivation and engagement during middle school. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 437–460. Schneider, G. (2010). Democratising the classroom: Sequencing discussions and assignments to promote student ownership of the course. Review of Radical Political Economics, 42(1), 101–107. doi:10.1177/0486613409357185 Sprott, J. B. (2004). The development of early delinquency: Can classroom and social climates make a difference? Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 46, 553–572. doi:10.3138/ cjccj.46.5.553 Stake, R. E. (2005). Qualitative case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 443–466). London: Sage Publications. Stith, I., & Roth, W.-M. (2010). Teaching as mediation: The cogenerative dialogue and ethical understandings. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(2), 363–370. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.09.008 Tobin, K., Ritchie, S. M., Oakley, J. L., Mergard, V., & Hudson, P. (2013). Relationships between emotional climate and the fluency of classroom interactions. Learning Environments Research, 16, 71–89. doi:10.1007/s10984-013-9125-y Tobin, K., & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: A sociological theory. New York, NY: Routledge. Turner, J. H. (2009). The sociology of emotions: Basic theoretical arguments. Emotion Review, 1(4), 340–354. doi:10.1177/1754073909338305 Walters, S. (2007). ‘Case study’ or ‘ethnography’? Defining terms, making choices and defending the worth of a case. In G. Walford (Ed.), Methodological developments in ethnography (pp. 89–109). Oxford: JAI Press.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenny Oakley is an experienced educator and is currently the Principal of an independent Primary school in Queensland Australia. She received her PhD from the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

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DONNA KING, MARYAM SANDHU, SENKA HENDERSON AND STEPHEN M. RITCHIE

10. MANAGING EMOTIONS Outcomes of a Breathing Intervention in Year 10 Science

ABSTRACT

Learning science can be an emotional experience. Recent research reveals that middle-years students experience negative emotions such as frustration and anxiety while learning science. Strategies to help students manage their emotions in science classes are emerging, but require further investigations to ascertain their effectiveness. In this study, an intervention, which adopted short deep breathing exercises to help students manage their emotions was trialled in a Year 10 science class. The aim of the study was to determine students’ emotional responses as well as the practicalities for implementing such an intervention. We conducted research using an ethnographic case study method where the teacher implemented short episodes of deep breathing exercises with students during each science lesson for seven weeks. Salient themes emerged from the analysis of video and audio files, field notes, students’ emotion diaries, 19 individual student interviews, and two teacher interviews. We present one main finding in this chapter; that is, students who experienced the negative emotions of frustration/anxiety reported that the breathing exercises changed their emotions. On the basis of this finding we suggest that teachers could use deep breathing exercises to help students experiencing negative emotions in class to ameliorate their emotions. Keywords: middle-school science, emotions, emotion regulation, deep breathing With less static, less noise, traditional cognitive restructuring enters [..] people listen better. It’s a more fertile environment, so you can do what you are so well trained to do – the cognitive work, the positive ideation. (Benson, 2008) Donna King, Stephen Ritchie, Senka Henderson, Maryam Sandhu and Ben Boland (2017) conducted a study in a middle-years science classroom that showed managing students’ emotions is necessary because negative emotions such as frustration and anxiety can impact negatively on students’ learning, concentration, and confidence to persist with challenges. They found that alarmingly, negative emotions experienced over a number of lessons lead to more intense emotions of embarrassment, sadness, and despair. Such unresolved negative emotions may manifest as a dislike for science

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_010

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and lead students to disengage in the middle years and opt out of science in the senior years. In this study, we investigated a deep breathing strategy that afforded students a technique for managing negative emotions. We were hopeful that the practice of deep breathing would provide students with opportunities for “less static, less noise” as Herbert Benson’s quote above suggests, and enable them to create a more “fertile environment,” for negative emotions to be ameliorated. Prior to conducting the study, we searched for effective interventions that attempted to reduce negative emotions and help students to improve their focus, engagement, and learning. We found mindfulness practices had evolved from recent developments in contemplative neuroscience (or the ability of the brain to change its structure and function), and were used in educational contexts. Like many mindfulness intervention studies found in the literature, our intervention was adapted from the MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program) that was designed for clinical purposes by Jon Kabat-Zinn (2003). Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention, described by Kabat-Zinn as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience” (p. 145). Our choice of intervention needed to be both easily implemented and easily communicated to teachers and students as well as spanning a short timeframe to minimize the interruption to the science lesson. We chose breathing meditation since it not only is an important part of mindfulness training, but suited the constraints within which we were working. Breathing meditation is where students are taught to focus on their breath to bring their attention to the present moment while allowing other thoughts to dissipate. Such an intervention has been shown to reduce stress and mood disturbance and improve mood regulation (Mental Health Foundation Mindfulness Report, 2010). We called our intervention “deep breathing exercises” where the name reflects the actions required by students and teachers. In the classroom, the teacher, or one of the researchers, guided the students through the deep breathing exercises that took three minutes (a full description is in the Methods section). The teacher in the study, Mr. Boyd (a pseudonym) was reluctant at first to adopt the deep breathing exercises with his year 10-science class since they were a diverse multicultural group with a couple of students who were difficult to engage. However, after discussions with Donna King (first author) and Head of Science he agreed to “give it a go.” All science teachers in the school received two professional development sessions consisting of deep breathing training by a yoga teacher trained in mindfulness practices. Advantageously, Mr. Boyd was an experienced martial arts teacher and familiar with diaphragmatic deep breathing. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Jonathan Turner (2009) suggests that most researchers agree on four primary emotions that all humans experience: anger, fear, sadness, and happiness. He explains that emotions are produced in social situations, and hence the social setting 194

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contributes to the arousal of discrete emotions. He posits that the sociocultural conditions contribute to the generation of intense emotions and are central to theorizing about emotions. For example, in a classroom a teacher may experience anger when a student is rude or “answers back”; which may impact on other students in the class. “Answering back” or “defending their position” may be part of a student’s home culture and a normal way s/he engages with adults. For a teacher who regards “answering back” as rude, such an exchange may become heated between the teacher and student generating negative emotions that affect the face-to-face encounter. Furthermore, if students in the classroom witness the exchange, then the interaction can affect the larger social structure of the classroom as students stop their work to observe the encounter generating a collective negative mood. Turner suggests that by understanding the sociocultural origin of the discrete emotion, insights into how these emotions affect the micro- (e.g., face-to-face interactions), meso- (e.g., classroom procedures) and macro- (e.g., school policy) levels of social reality can be revealed. Furthermore, emotions are valenced; that is, they can be categorized as positive and negative as described by Jan Stets (2010) and can be felt at varying levels of intensity from low- through medium- to high- intensity states. For example, Turner (2002) categorises enjoyment as being positively valenced and anxiety as negatively valenced. EMOTIONS

Our previous research has shown that students experience both positive and negative emotions when learning science (e.g., King, Ritchie, Sandhu, & Henderson, 2015). We found that positive emotions such as happiness, joy, surprise and wonder were expressed during specific activities such as demonstrations and laboratory activities whereas negative emotions such as frustration and anxiety were expressed when learning cognitively challenging chemistry concepts (King et al., 2017). Furthermore, Alberto Bellocchi and Stephen Ritchie (2015) found that pride and triumph were emotions experienced by middle school students when they understood science concepts, were involved in social interactions, and achieved success on challenging tasks. Catherine Milne and Tracey Otieno (2007) found that students’ emotions were important for both learning and engagement in science. THEORIES OF EMOTION REGULATION

James Gross (1998) explains that “emotion regulation” refers to “how we try to influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express these emotions” (p. 275). Sander Koole (2009) describes it as “the set of processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions” (p. 6). Gross (2008) argues that “regulation of emotions” refers to “the heterogeneous set of processes by which emotions are themselves regulated” (p. 500) rather than “regulation by emotion” which refers to emotions coordinating various biological 195

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systems. Relevant to this study, regulation of emotions may include specific skills such as deep breathing exercises to moderate negative emotions such as anxiety. Gross (2008), a psychologist, explains the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic emotion regulation; that is, intrinsic refers to a person regulating his or her own emotions and extrinsic refers to a person regulating the emotions of someone else. Such a distinction applies to this study where the breathing intervention was an extrinsic emotion regulator implemented by the teacher to teach students strategies for regulating their emotions. However, students may choose to use these skills when necessary to regulate their own (intrinsic) emotions. Scott Jacobs and James Gross (2014) have conducted psychological research culminating in the five families of emotion regulation strategies organized through the “temporal point that they target” or the point in time that the emotion regulation strategy is initiated (Jacobs & Gross, 2014, p. 185). The five families are: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change and response modulation (Gross, 1998). Of relevance to this study is the response modulation approach. Deep breathing is an example of a response-focused emotion regulation tool if used by students in response to emotional arousal. However, psychologists such as Norman Farb, Adam Anderson, Julie Irving, and Zindel Segal (2014) argue that if deep breathing is used in conjunction with the mindfulness suite of contemplative practices (i.e., nonjudgmental attention to present-moment sensation) it may be used in the attention deployment stage where students’ attention can be returned to the current situation rather than progressing to appraisal processes and responses. However, such techniques are relatively new to education and their classification as response-focused based on Gross’s framework is suitable if students use the strategies in response to physiological feelings rather than as a meditative/ mindfulness tool practiced on a daily basis. Gross’s framework is useful for distinguishing the “temporal unfolding of emotion” and categorization into antecedent (i.e., strategies used to prevent the emotional experience) versus response forms of emotion regulation (i.e., strategies used during or after the emotional experience) (Jacobs & Gross, 2014, p. 89). Many psychological researchers, including educational researchers such as Leanne Fried (2011), adopt Gross’s terminology and the separation between antecedent and response-focused emotional management. Interestingly, a study by James Gross and Oliver John (2003) found that cognitive strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal were more effective than strategies aimed at regulating bodily affects. Targeting the earlier stages of the emotion cycle is more effective at decreasing emotional response than later processes that target the emotional response itself (Jacobs & Gross, 2014, p. 187). EMOTION REGULATION IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS

There has been some research on emotion regulation in educational settings. Using Gross’s classification system, Fried (2010) found that antecedent emotion regulation strategies were positively correlated with student personal competence. 196

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On the other hand, Fried found that response-focused emotion regulation strategies such as breathing or counting to ten were negatively correlated with student social competence. In particular, Fried suggests using meditation and mindfulness strategies with a focus on enhancing student emotion regulation development. Andrew Winzelberg and Frederic Luskin (1999) suggest that such strategies may also help students and teachers relieve stress. Nancy Eisenberg, Tracy Spinrad, and Natalie Eggum (2010) suggest that emotion regulation is increasingly viewed as a foundation for well-being, academic performance, and positive adjustment throughout life. Also, Paulo Graziano, Rachael Reavis, Susan Keane, and Susan Calkins (2007) found that appropriate emotion regulation contributes to successful academic outcomes over time and Monique Boekaerts and Lyn Corno (2005) found that students who regulate their emotions are more successful at learning tasks. One recent study by Louisa Tomas, Donna Rigano, and Stephen Ritchie (2016) showed that middle-years students were able to regulate their negative emotions when working together to complete a video project. Also, Sharon Melnick and Stephen Hinshaw (2000) found that emotion regulation affords the individual the skills to have some control over his or her behaviour and remain connected with the environment. An earlier study by Marsha Linehan (1993) found that emotion regulation skills such as identifying and labeling emotions, allowing and tolerating emotions, increasing positive emotions, self-soothing, breathing, and distraction have been found to help with high distress. Conversely, Nancy Eisenberg, Tracy Spinrad, and Cynthia Smith (2004) found that students with poor emotion regulation will have more difficulty adjusting to school settings and deficits in emotion regulation represent a core feature of many emotional and behavioural problems in adolescence such as anxiety, depression, self-injury, and substance abuse. Gail Gumora and William Arsenio (2002) found that early adolescent emotional dispositions and academic affect (i.e., their emotions and feelings about their academic ability) made a significant contribution to academic achievement. They found that students who perceived themselves as experiencing more negative affect during academic tasks such as anxiety, frustration, and anger, had a poorer sense of their academic competence, lower achievement scores, and lower grade point averages. While we acknowledge that some negative emotions experienced by students such as frustration are necessary for the process of completing a task (King et al., 2017), we were concerned with the negative emotions that were barriers to student learning as revealed in our previous study (King et al., 2017). The literature on regulating emotions through mindfulness practices provided a rich source of ideas which informed the development of our deep breathing intervention. REGULATING EMOTIONS THROUGH MINDFULNESS PRACTICES

Ellen Langer (2000) describes mindfulness as the process of drawing distinctions between things enabling a person to be situated in the present. Although many 197

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techniques can be used to achieve mindfulness, Mark Greenberg and Alexis Harris (2012) suggest that most share a common focus of sharpening concentration or attention, through building regulation skills to manage stress effectively. Stress, which may be due to emotions such as anxiety, cause a biological reaction in the body known as the “flight or fight” response. In this case, the central nervous system signals the adrenal glands to release hormones which cause the heart to beat faster, respiration rate to increase, blood vessels in the arms and legs to dilate, digestive process to change and glucose levels (sugar energy) in the bloodstream to increase to respond to the emergency. Mindfulness practices such as deep breathing or yogic breathing have been tried to calm such stress response systems. Paul Lehrer and Richard Gevirtz’s (2014) research has shown that by voluntarily controlling breathing patterns, it is possible to influence autonomic nervous system functions, including heart rate variability and cardiac vagal tone. General research on mindfulness practices reveals that mindful people recover from bad moods more quickly and have less frequent negative thoughts, are able to let negative thoughts go when they arise and have higher and more stable self-esteem that is less dependent on external factors (Mental Health Foundation Mindfulness Report, 2010). Also, Felicia Huppert and Daniel Johnson (2010) found that the benefits of mindfulness for cognitive function include improvements in focused and selective attention, the awareness and acceptance of our thoughts, and feelings including painful thoughts where such practices may contribute to resilience. Christine Burke (2010) suggests that research on regulating emotions through mindfulness practices is emerging in educational contexts with a small body of literature appearing with studies of children and adolescents. The emerging research on adolescents has focused predominantly on disadvantaged youth or students with special needs. A study by Tamar Mendelson, Mark Greenberg, Jacinda Dariotis, Laura Gould, Brittany Rhoades, and Philip Leaf (2010) showed that mindfulness and yoga intervention for urban youth had a positive impact on problematic responses to stress including rumination, intrusive thoughts, and emotional arousal. A second study by John Meiklejohn et al. (2012) showed that mindfulness meditation for 5 to 10 minutes at the beginning of each class resulted in decreased state and trait anxiety for adolescents with learning disabilities. A third study by Lydia Zylowska, Deborah Ackerman, May Yang, Julie Futrell, and Nancy Horton (2008) on ADHD (attentiondeficit-hyperactivity-disorder) students showed improvements in self-reported ADHD symptoms, anxiety, depressive systems, and working memory. One study by Robert Wall (2005) of mainstream middle-school students showed that a combined Tai Chi and mindfulness-based stress reduction program enabled improved wellbeing, calmness, relaxation, sleep, and resulted in less reactivity, increased selfcare, self-awareness, and sense of interconnection or interdependences with nature. However, there is a call for more evidence-based research that includes rigorous scientific investigation to deepen the empirical evidence of the efficacy of these interventions (Meiklejohn et al., 2012).

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Deep breathing is one mindfulness tool that can be used in conjunction with raising awareness of the body and nonjudgmental attention to present-moment sensation. There has been one study that used a program called “Learning to BREATHE” which trialled a mindfulness curriculum with adolescents. The program helped students understand their thoughts and feelings and learn mindfulness tools for managing negative emotions and provided opportunities to practice the skills in a group setting. Patricia Broderick and Stacie Metz (2009) found that participants in the program reported reductions in negative affect, increased feelings of calmness, relaxation and self-acceptance, improved clarity around the emotions they experienced and increased skills for emotion regulation after program completion. The authors suggest that such programs are an effective way to teach students to use mindfulness to manage negative emotions and to understand thoughts and feelings (Broderick & Metz, 2009). Based on such previous research, we adopted deep breathing in conjunction with attention to present-moment sensation as the mindfulness tool for year 10 science students. CONTEXT – SCHOOL, SCIENCE UNIT, STUDENTS

The school where the study was situated was an inner-city school in Brisbane, Australia, which attracted students from broad socioeconomic backgrounds. The total enrolment was 1150 students from Grades 8 to 12 including 15% of students from non-English speaking backgrounds. The Grade 10 science class consisted of 6 boys and 13 girls aged from 14–15 years. The class was chosen for the study because the teacher, who had been part of a previous study with the authors, was interested in building on the research (see King et al., 2017). Parents and guardians for all students in the study signed ethical permission forms that allowed video and audio recordings, interviews and the collection of data relevant to the study. The University through which the study was conducted granted ethics approval. The students were completing an innovative unit on sustainability designed in conjunction with Donna and the teachers, that used authentic scientific data. Essentially, students were required to analyse data such as water usage, temperature and thermal control, electricity consumption and solar generation supplied by the Queensland University of Technology’s Science Cube. At the start of the unit, students visited the Cube and were given a tour of the world-class interactive learning and display space (see http://www.thecube.qut.edu.au/about/) before exploring the interactive digital, multi-touch screens and attending information sessions explaining the many sustainable features of the Cube. In such a way, they were equipped with information about sustainable building features that provided background information for the assessment task. The unit consisted of 19 lessons that were approximately 50 minutes long, including a variety of activities such as computer-based lessons, teacher-led lessons, and group work. On completion of the unit, students were required to present the data analysis for one sustainable feature of the Cube incorporating the use of technology. 199

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METHODS

In conjunction with Robert Stake’s (2006) approach to case study, we adopted an ethnographic case study design focusing on qualitative inquiry into a single case. We were immersed in the year 10 science class and attended 19 lessons over an 8-week period. During these lessons, the teacher conducted a breathing intervention where the students did deep breathing exercises for approximately 3 minutes (explained in detail below). There were 20 students in the class; however, one student was absent most of the time and was not included in the study. Out of the 19 students, one student did not participate in the breathing exercises due to medical reasons, however, she offered insightful comments both in emotion diaries and in the final interview, so was still included as a participant. All 19 students were interviewed at the end of the study for approximately 10 minutes each. The teacher was interviewed at the beginning of the term to discuss the implementation of this intervention as well as being interviewed at the end of the term (see Appendix 1 for interview questions). Ethnographic data were collected including videos, interviews, field notes and students’ emotion diaries completed at the end of each lesson. First, we discuss how students identified and recorded their emotions in the emotion diary. Second, we explain the analytic techniques in more detail through the meso-level analysis (i.e., observation, interview, emotion diary and video). Emotion Diary Based on the work of Turner (2007), we included 9 discrete emotions in an emotion diary adapted from the work of Michalinos Zembylas (2002) for students. These emotions were agreed by a panel of researchers, as the most salient for middleyears students. They included excitement, happiness, enjoyment, pride, anxiety, frustration, disgust, annoyance, disappointment and “other emotions” where students could record emotions not listed such as enthusiasm, embarrassment, anger, fear, irritation, guilt, and shame. Next to each emotion was an emoticon (face showing the emotion). Students identified the classroom circumstances that evoked the arousal of this emotion through instructions that read, “please say, in your own words, what you were doing, what happened when you experienced the emotion, and at what or whom the emotion was directed”. In a lesson prior to the study, Donna was invited into the class to meet the students and explain the emotion diary and how students identified their emotions. She explained that a physiological reaction might occur where students experience a particular feeling or a bodily change such as a change in their heart rate or breathing. Students were given a practice emotion diary to complete for the current science lesson and Donna addressed any questions. A whole-class discussion followed where students shared their recorded emotions and Donna responded with elaborations for other possible classroom situations that may elicit emotions. We were confident that students could discern accurately their emotions and the emotion label they were 200

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assigning to the recorded emotion. Furthermore, we were confident that students would record accurately when emotional arousal occurred and what may have triggered the emotion. The emotion diaries were the first data analysed. Meso-Level Analyses (Observation, Interview, Emotion Diary, Video) We began our analysis with the emotion diaries by entering the emotions as recorded by students in a spreadsheet. A graph of the discrete emotions experienced each lesson provided information about the range of emotions and frequency of positive and negative emotions. Next, we coded responses to the question at the bottom of the emotion diary related to the breathing intervention specifically. In this question students were asked: “After you did the breathing exercises, did you experience any change in your emotions? If so, which emotion/s did it change?” We matched these responses with students’ identified discrete emotions in the diary and the corresponding explanation for the emotion. This enabled us to search for any instances of changes in emotions as a result of the intervention. Simultaneously and iteratively we referred to video data from three cameras to observe students closely while doing the breathing exercises to understand what was happening for individual students. Next, we analysed their responses to the final individual interview questions for emerging themes using a color-coded spreadsheet (i.e., green for positive response, red for negative response, blue for neutral response, and darker shades of green for very positive responses and darker red for very negative responses). Finally, we triangulated the data by checking for consistency with emerging themes from the emotion diary, video data, and field notes. As tentative themes emerged we undertook further searching for confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence. The final themes were decided after thorough analysis of all data sources. We present one major theme in this chapter. Breathing Intervention From the literature search and our previous research on students’ negative emotions experienced in science classes (King et al., 2017), we decided to adopt an intervention that may provide a tool for developing emotion regulation skills and possibly contribute to the amelioration or transformation of students’ negative emotions. We chose one of the mindfulness practices, deep breathing, which affords students the opportunity to focus on present-moment sensations while increasing the blood flow to the brain. Such an intervention fulfilled the constraints of time for teaching students and teachers the technique as well as taking up minimum time in the science class. Initially, we asked the teacher to do deep breathing exercises at the beginning and middle of the science class using his discretion to choose a suitable time. The teacher relied on students’ non-verbal cues (e.g., they were restless and not focussing or had a sad/frustrated face) or natural breaks between activities to do the exercises. Based 201

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on our in-class observations, discussions with students, and comments in the emotion diaries; we became aware, by week three, of students’ preference for the breathing exercises to occur in the middle of the lesson. We then refined the exercises to occur once in the middle of the lesson for three minutes. The deep breathing exercises began with the teacher asking students to sit upright with their feet on the floor and shoulders relaxed. The teacher asked students to place the palm of their hands on the front of their belly and feel the belly expand like a balloon as they breathe in. They were asked to breathe out and feel the belly deflate. The intention was to afford students the opportunity to bring their attention to the body and the bodily sensations they were experiencing during the in and out breaths. In this way, we were integrating mindfulness practices, which embrace breathing as a way of focusing on present-moment sensations. Guided by the teacher, the students were reminded of the procedure and were stepped through the breathing exercises each lesson. During the first four weeks, the deep breathing exercises were done once or twice with 10 breaths each time. Later, the deep breathing exercises intervention was adjusted to occupy three minutes, consisting of the following sequence: 1. One minute semi-guided deep breathing, which was about 6–8 breaths, 2. One minute unguided while students concentrated on their breathing silently or used this minute to ignore any negative thoughts maintaining a relaxed posture, 3. One more minute semi-guided deep breathing. These exercises occurred in every science lesson for 7 weeks or 19 lessons. One of the major findings from the intervention is explained below. Students who experienced negative emotions, such as frustration/anxiety/ annoyance reported that the breathing exercises changed their emotions The analysis of the emotion diaries and interview data revealed that 18 out of 19 students reported a change in their emotions as a result of the deep breathing exercises at some stage during the course of the intervention. At the bottom of the emotion diary, students were afforded the opportunity to comment about any changes in emotions they may have experienced after the breathing exercises. Table 10.1 summarizes the comments that occurred most frequently. Table 10.1 shows there were 62 comments throughout the 19 lessons where students reported that breathing exercises relaxed or calmed them or reduced stress. Interestingly, there were 17 comments reporting that the exercises energized them. After analyzing these data, the authors returned to the emotion diaries to search for the reported emotions students were feeling prior to and after the intervention. In such a way, we were triangulating data for evidence of changes in emotions as a result of the breathing intervention. The analysis revealed that of the 100 comments about the positive effect of the breathing exercises, students referred to them as contributing to: relaxing or calming them, reducing stress, energizing them, enabling them to be more focused, refreshed 202

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Table 10.1. Student comments about changes to emotions after breathing Comments on emotion diary to question: “After you did the breathing exercises, did you experience any change in your emotions? If so, which emotion/s did it change?”

Number of times this comment occurred

It made me feel relaxed and calm

51

The stress was gone/ less stressed

11 = 62

Felt more awake/more energized/hyper

17

More focused

8

Happy

5

Felt good/better/refreshed/clearer head

8 = 100

Tired/sleepy

20

No change in emotions/neutral

61

Negative comments about the breathing/ interrupting their work 13 etc… Change to negative emotion or negative emotion did not change (i.e., student still feels negative emotion after breathing) Total

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or clearer in the head. On 86 occasions students had ticked in the emotion diary that they had been experiencing specific negative emotions such as frustration/ anxiety/annoyed/disappointed or anger prior to the breathing exercises providing further evidence that students reported the breathing contributed to a change in their emotions. Students often wrote comments next to the discrete emotion explaining why they were experiencing the negative emotions with the most common reasons referring to assessment and workload related issues. Of the remaining 14 occasions, students did not identify a specific emotion in the emotion diary but completed the section at the bottom explaining their change in emotion and what caused the change. The analysis of the interview data and ethnographic data supported the claim that students reported the breathing exercises changed from feeling negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and annoyance to a calmer emotional state. From our observations, this “calmer state” continued beyond the breathing exercises when the collective noise in the room became quieter after the intervention. Furthermore, the teacher explained the same observation in a follow-up interview: After the couple of minutes, three minutes they just, all of them, not all, all of the ones who did breathing you can see they are quiet and calm just went, up … OK and got to it straight ahead, like there wasn’t really much more discussion there was just get to the work, might have been just the time to think and plan and get themselves organized and doing it, so that’s what I mean by it works to see the difference in their work ethic almost before and after it. (Follow-up interview) 203

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The following examples in Table 10.2 are representative of the comments written by students suggesting the breathing interventions changed their emotions: Table 10.2. Reported changes in negative emotions by students Name

Discrete Emotion

Comment next to Discrete Emotion

Comment to question at bottom: “After you did the breathing exercises, did you experience any change in your emotions? If so, which emotion/s did it change?”

Thomas

Anxiety

Assignment due today

felt relaxed and the stress was gone

Sarah

Anxiety

I don’t really understand after the breathing I felt more what to do for Part A relaxed than before. Before, I felt more stressed on assignments

Scott

Frustration

needed help with excel

felt more relaxed

Evan

Annoyed

no tablets to do any work on so hard to do assignments

the breathing exercises were helpful, it helped me plan my assignment and release stress

Brigid

Anxiety

because I have so many Before the breathing I felt really [S]tressed and worried but after we assignments did the three minutes of breathing I because my computer is felt tired and calm taking forever to restart

Frustration Stresses and Worried Cassie

Before the breathing I felt really [S]tressed and worried

Disappointment I felt really disappointed that my group was not able to start Part B and that the lesson was not productive. Stressed

I felt really pressured and panicky before the breathing. However, afterwards I felt happier and calm and didn’t feel as though the assignment was impossible.

I was really stressed in the middle of the class realizing how little time is left to complete the whole assignment in time.

Pressured and Panicky

To investigate this observation more empirically, we conducted an objective comparison of sound power by using the prosodic parameter intensity scale available through the PRAAT software (http://www.praat.org a free scientific computer 204

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software for speech analysis). Since the deep breathing exercises took about three minutes, we prepared three video clips that included about a minute before and a minute after the whole breathing exercise. Our criteria for choosing these three clips was to ensure that the teacher’s voice, which could have an effect on the prosodic values, was not a part of the sound files. This was important for an accurate analysis of the students’ voices. The data for the lessons in Table 10.3 were typical of the changes in prosody we observed before, during, and after the breathing intervention in the study. We found that the average intensity of the collective classroom noise decreased during and after the intervention for most lessons. Table 10.3. Comparisons of prosody (intensity) before, during and after the deep breathing intervention Samples

Before DB (in dB1)

During DB (in dB)

After DB (in dB)

Week 2

81.14

58.98

68.03

Week 4

84.66

66.15

75.37

Week 5

75.29

57.08

68.84

Week 6

83.33

69.37

74.22

Week 7

84.34

70.80

78.96

1

db=decibels

Interestingly, eight students commented on their ability to focus better after the breathing exercises. The following examples in Table 10.4 are four representative comments. Table 10.4. Reported changes by four representative students in their ability to focus better Name

Students’ comments

Alison

It calms and let’s refocus and get your head around the work when stressed

Bridie

focusing-thinking-calming down and then you have nothing to worry and then you just do your work

Karen

like it makes you to look on things better, and realize that you don’t need to be frustrated, there are other ways around it, rather than just /?/ and getting frustrated

Cassie

[ ] you know the deep breathing will help just relook at the situation, feel more, relax and you can see it’s not that bad like I said, you can just carry on

Students appreciated the deep breathing exercises for affording them an opportunity to re-focus and persist with the task rather than giving up on it. Such persistence suggests students displayed the resilience necessary to overcome obstacles to 205

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learning and pursue challenging tasks. In summary, the breathing exercises helped to manage students’ negative emotions and reduce their stress. Also, there was evidence that it helped them to “have new perspective on the problem at hand” (Courtney, interview). Case Study: Cassie’s Changes in Emotions Cassie was a high achieving student who stood out as conscientious, well-behaved and willing to help other students. We chose Cassie as our case to illustrate the way students’ emotions appeared to be affected by the intervention because she articulated her thoughts and feelings clearly in interviews. In the final interview, Cassie expressed her reflections on the value of the breathing exercises: Donna Cassie

Donna Cassie

Overall what do you think about breathing exercises in science classrooms? I think they are really effective at times especially when you are getting to the point that you are being pressured, you can take a while to relax because normally when you got so many assignments especially in other subject[s] you don’t usually get that time to relax, just stop and think, rethink through the processes, it has been really effective, I found especially the last few weeks just actually going through and thinking, it’s not [as] bad as it looks, it’s not [as] pressurizing as it seems you know that impossibility. Anything else you would like to add? Going back to when I said about being stressed I think, helps there because when you are in stress mode, you feel as if you just can’t do anything, so having that time to just relax and breathe it sort of calms you down, slows down time, and when you come back from that resting period, you feel you can, you feel recharged so you can get straight into it and you can see I need to do this whereas stressed you can’t really do that, you feel time locked and you can’t break up that … because in today’s society because it’s so busy you hardly have that time to relax and just take a moment to reflect upon everything and how you can better it. (Follow-up Interview)

These comments highlighted Cassie’s ability to reflect deeply on the stresses she experienced as well as the effect of the breathing exercises. She explained how “having that time to just relax and breathe” brings a sensation of calm that enabled a clearer mindset for dealing with the pressures experienced in life. Also, Cassie often commented in the emotion diaries about the value of the breathing exercises for reducing her negative emotions. We decided to search the videos for further evidence of Cassie’s change in emotions. Lesson 3 in Week 5 stood out because Cassie wrote in the emotion diary “I felt more happier after the breathing exercises which extended throughout the lesson” and also, she had written next to the emotion 206

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of frustration: “I felt really frustrated at the beginning wondering how I’m going to get everything finished this week-end.” Furthermore, she wrote next to the emotion of happiness: “I felt very happy throughout the lesson helping everyone and generating productive work.” Also, Donna’s field notes reported this lesson as salient for emotional analysis since there were changes in students’ expressions before and after breathing. Consequently, we decided to analyse this lesson more closely to examine Cassie’s facial expressions, body gestures, and utterances for her expressed emotions. Episode One: Before Deep Breathing At the beginning of the lesson, Cassie, Britney, and Sophie were sitting together and engaged in short interactions while Cassie looked at her monitor (and occasionally Britney’s and Sophie’s) intensely. We micro-analysed a seven-minute and 40-second episode prior to the deep breathing exercises to examine Cassie’s emotional expression before and after the breathing intervention. During this episode, Cassie does not smile. Figure 10.1 shows Cassie concentrating on her laptop during this time.

Figure 10.1. Cassie (in middle) concentrating on her laptop

At 2:08 minutes into the audio recording, Brigid (on the left of Cassie in Figure 10.1) tries to attract Cassie’s attention by turning towards her. The following excerpt is the conversation between Brigid and Cassie at this point in time: Excerpt One: Cassie’s Concentration During this whole episode, Cassie continues to concentrate on the work she is doing and does not smile. She does not respond to Brigid’s interruption and occasionally looks frustrated. On one occasion, she raises her hands in the air as if she is exasperated or frustrated with the work she is doing (see Figure 10.3). We concluded 207

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Figure 10.2. Brigid sighs because Cassie is ignoring her

that Cassie’s frustration was directed at her assignment where she was analysing data for a report. The deep breathing occurred 7:40 minutes from the beginning of Episode One and just after Cassie’s display of frustration.

Figure 10.3. Cassie before the deep breathing

Episode Two: After the Deep Breathing Interestingly, we observed a change in Cassie’s facial expressions and gestures after the deep breathing exercises. She now was smiling as she engaged with her peers to 208

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help them with the task. She no longer ignored their questions but willingly assisted as needed (see Figure 10.4). At 12:40 after the exercises, Cassie was smiling and happy as shown in Figure 10.5.

Figure 10.4. After the deep breathing exercises

Figure 10.5. Cassie is happy

The video clip shows Cassie repeatedly smiling with friends and she moves from her seat to go and help another student. Furthermore, in Figure 10.5, Cassie appears happy. Using Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen’s (2003) Facial Action Coding System (FACS), and Jinni Harrigan’s (2008) suggestions for analysis of body movements and gestures we analysed the emotional expression. In Figure 10.5, Cassie’s lips are parted with the teeth and jaws together in a grin. There are wrinkle lines running from the nose out and down to the area beyond the corners of the mouth. These “naso-labial folds” occur partly as a result of the pulling back and up of the corners of the lips and are a characteristic sign of the happy facial expression (Ekman & Friesen, 2003). We found further evidence to support the emotion diary data and interview data of Cassie’s change in emotions from frustration to happiness after the deep breathing exercises. The intervention of deep breathing changed the way air entered and exited the body, allowing for different equilibria to establish through Cassie’s changing physiology, which affords further changes of emotions. We conclude that as a result of participating in the deep breathing exercises Cassie appears to have changed her emotions along with myriad physiological conditions. Contradiction: On occasion, students perceived the deep breathing exercises negatively There were 13 occasions when students reported negative comments 209

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about the breathing, such as interrupting their work or after the breathing intervention they experienced more negative emotions. The following examples in Table 10.5 are representative examples of these comments written by students: Table 10.5. Representative examples of students’ negative comments about the deep breathing exercises Name

Discrete Emotion

Comment next to Discrete Comment to question at bottom: Emotion “After you did the breathing exercises, did you experience any change in your emotions? If so, which emotion/s did it change?”

Scott

Frustration

With excel

No felt angrier

Courtney

Frustration

Word is so annoying!!!

Disgust

I HATE WORD

it stopped me half way through my work which was really frustrating

Annoyed

OUR ASSIGNMENT IS HARD!!

Frustration

I have 5 assignments all due next week. I have almost finished all of them

Sarah

Edward

After doing the breathing exercise, my emotions did not change at all from before. Right now, I feel stressed about all of the assignments that are due next week.” It helped when I was really stressed about the assessment other times….when I wasn’t feeling anything, it didn’t help that much

The 13 occasions where students reported negatively about the breathing intervention predominantly related to computer issues, stress about assessment tasks and that the breathing exercises interrupted their flow of work highlighting that they were unable to resolve issues preventing the negative emotions. While there were exceptions, the breathing exercises appeared to help most students regulate their negative emotions and re-focus on the task at hand. In fact, almost all students associated the effectiveness of breathing exercises to the times that negative emotions were present. Yet some students specifically mentioned that the breathing exercises were not as effective in the absence of negative emotions. One representative comment from the follow-up interview is below: Anna

210

You know when it’s helpful? When you are actually stressed, if you aren’t sad or like that don’t (sic) really help. Like when you are

MANAGING EMOTIONS

stressed about your assignment, the breathing calm you down and relaxes you so you can get a clearer mindset but if you are feeling normal the breathing exercise doesn’t really [help]… THE VALUE OF DEEP BREATHING IN SCIENCE CLASSES

The deep breathing exercises were conducted using mindfulness meditative strategies and enabled students to focus on their breathing and bring their attention to the present moment allowing other thoughts to dissipate. In response to their physiological sensations, this research shows that the breathing afforded opportunities for students to alleviate negative emotions. Science classes can elicit emotions of anxiety and frustration for students when they find the work cognitively challenging (King et al., 2015). This was confirmed in this study when many students reported experiencing negative emotions during science classes and found the deep breathing exercises helped them to manage their emotions. In most instances, students were experiencing feelings of stress, frustration, and anxiety prior to the deep breathing exercises but these feelings were ameliorated subsequently. James Gross and Ross Thompson (2007) categorise the deep breathing exercises as a response-focused extrinsic intervention, which proved successful for managing negative emotions for the majority of students in this class. This supports previous work where emotion regulation has been shown to be a foundation for wellbeing, academic performance, and positive adjustment throughout life (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Eggum, 2010). This study makes a new contribution by showing that an intervention, such as deep breathing exercises in science classes, can ameliorate negative emotions, and in some cases, change negative emotions to positive ones. However, the deep breathing exercises intervention was not as successful for students who were not experiencing negative emotions or who found the exercises interrupted their work. Further research is needed to explore a variety of mindfulness interventions to understand further the impact on students in science classes who experience the types of emotions theorised in James Davis’ (2016) work known as undramatic or mundane emotions. Using Turner’s (2007) theoretical perspective enabled the analysis of discrete emotions through multiple methods using a variety of data sources. Furthermore, the meso and micro-analyses were important for triangulating the findings and determining the emotional expressions accurately. With clear instructions, students recorded their emotions on emotion diaries, which provided a rich source of data for identifying discrete emotions and changes to emotions as a result of the deep breathing exercises. We suggest for further studies on emotion regulation that multiple data sources such as observation, interview, emotion dairy and video are collected to discern students’ expressed emotions accurately and any changes to emotional expression that are associated with the intervention. As such, these changes may represent cultural transformations or breaches to everyday classroom practices that Stephen Ritchie and Jen Newlands (2016) define as events. Their analysis is 211

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important for understanding better salient emotional outcomes that inform science teaching and learning. The students in this study had limited knowledge about deep breathing exercises or any intervention that could be used to manage their emotions. Based on the positive outcomes from this study, we suggest that students need to be taught about emotions, emotion regulation, and how to manage their emotions. Such strategies may enable LPSURYHGIRFXVDQGFRQFHQWUDWLRQDVIRXQGLQWKLVVWXG\0DOJRU]DWD3RZLHWU]\ĔVND and Al-Karim Gangji (2016) argue that it is our responsibility as science educators to include neuroscience and mindfulness practices as part of the biology curriculum so that students learn how to have a healthy mind as well as a healthy body. We support this suggestion and encourage teachers to use deep breathing exercises as one possible practice. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, administered by the Queensland University of Technology under Grant LP110200368. REFERENCES Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/sce.21159 Benson, H. (2008). The power of the relaxation response: A behavioral medicine pioneer reports on a time-tested technique that reverses aging and improves health. Monitor on Psychology, 39(9), 32. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/10/relaxation.aspx Boekaerts, M., & Corno, L. (2005). Self-regulation in the classroom: A perspective on assessment and intervention. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54(2), 199–231. doi:10.1111/j.14640597.2005.00205.x Broderick, P. C., & Metz, S. (2009). Learning to BREATHE: A pilot trial of a mindfulness curriculum for adolescents. Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, 2(1), 35–46. doi:10.1080/ 1754730X.2009.9715696 Burke, C. A. (2010). Mindfulness-based approaches with children and adolescents: A preliminary review of current research in an emergent field. Journal of Child Family Studies, 19, 133–144. doi:10.1007/ s10826-009-9282-x Davis, J. (2016). A study of the emotional essence of analogical reasoning in secondary school science (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Eggum, N. D. (2010). Emotion-related self-regulation and its relation to children’s maladjustment. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, 495–525. doi:10.1146/ annurev.clinpsy.121208.131208 Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Smith, C. L. (2004). Emotion-related regulation: Its conceptualization, relations to social functioning, and socialization. In P. Philippot & R. S. Feldman (Eds.), The regulation of emotion (pp. 277–306). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (2003). Unmasking the face. A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Farb, N., Anderson, A., Irving, J., & Segal, Z. (2014). Mindfulness interventions and emotion regulation. In J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Fried, L. J. (2010). Emotion and motivation regulation strategy use in the middle school classroom (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.

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APPENDIX 1

Interview Questions for Students: 1. When learning science/or working on your assignments etc. – you might face problems/challenges what would you do? What would be your emotions/ reactions? 2. Overall what do you think about breathing exercises in science classrooms? How do you compare it with other subjects? 3. For some students, breathing exercise seems to work well sometimes and not so well on other days. Can you think of any reason? (Time of the science periodwhat about science lesson time) 4. Why it did/not work for you? 5. For some students, it’s been most of the time un/successful. Any insight/idea on that? 214

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6. Which part of deep breathing works the best for you? 7. How can we make this work better? 8. Would you do the breathing exercise on your own when facing challenges in other subjects? Why or why not? Interview Questions for Mr Boyd: 1. Can you categorise the students into certain groups, if so, what are they and why? 2. Overall what do you think about breathing exercises in science classrooms? Please elaborate. 3. Based on students’ comments from the emo diaries, the breathing seems to work well sometimes and not so well on other days. Can you give any explanation/s for this? 4. Have you noticed any changes in yourself when you do the breathing? 5. Have you noticed any changes in students since you have begun the breathing with them? If so, what are they? 6. Can you see any value for breathing during science compared to other classes? 7. What do you think about doing this exercise in the last term? 8. What do you think is the main issue with this intervention being successful? 9. What do you think about students facing problems while learning science? What’s their reaction, feeling? How do they react? What is their emotion? What would you do? 10. Would you do the breathing again with another science class? Why or why not? ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Donna King is an Associate Professor in science education. Her research in science education spans three interconnecting fields: the emotional engagement of students in science in the middle years, using engineering contexts for teaching science and contextbased science education. An outcome of this work is the development and implementation of innovative context-based units where teachers have adopted new pedagogical approaches for teaching science. Recently, she completed a project with a team of researchers from the Queensland University of Technology and the Department of Education and Training to establish a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Hub for schools where teachers worked with industry partners to connect STEM in the classroom with real-world STEM. She was recently invited to be the co-chief editor of the international journal Research in Science Education. 215

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Maryam Sandhu is a research assistant at the Queensland University of Technology. Her main focus is analysing classroom data in terms of students’ and teachers’ emotions during teaching and learning by applying different research methodologies, utilizing various software and Ekman facial expression recognition. She has worked on several research projects related to emotions, emotional climate in classrooms and mindfulness with the other coauthors. Senka Henderson is a researcher and lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. Senka’s first career developed a background in pharmacology, biochemistry and drug discovery, and she has worked in research laboratories investigating new discoveries in carbohydrate chemistry. In her second career as an educator she has worked on three science education research projects exploring the emotions of pre-service science teachers in university settings and students in high school science classrooms. Currently she is involved in science education research at both QUT and Murdoch University, in Western Australia. Senka is also teaching science education at the Faculty of Education, QUT. Stephen M. Ritchie has been fortunate to collaborate with such trail-blazing international scholars as Kenneth Tobin and Wolff-Michael Roth on several projects throughout his career. It has been just as satisfying for him to apply what he learned in these projects to support younger researchers (notably, Associate Professors Alberto Bellocchi, Donna King and Louisa Tomas) as their careers have emerged, and as they assume leadership roles to continue the cycle of mentoring early career researchers themselves. Stephen’s research has focused mostly on learning and teaching in science classrooms as learners are engaged emotionally in meaningful activities in the pursuit of scientific literacy. Early research with his collaborator at James Cook University, Donna Rigano, set the scene for major theoretical advances that followed while he was Professor of Science Education at Queensland University of Technology. His research efforts slowed down somewhat while he was the Dean of the School of Education and Acting Provost at Murdoch University over the last five years. As his formal leadership duties and his academic career draw to a close, he hopes to renew his efforts in supporting colleagues in science education research, and even pursue new interests outside of science education.

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ALBERTO BELLOCCHI

11. LIVED EXPERIENCES OF SOCIAL BONDS IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

ABSTRACT

I present new research in this chapter exploring students’ lived experiences of social bonds – social and emotional connections – in science classrooms. I extend existing research on emotional events to consider their impact on social bond status by focusing on student introspection, or third-order rituals. Drawing on reflective discussions conducted in two 10th grade science classes, my focus was to understand science students’ social bonding experiences and how they are shaped by emotional events. Key aspects of social bond status associated with emotional events are presented including vicarious emotional experiences, personal relationships versus social roles, and how teacher responses to questions may disrupt bonds. Implications for future research on social bonds, emotional events and science learning and teaching are presented. Keywords: social bonds, social relationships, emotional event, vicarious emotional experience, science learning, phenomenology PEDAGOGICAL SOCIAL BONDS AS VICARIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES

A man in his fifties sits beside a thirteen-year-old child. Both heads angled downwards, hands moving above papers. Smooth and jerky. Pens and pencils in fingers. Another child looks on. But not for long. A soft smile forms, the corners of the mouth are barely raised, lips are gently pressed: lightly, but more than normal. The eyes drop slightly at the corners as tension in the face releases: softening. He feels a swelling in his heart. The pressure of tears pushes his eyes softly, never surfacing. He feels the kindness of the man. Later he will say, “He’s a good teacher.” As is evident in the anecdote, when a teacher assists a child in need, an on looking child feels a vicarious emotional experience just as the child needing help experiences emotion during his or her interactions with the teacher. This form of care and support is indeed, in the words of children, one of the hallmarks of the “good teacher.” The good teacher, Mr. S, is a former teaching colleague of mine, and the anecdote is based on recounts shared by high school children during my time as a science teacher. Children frequently witnessed Mr. S giving up his lunch breaks to assist one

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377912_011

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of their peers. On looking children were often those who did not require Mr. S’s help; but the measure of Mr. S as a good teacher, in their eyes, came from witnessing his approach with those who required assistance. Social/emotional connections, or social bonds (Scheff, 1997), between children and teachers develop in many ways, both directly and, as the anecdote suggests, indirectly. For Mr S, the connections with children in his classes developed, in part, from acts focused on assisting all children to learn science. His actions earned respect from his classes. Origins of the word kind relate to “being friendly” and “doing good to others” (Harper, 2016), whereas the Anglo-Saxon roots derive from Cyn – Kin, highlighting the connection between acts of kindness and relational terms such as kindred, kinsmen (Smith, 1876). These linguistic origins draw our attention to an essential connection between helping others, emotional experiences associated with friendliness or personable exchanges, and forming social bonds. From the on looking child’s perspective, it is understood that when Mr S gives his time to a child in need, he is doing good for that child. He is in relation with that individual. The on looker cannot benefit from this help. We may therefore ask “What is the nature of the emotional experience of kindness for an on looking student?” As vicarious emotional experience, from which the individual who observes cannot benefit directly, the kindness is most likely idealised. It is a virtue that the observer identifies in the act of the teacher or in that teacher’s being. This virtue is captured clearly within the etymology of kindness, whose origins point to noble deeds and a habit or quality possessed by an individual (Harper, 2016). Witnessing kindness can also encourage approachability in the pedagogical experience. Being approachable has clear benefits in educational contexts. Children who perceive a teacher as distancing are unlikely to seek his/her help to learn science. Approachability, in the educational context being considered here, can open a path for social and emotional connections between teachers and children. Although these connections might form in different ways, all parties involved may feel them (including observers), they will draw children and teachers together, and once assembled, new emotions will be shared. For children needing help, gratitude, happiness, and relief are amongst the emotion labels that can account for experiences involved in situations like this one. Other emotions, such as those arising from newfound understandings and confidence with science ideas, also emerge. In this way, situations such as these represent emotional events (Ritchie & Beers Newlands, 2017) as transformations occur in social structures including emotional changes, different patterns of interaction, and changes to the status of social bonds between members of a school class. Recent research has focused on some of the emotional transformations that form part of science learning events (e.g., Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu, Sandhu, & Roth, 2013), yet these studies have not considered how events shape social bonds during science learning (Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015). Alberto Bellocchi and Steve Ritchie (2015) reported changes in bond status through retrospective analysis of interactions in an 8th grade science class. Similarly, Alberto Bellocchi, Kathy 218

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Mills, and Steve Ritchie (2016) explored social bonds post hoc in their study of preservice science teachers’ online learning experiences. One study that focused on relationships directly was reported by Konstantinos Alexakos, Jayson Jones, and Victor Rodriguez (2011). These authors discussed the benefits of relationships like social bonds for students of colour in urban physics classes. Friendship networks became an important source of support for individuals, offering assistance with schoolwork out of class, and personal support when out of school life became challenging. At the theoretical level, Thomas Scheff (1997) and Paul Gilbert (1990) have considered what constitutes social bonds and influences their status, yet, like in the aforementioned empirical studies, the importance of vicarious experience is not part of their accounts. One of my contributions in this study is an understanding of the central role played by vicarious experiences in establishing and maintaining social bonds. Emotional events shape social bonds and come to signal their status, such that un/favourable or un/pleasant emotional events can represent the basis for formation of bonds, or signal their disruption and breakdown (Bellocchi, 2017). As argued in Chapter 4 of this collection and elsewhere (Bellocchi, Mills, & Ritchie, 2016), there is a need to focus on third-order rituals, or introspection (Collins, 2004), associated with emotional learning events and social bonds. I draw on data from reflective accounts, focusing on formation, maintenance and disruption of social bonds. My goal is to present a foundation for the study of interactions between emotional events and social bonds to support my emerging research in this area. A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE BEFORE VENTURING FURTHER

Another study would notice different things in the situation represented by the anecdote. It might find a student has obtained new insight, knowledge, or conceptual understanding when Mr. S tutors the student. To assume that what happens in these interactions is mere tutoring with the goal of transforming skills and knowledge, however, misses the moment when such transformations become possible. This is the pedagogical moment where Mr. S, by acting in loco parentis (van Manen, 2014), conducts himself in ways that are and can be received as kind, valiant, and noble, with an interest in his students paralleling the one we may come to expect from our kin. He demonstrates care for the children and they experience being cared for. It is the moment where the child in need of help, the on looker, and Mr. S are communally engaged in emotions and formation of social bonds that form part the circumstances when learning may occur. Consistent with phenomenological approaches (van Manen, 2014) to social inquiry, personal anecdotes and stories drawn from high school children inform my understandings of social bonds and their interrelationship with emotional events. Steve Ritchie and Jen Beers Newlands (2017) invite us to use student reflections and narratives for understanding the salience of emotional events in science learning experiences. 219

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I explore the flow of social bonds across classroom events through formal ideas such as bond status, including the formation, maintenance, disruption, and repair of social bonds (Scheff, 1997). I will show that vicarious experience is important for understanding social bond status when children witness positive or negative relationships between peers and the teacher. I discuss how children are affected when the teacher engages in structures, or patterns of interaction, that dissolve formal roles such as student and teacher. I also identify how a teacher’s approach to answering questions can disrupt social bonds and interfere with science learning. Each of the situations analysed involves changes to social structures associated with emotional events. Structures identified here involve formal roles such as student and teacher, status of social bonds, teacher response style to student questions, and emotional changes. ACCESSING REFLECTIONS ON SOCIAL BONDS

High school childrens’ reflections on emotional events and the associated status of social bonds derive from my recent study in two 10th grade science classes. Each class was located within a suburban, co-educational, state high school. Two female science teachers, aged between 35–45, and their classes agreed to participate in the project. Consent was obtained from the school Principals, teachers, children and their parents in line with the university ethical review board requirements and those of the state education department. Lessons observations took place between January and April (term 1) of the school year. I scheduled nine reflective discussions between May and September and met with groups of 3–4 children (male and female) per session. Two open-ended ‘questions’ framed our reflective discussions: 1. Please tell me about an example of a positive relationship you have formed with someone (teacher/student) in your science class 2. Please tell me about an example of a negative relationship you have formed with someone (teacher/student) in your science class The glosses, positive and negative, are everyday ways of speaking about un/ favourable, un/pleasant, or beneficial/detrimental emotional events (Bellocchi & Turner, 2017). In these question prompts, I also used the term relationship, which is more commonly understood by children, as proxy for social bonds. To access children’s first person lived experiences through reflective discussion, I was guided by Max van Manen’s (2015b) approach to phenomenological inquiry. Open-ended questions shown above were developed to evoke detailed accounts of classroom situations the children had experienced, and copies of the questions were provided ahead of the scheduled reflection sessions. This was done so that participants could give due consideration to the level of specificity in their accounts that I had requested. My goal was to have children provide lucid descriptions of classroom situations, explaining who was involved, what had transpired, and where the events took place and whatever minutiae of interaction detail they had noticed. I also developed some 220

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additional probes to access greater detail in the accounts by drawing on Steiner Brinkman and Sven Kvale (2015) and Herbert Rubin and Irene Rubin’s (2005) qualitative interview techniques. These probes were designed to identify warrants supporting the childrens’ claims, including what they noticed about themselves or others during interactions, what feelings they noted, or particular actions or statements that were made. An example of emotion probes included: “How could you tell how [person] felt?” “What did you notice about them?” In the analyses that follow, I present fragments from full transcripts of the reflective discussions and quotes related to classroom events when social bonds were formed, maintained or disrupted. Pseudonyms are used throughout. ANOTHER FACET OF VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL BONDS

One of the reflective discussions with Anke, Shavar and Ash, began with a comment by Ash, who claimed that he had formed a bond with Miss Talei because she treated her class as a group of young people rather than students. I explored this experience further with the group as seen in Fragment 11.1. The discussion began with my initial attempt to garner greater elaboration about the bonds between Miss Talei, Anke, Ash and Shavar. Then I turned to Shavar, who claimed he felt connected with Miss Talei due to the way she related to others in the class. Shavar had given the specific example of Miss Talei’s interactions with Anton at turn 34. Fragment 11.1. Vicarious experience of high fives Turn

Speaker

Utterance

34

Shavar

probably her relationship with Anton ((others laugh))

37

Ash

high-fives

38

Shavar

they are always making jokes and stuff and keep everyone=

40

Shavar

=positive the whole lesson

41–57

((turns omitted))

59

Shavar

just seeing them interacting in that way gives like, it gets me out of the idea of school and like usually schools brought together with like boredom and=

64

Alberto

so even though you are not high-fiving like he ((Anton)) does ((group laughs)), just seeing that,

65

Shavar

yeah

Shavar expands his initial example by mentioning that Anton and the teacher are always making jokes and keeping everyone positive the whole lesson (turns 38 and 40). Ash also interjects briefly with “high-fives” (turn 37), referring to the fact that Anton frequently invited Miss Talei to high-five him during lessons. The discussion 221

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momentarily deviates from this focus (addressed later in Fragment 11.2). I prompted the group to return to the topic of Miss Talei’s relationship with Anton leading us to turn 59. Shavar offers examples about maintaining a positive climate for the lessons’ duration (turn 40) and at turn 59 explains that these interactions take his mind off school and the boredom that it summons. He ventures that seeing Miss Talei and Anton being “so happy,” Ash interjects, creates an “exciting environment.” At this point I became interested in this idea that Ash and Shavar feel connected to the teacher because of her interactions with Anton. I ask at turn 64 about the high-fives mentioned earlier by Ash, posing the specific example of witnessing the high-five rather than physically participating. Shavar responds affirmatively with “yeah” indicating his agreement about the value of this vicarious experience. These exchanges suggest that the vicarious emotional experiences when witnessing Miss Talei bonding with a peer (i.e., Anton) are important in Ash and Shavar’s feelings of connectedness to their teacher. These accounts capture an eventful moment in the classroom where the structure of emotion and interactions shifts. High-fives demarcate a transformation of classroom structures involving boredom initially to one of happiness and excitement. What is novel in the context of eventful learning is that Shavar and Ash cite this vicarious emotional event as the basis for feelings of connectedness to Miss Talei. Returning to the opening anecdote of this chapter, the formation and maintenance of social bonds between teachers and children can arise through vicarious emotional experience. One way this occurs, as outlined in the anecdote, involves children witnessing the actions of a teacher towards a child in need. The example of highfives involves social interactions that are not focused on schoolwork, but rather that distract children from their social roles as students and Miss Talei’s role as teacher. This point forms the focus of upcoming analyses and discussion. Sharing Personal Stories Fosters Bond Formation When teachers change the structure of interaction involving formal roles, such as teacher and student, to one that conveys a personal relationship between adult and child, social bonds are formed and maintained. In the high-five event above, the children indicated their attunement to these changes in interpersonal classroom structures. Sharing personal stories was another way in which bonds were formed between the teacher and children, and how social roles were disrupted in this class. As Fragment 11.2 illustrates, when Miss Talei shares her personal life experiences this is a key factor that fosters social bond formation and maintenance. I began the reflective discussion in Fragment 11.2 with examples of good relationships experienced by this group and their teacher. Anke’s feelings of connectedness were dependent on the teacher’s sharing of personal stories about family life. Throughout the study period, I observed as Miss Talei used personal anecdotes regularly, including the very first lesson of the year when she first met this 222

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Fragment 11.2. Social bonds through personal life stories Turn

Speaker

Utterance

41

Alberto

…are there any other things that she ((Miss Talei)) does that you would say give you a positive or good relationship with her?

42

Anke

I guess like she told us that she is pregnant, she tells more like about herself, she has a daughter

43

Shavar

Yeah

44

Anke

she like tells us much about herself, like she doesn’t keep it a secret

class. During that lesson, Miss Talei, conveyed a story about teaching her eight-yearold daughter the mindset concept (cf. Dweck, 2006/2012). Briefly, mindset refers to the perspective one holds about his or her capabilities. A person with a fixed mindset believes her capabilities are firmly based and unchangeable. In contrast, growth mindset involves the belief that she can improve her capabilities over time. Miss Talei explained how she had used a diagram of a person standing at the fulcrum of a seesaw when teaching her daughter. Statements representing growth mindset were written on one end of the seesaw, and those representing a fixed mindset at the opposing end. After recounting the story, Miss Talei stated: My 8 year-old daughter, I didn’t want to have any more children because I have you guys, so I had only one child, I purposefully did that, she [my daughter] told me: “I can do this [draw a mind-set diagram]” but I gave her a clear [seesaw diagram] without any words and she said “I can make one.” As seen in Miss Talei’s side comments about having only one child, this quote reinforces Anke’s observation that Miss Talei shares personal anecdotes with her class. In another group discussion, Roy attests further to the personable classroom climate generated by Miss Talei: It seems she [Miss Talei] treats us more as family than someone she has to be here for. She seems to be friendly, and not just mark us and treat us, like, not really numbers, but just something that is not important to her. Reference to family in Roy’s comment provides a direct connection with Miss Talei’s opening discussion in lesson 1. Miss Talei, no doubt jokingly, said, “I didn’t want to have any more children because I have you guys.” Despite the possible humorous or sarcastic nature of this comment, it implies that her class forms part of her (extended) family. Later in that lesson, Miss Talei made direct reference to her classes being like family for her. van Manen (2015a) notes that children are attentive to what teachers say and how they say things. Teachers whose actions and expressions do not match their words are treated with suspicion by children, who, van Manen opines, will focus on how things are said and what teachers do over what they say. Miss Talei’s words in the first lesson 223

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would appear to be matched by her actions as Roy’s reflective comment later in the year suggests. Roy’s comment also offers clear examples of teacher conduct that is not conducive to forming social bonds when he states that Miss Talei does not treat the student as “just numbers” or people she has to “mark.” Roy alludes to feeling like a (dehumanized) number in a class of students where, presumably other teachers assess the students’ work (i.e., mark), or simply perform their teaching roles. Miss Talei’s personal sharing episodes are eventful in that they transform structures such as student-teacher interactions based on formal roles, to exchanges akin to those experienced in more relaxed settings of our personal lives. It is possible to envisage metaphorically how symbols representing social life are intermingled with science symbols in this class. Emotional events, as represented through the student accounts, facilitate feelings of connectedness, or the formation of bonds, with the teacher. Forming Pedagogical Friendship Following Fragment 11.2, Ash stated that he was treated like a “young” person rather than a student, echoing the point raised by Roy in a different discussion group. Sharing matters such as how Miss Talei raises her daughter constitutes a dimension of her out-of-school life, which engenders feelings of closeness for her class. Such information also carries with it an implicit understanding that discretion is required on the children’s part in preserving Miss Talei’s privacy. An implied element of trust positions members of the class as mature young people who know how to conduct themselves when made privy to personal information about the teacher. In this way, Miss Talei’s stories make her class feel like she has treated them as young people, rather than students, who are of lower status than teachers based on typical institutional norms associated with their social roles (Gilbert, 1991). During group discussions, different children stated that they found Miss Talei to be more like a friend than a teacher. Children at the second school site shared similar perspectives. One child stated “Miss Lane [the teacher] is like more of a friend than a teacher kind of thing so it’s easier to talk to her”. At both school sites, the issue of comfort in speaking with their teacher arose in the context of close bonds between teachers and children. It is not that these children did not value the formal curriculum; in fact, Miss Talei’s was a class of high achievers. What their comments indicate is that they are aware of expectations placed upon them based on the student social role. Along with this awareness however, they welcome any distraction from role expectations common in classroom contexts. Anything that disrupts the formality of the institutional power dynamic embedded in the formal teacher-student social roles (cf. Gilbert, 1991) facilitates bond formation and maintenance between children and the teacher. Reflective discussions at both schools relating to the teachers being like friends correspond to the way that Gilbert (1991) discusses personal relationships: 224

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In … [personal relationships] we relate to each other as persons, not merely as players of roles. This makes possible emotion attachment in our mutual concerns, of a sort that we contrast with the mere dutiful following out of a role’s requirements …. To restrict one’s role to what is specifically required is to misunderstand personal relationships … personal relationships require us to go beyond what they specifically require. (Gilbert, 1991; p. 105, emphasis original) Miss Lane and Miss Talei demonstrate pedagogical tact (van Manen, 2015a) by forming personal relationships and engaging in conversations and interactions that extend beyond, but also include, the formal curriculum, which they must impart by dutifully fulfilling their teacher roles. Children in my study were highly attuned to the distinction made by Gilbert between roles and relationships in their teachers’ practices. As Peter explained in one group discussion: It’s just some teachers, they’re always a bit grumpy. But it’s not necessarily that they are grumpy at us. Just grumpy because they have to be here, because they have to teach us, because that’s their job, and they just look at us like we’re just part of their job, instead of students wanting to learn. Peter’s statement elaborates the details of social roles played by some teachers with respect to their classes. Confirming van Manen’s (2015a) observation about the attention students pay to teacher non-verbal conduct, Peter’s comment also refers to a look teachers can give a child that, in turn, makes their institutional social roles tangible. It is this look that produces unfavourable classroom experiences and works against the formation or maintenance of social bonds. This look positions a child or young adult as a mere student and nothing else. Peter’s comment provides an indication of what the pre-reflective lived experience of the lack of a social bond feels like. This is the embodied nature (cf. Merleau-Ponty, 2012) of being just another student in a “relationship” based on institutionalized social roles. A teacher who looks at his or her classes in the way Peter suggests, views them as an object in the educational system: a receptacle for his or her instruction who must be measured (i.e., “marked”) to see what change the instruction has brought about; one student amongst a number of other students, as Roy’s earlier comment suggests. Children are aware that they are stuck inside this objectifying educational machine. They know that the teacher can be, in fact must be, the operator of this machine. The latter is not problematic for Peter. It is how this formal relationship is conveyed, how it feels when receiving that objectifying look that is the essence of what constitutes the formal relationship as bad/undesirable for the student. This is the antithesis to a desirable/good, or positive, social bond. Furthermore, it is the experience of being involved solely in a formal relationship that is perhaps most problematic. Peter also recognizes a particular emotional disposition of grumpiness, possessed by these formal teachers, acknowledging that it is not a specific 225

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grumpiness directed at Peter and his peers. Rather this is a generic grumpiness that shows distaste for the job in the general sense. The student is merely part of the job, and he or she consequently becomes subjected to a generalized form of grumpiness. In contrast to the grumpy emotional disposition identified here, children at both schools saw a cheery or friendly disposition in Miss Talei and Miss Lane, rendering both as personable and approachable teachers, or ‘friends’ in the childrens’ words. A girl from the second school site explained that Miss Lane is nicer than other teachers she has experienced. When I asked her to elaborate what this niceness looked like, she could not articulate details but one of the other discussion participants, Daisy, offered the following: I think what she [i.e., the other student] means is like she [Miss Lane] can crack jokes and things like that like she can have fun but like some other teachers are just really formal and kind of old and like, yeah. Daisy again captures that the formality involved with institutional social roles can be an underlying factor differentiating Miss Lane as a “nice” teacher from others who merely enact formal roles. Formality, in the absence of other patterns of interaction, is distancing. Children are disinclined to approach formal teachers for assistance with science learning. At this point I ask “How does a pedagogical social bond function?” Gilbert offers the notion of reciprocity as one possible means by which a relation between two or more people becomes personal. Through reciprocity, any relationship, not only a pedagogical one, is dependent on forms of exchange. Returning to the 10th grade classes, the question becomes what is being exchanged in these science classrooms that serves to form and sustain pedagogical bonds? Based on the earlier fragments and comments about Miss Talei sharing personal stories, I venture that one element of reciprocity bound in these emotional events involves trust. Miss Talei was exchanging trust when she offered stories about her family (including more personal information I have excluded) and, as Anke noted in Fragment 11.2, this creates the view that she did not keep secrets from her class. It is interesting to consider how pedagogical bonds can support the enactment of social roles such as teacher/student. In this set of social roles, power is always institutional and in favour of the teacher. Perhaps the reason that Miss Talei’s practice of sharing personal experiences is effective, in bringing about changes to typical classroom social roles, is that the most powerful person in the role dynamic has been the first to show vulnerability by entrusting her class (i.e., of lower power) with what might be regarded as sensitive information. This action creates a classroom marketplace where exchange of trust is possible. Suddenly, sharing of personal information becomes a legitimate practice. This has the effect of transforming typical classroom structures, whereby interactions unfold according to patterns of student and teacher interactions focused on science symbols alone, to include personable interactions involving children and an adult exchanging 226

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social symbols. By opening this trade route, the teacher creates paths that children can follow should they wish to do so. By being personable, children receive such teachers as being approachable. Sharing personal information implies an unwritten agreement between parties that the information is shared in good faith and is not repeated in other contexts. This form of respect reciprocally forms the basis for enacting and achieving trust. Ash: I think it’s (.) you feel more comfortable to be able to learn and talk to the [teacher] because they form- feel like a friend like that you can trust rather than just someone that you see for like a term or a year or a couple of weeks or something and they will just, you won’t see them again and you won’t know them. By considering the roots of the word trust, elements that are likely to support the formation and maintenance of social bonds are identifiable. The most insightful aspects include the following: c. 1200, “reliance on the veracity, integrity, or other virtues of someone or something …” from Old Norse traust “help, confidence, protection, support,” from Proto-Germanic abstract noun *traustam …. (Harper, 2016) Socially valuable qualities such as integrity, help, protection, confidence, and support are associated with trust, or a trustworthy and virtuous person. When teachers establish trust through exchange of personal information, they are likely to evoke these kinds of emotional experiences in their classes. Based on the reflections considered so far, I venture that the individual who is trustworthy is approachable. They can be trusted with the vulnerabilities of others and confided in. We expect this person to keep for themselves any shared information, and we can show them a side of ourselves offered only when emotions of comfort, reassurance and dependence within another have been found. Teacher Response Technique Impacts Social Bond Status A more subtle kind of confidence, than that discussed earlier, is the confidence demonstrated by a student who answers or asks a question in class. By asking or answering questions, a student implicitly entrusts their teacher, who holds the answers, with information about his or her understanding of the subject matter. This commonly takes place in the presence of the peer group, increasing the stakes of such interactions (Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015). Based on the way in which a teacher responds, the students’ level of understanding can remain a secret, or the teacher may end up exposing the extent of misunderstanding in the presence of the peer group. The latter may constitute a betrayal of implied trust and thereby damage the teacher-student bond, either momentarily or in the long term depending on the severity of the teacher and class’ reaction. I now turn to the way in which teacher 227

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response practices impact social bonds when interactions are focused on science symbols and social roles are in play. Miss Talei’s response style to student questions affected social bond status between her and some students as seen in Fragment 11.3. Before the turns represented below, I prompted the group by asking, “How do you get along with Miss Talei?” Fragment 11.3. Pedagogical social bonds and answering questions Turn

Speaker

Utterance

6

John

Miss Talei is a good teacher, I get what she is saying but sometimes she doesn’t really answer the questions,

8

John

she kinda cuts in or doesn’t really get what I’m trying to ask, sometimes ((Max is nodding))

11

Max

I’ve seen that quite a lot, quite often when someone asks a question she sort of just answers something else rather than what was actually asked

13

John

it’s a bit frustrating when you don’t understand and you’ve already asked, but you still don’t understand

Two of three students agreed that the way in which Miss Talei answered their questions was a factor impacting on their perceptions of social bonds with the teacher. These students acknowledged and agreed that Miss Talei was a good teacher (turn 6), but her style of answering questions had a negative impact on her bonds with these students. Max, at turn 2, seemed hesitant in responding to my prompt about how he got along with Miss Talei. Once I turned the question over to John, Max re-entered the discussion offering agreement with John’s point raised at turn 6. As the discussion unfolded this group explained how Miss Talei, in responding to their questions, tended to add more information than what the students felt was necessary. Miss Talei confirmed this when I shared the anonymous group discussion transcripts with her. She acknowledged that this was a deliberate aspect of her practice in trying to extend the students beyond their current understandings of the topic. From the students’ perspectives, however, this extension was not well received (turn 13), as it did not help them in comprehending simpler aspects of the problem targeted by their questions. Question answering techniques became emotional events where the status of social bonds between teachers and students changed from the positive personable structures discussed earlier in the chapter, to increasingly negative patterns focused on formal roles. The possibility that a teacher’s instructional goal of extending students may have a negative impact on her bonds with students is evident here. A ramification of this is the impact upon their learning as students stop asking questions or they ask fewer questions over time. Although the students in the above discussion did not sit together in the classroom, two of them came to share similar views about Miss Talei’s response style. This suggests that such a style can impact students directly if they are 228

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asking the question, or as Max’s comment (turn 9) might suggest, vicariously when a student witnesses how the teacher responds to others. A sense of frustration was reported at turn 13. This unpleasant emotion marks an event through the shift from the positive emotions typical in Miss Talei’s classroom, as discussed in the preceding sections, to negative ones. Reflective discussions took place in the second half of the school year, whereas the events addressed here occurred in the first ten weeks of the school year. Student comments suggest that they had held on to their frustrations for an extended period of time, or that they had had similar experiences at a time close to that of the reflective discussions. In the absence of repair rituals to ameliorate the damaged bonds between these students and Miss Talei, the bonds may become severed and more difficult to reinstate. Within this educational situation, frustration can be classified as a negative (unfavourable/unpleasant) emotion (Bellocchi & Turner, 2017) because it works against the formation and maintenance of social bonds and hampers science learning by deterring students from asking further questions. It is clear then that the status of social bonds (formation, maintenance and disruption) is connected to learning science and to specific forms of science instruction. Frustration experienced by students in the account above delineates an emotional event as a shift in classroom structures has occurred. In this case, patterns of interaction focused on learning science had changed, if not irreversibly, for a sustained period of time nonetheless. Emotions and the status of social bonds were also impacted. EMOTIONAL EVENTS, SOCIAL BONDS AND SCIENCE LEARNING

Vicarious emotional experiences, as I have shown, are important in the formation, maintenance and disruption of social bonds. A change in the status of bonds was clearly aligned to emotional events, or the transitions between positive and negative emotional experiences for these high school children. Events that I discussed included changes from boring experiences to happy and exciting ones when the teacher treated students like young people or adults. Interactions followed the patterns and style of personal relationships rather than the enactment of student and teacher social roles. The resulting positive classroom climate and close interpersonal distance with the teacher created by personable relationships was disrupted, leading to unfavourable experiences of frustration, when students’ needs were not met in response to their science questions. Such events impacted bonds directly and through vicarious experiences for students. It is clear that when social bonds are formed and maintained based on teacher actions, science learning is supported through the positive feelings experienced by children in a favourable learning environment. Teachers are more approachable if they foster a positive climate, respect is achieved within the class, and children experience trust and dependence. Negative vicarious experiences were shown to impact students who observed unfavourable interactions with the teacher, just as the students who asked questions found the teacher’s response technique 229

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unhelpful. Although this affected one group of students in this study, just as positive emotional events influence the classroom climate, and children feel closer to the teacher from vicarious experience, it is conceivable that a negative climate can develop if other students begin to react in similar ways to the group in response to question answering techniques. Teachers can apply these insights into their practice if they wish to sustain social bonds and positive climates in their classes in support of science learning. In Chapter 5 of this collection, I used self-reports from emotion diaries for accessing third-order rituals, or introspections, to understand students’ first-person perspectives on emotional events in science learning. I extend this work in the present chapter in two ways: by accessing third-order rituals related to emotional events using reflective discussions, as Steve Ritchie and Jen Beers Newlands (2017) have suggested, and by focusing on the impact of emotional events on the status of social bonds, an interpersonal classroom structure. My study extends previous work in high school science by Bellocchi and Ritchie (2015) and university preservice science education by Bellocchi, Mills, and Ritchie (2016) both of which addressed social bonds post hoc. In the present study, I accessed school students’ first-person perspectives on social bonds directly to understand how they are interrelated to emotional events and science learning. As van Manen explains (2015b), one of our goals as researchers and teachers ought to be to learn ways to live our lives with children more fully. The types of lived experiences that prompt us to reflect on and question our actions are pedagogy (van Manen, 2015b). What I have shown in this chapter is that Miss Talei or Miss Lane’s science pedagogy cannot be understood without consideration of the various phases (formation, maintenance, disruption, repair) that social bonds pass through during the course of classroom life. Neither can the learner’s perspective be understood without a similar focus. Emotional events highlight transitions in social bond status experienced by students and teachers, as I proposed at the beginning of this chapter and elsewhere (Bellocchi, 2017). Given the high degree of interaction that is already part of the school day, it is how we interact and how we share emotions that make or break learning through the impact on our social bonds. This impact operates through the extent to which a teacher is approachable or unapproachable, helpful or unhelpful, and whether or not she is willing, at times at least, to forgo the formal roles involved with schooling. It is important to note that moment-to-moment fluctuations in social bond status may not be inherently problematic (cf. Scheff, 1990). Such shifts appear to be normal parts of social life. One of the understandings that the analyses in this chapter reveals is about the kinds of changes that may have longer lasting negative effects on the status of a social bond between students and teachers. In cases like the question answering technique, there are important lessons to glean about the way in which micro-social teacher practices can disrupt social bonds and impact science learning. Without engaging in repair rituals (or not having such opportunities) once bonds are broken, the likelihood of repair is reduced considerably. This can have ramifications 230

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for whether or not students seek out the teacher to assist them with their learning in future. Phenomenologically I have considered what social bonds may mean for learning in science classrooms and how they are interrelated with emotional events. In this chapter I extended the study of third-order rituals that I commenced in Chapter 5 of this collection. Collectively the two chapters demonstrate that self-report methods such as emotion diaries and reflective discussions, as suggested by Ritchie and Beers Newlands (2017), which access third-order rituals, can provide useful methods for understanding emotional events, social bonds, and their impact on science learning. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Grant (DE160101053) supported this work. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Research Council. REFERENCES Alexakos, K., Jones, J. K., & Rodriguez, V. H. (2011). Fictive kinship as it mediates learning, resiliency, perseverance, and social learning of inner-city high school students of color in a college physics class. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 6, 847–870. Bellocchi, A. (2017). Interaction ritual approaches to emotion and cognition in science learning experiences. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research: Cultural studies of science education 13 (pp. 85–105). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_5 Bellocchi, A., Mills, K. A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2016). Emotional experiences of preservice science teachers in online learning: The formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 11, 629–652. doi:10.1007/s11422-015-9673-9 Bellocchi, A., & Ritchie, S. M. (2015). “I was proud of myself that I didn’t give up and I did it”: Experiences of pride and triumph in learning science. Science Education, 99, 638–668. doi:10.1002/ sce.21159 Bellocchi, A., & Turner, J. H. (2017). Revising the valence construct in emotion theory and sociology of emotions. In R. Patulny, S. Khorana, R. Olson, J. McKenzie, A. Bellocchi, & M. Peterie (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to emotion. Manuscript submitted for publication. Brinkman, S., & Kvale, S. (2015). InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (3rd ed.). London: Sage Publications. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dweck, C. (2006/2012). Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential. New York, NY: Constable & Robinson. Gilbert, P. (1991). Human relationships. Oxford: Blackwell. Harper, D. (2016). Online etymological dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.etymonline.com/ index.php?term=trust Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of perception (D. A. Landes, Trans.). London: Routledge. Ritchie, S. M., & Beers Newlands, J. (2017). Emotional events in learning science. In A. Bellocchi, C. Quigley, & K. Otrel-Cass (Eds.), Exploring emotions, aesthetics and wellbeing in science education research: Cultural studies of science education 13 (pp. 107–120). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43353-0_6

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A. BELLOCCHI Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., Sandhu, S., Henderson, S., & Roth, W.-M. (2013). Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50, 137–161. Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. (2005). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Scheff, T. J. (1990). Microsociology: Discourse, emotion and social structure. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Scheff, T. J. (1997). Emotions, the social bond and human reality. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Smith, W. W. (1876). A complete etymology of the English language: Containing the Anglo-Saxon, French, Dutch, German, Welsh, Danish, Gothic, Swedish, Gaelic, Italian, Latin, and Greek roots, and the English words derived therefrom accurately spelled, accented, and defined. New York, NY: A. S. Barnes and Company. Turner, J. H. (2007). Human emotions: A sociological theory. London: Routledge. van Manen, M. (2014). Phenomenology of practice. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. van Manen, M. (2015a). Pedagogical tact: Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. van Manen, M. (2015b). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (2nd ed.). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alberto Bellocchi is an Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. His current research programme focuses on understanding the interplay between social bonds, emotions and knowledge construction in school science classrooms. He has previously published articles focusing on students’, preservice teachers’, and professors’ emotional experiences in science education. Alberto is lead co-editor of the international collection Exploring Emotions, Aesthetics and Wellbeing in Science Education Research, published by Springer. He serves as a Lead Editor for the journal Cultural Studies of Science Education, and he is an editorial board member for the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

232

INDEX

A Achievement, 16, 19, 105, 137, 159, 197 Actions, 3, 11, 13–16, 20, 22, 23, 33, 34, 41, 42, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 58, 61–63, 65–72, 74, 76, 79, 80, 88, 100, 101, 107–111, 113–115, 117–120, 122, 127, 133, 134, 136, 144, 151, 152, 165, 173–177, 182, 184, 185, 194, 209, 218, 221–224, 226, 229, 230 Adolescence, 158, 197 Adolescent, 197 Affective attributes, 133, 134, 153, 159 Agency, 1, 42, 72, 98 Alexakos, Konstantinos, 11, 14, 15, 34, 45, 48, 219 Ameliorate, 17, 19, 34, 144, 193, 194, 201, 211, 229 Anger, 1, 18, 21, 22, 45, 46, 48, 58, 89–91, 100, 101, 137, 157, 159, 160, 166, 167, 194, 195, 197, 200, 203 Animosity, 174 Annoyance, 69, 88, 90, 93, 96, 101, 134, 142, 200, 202–206 Antecedent, 22, 75, 151, 196 Antecedent-focused emotion regulation, 135–137, 196 Anxiety, 18, 19, 25, 90, 93, 95, 99, 100, 136–138, 159, 160, 193, 195–198, 200, 202–204, 211 Assisted reproductive technology, 157, 158 Asynchronous interaction, 105, 106, 113, 115, 120–122, 128 Attitudes towards science, 133

Aultman, Lori, 5 Australian Research Council, 3, 26, 83, 102, 153, 168, 190, 212, 231 Authentic inquiry, 18, 19, 31, 32, 34, 36–40, 89, 98 Authenticity catalytic, 39, 40 educative, 38, 39 ontological, 11, 37, 38 tactical, 31, 39, 40, 51 Awareness, 11, 15, 19, 34, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 50, 99, 100, 128, 134, 135, 166, 167, 182, 194, 198, 199, 224 B Bai, Heesoon, 51, 53 Begley, Sharon, 2, 34 Behavior, 49, 171, 172, 175–180, 182, 183, 185, 186, 188–190 Bellocchi, Alberto, 2, 4, 9–26, 32, 57–83, 87–102, 105–129, 150, 153, 158, 160, 166, 167, 195, 217–231 Biology, 157–168, 172, 212 Blood oxygenation, 18, 19, 31, 34, 39–42, 44, 45, 47, 48 pressure, 35, 37, 41 Bodily movement, 13, 62, 107, 109 Bourdieu, Pierre, 15, 41, 42 Boyle, Robert, 3 Brain, 2, 49, 151, 194, 201 Breach, 2, 67, 118, 211 Breath, 41, 42, 46, 47, 177, 194 Breathe, 41, 42, 45, 47–50, 119, 202, 206 Breathing, 4, 18, 19, 31, 32, 34, 38–40, 42, 44–50, 136, 160, 161, 193–212, 214, 215

233

INDEX

belly, 34, 40–42, 45, 48, 202 exercises, 193, 194, 196, 200–212, 214, 215 intervention, 193–212 meditation, 18, 19, 38–40, 194 mouth, 34, 45–50 nasal, 31, 34, 41, 47–50 patterns, 18, 32, 34, 44–46, 48, 49, 198 rate, 19, 50 strategy, 194 training, 194 Bricolage, 16, 17, 31–53 Buddhism, 53 C Capitalism, 51 Case study, 5, 18–20, 100, 133, 151, 152, 171, 175, 193, 200, 206, 207 Chemistry, 20, 22, 133, 138, 144, 145, 195 Coal seam gas mining, 22, 133 Cogenerative dialogue, 4, 15, 24, 26, 36, 37, 99, 167, 171–190 Cognition, 1, 5, 17, 25, 105, 129, 150 cold, 3 Coherence, patterns of, 33 Collective, 2–4, 10, 14, 16, 17, 23, 26, 31, 39, 52, 58, 60, 61, 66–68, 70, 72, 76, 77, 81, 82, 107, 108, 110, 113, 115, 120–126, 134, 139, 142, 143, 149, 153, 164, 166, 167, 172, 173, 186, 195, 203, 205, 231 Collins, Randall, 3, 13–17, 23, 26, 33, 57, 58, 60, 62, 65, 67, 72, 77, 78, 81, 82, 90, 107, 113–115, 127, 128, 134, 147, 152, 171–174, 182, 186–189, 219 Communication, social, 40, 41, 44 Concentration, 35, 37, 38, 41, 44, 49, 52, 105, 110–115, 119–121, 126, 193, 198, 207, 208, 212 234

Concept, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20–22, 24, 58–61, 67, 71, 75, 80, 87, 89, 90, 92, 96, 105–107, 109, 110, 113, 120, 124–126, 134, 138, 144, 145, 147, 148, 150, 151, 157, 158, 187, 195, 223 Conceptual change, 3, 105 Conceptual entrainment, 79, 80, 107, 108, 124 Conceptual understanding, 20–22, 25, 67, 90, 105, 124, 219 Confidence, 3, 18, 65, 70, 105, 107, 110–112, 114–122, 126, 140, 144, 151, 173, 185, 193, 218, 227 Confusion, 48, 142, 149, 150 Connect, 15, 20, 37 Context, 1, 3–5, 9, 10, 12–14, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, 32, 33, 43, 45, 46, 48, 51, 58, 59, 61, 64, 65, 67–69, 88, 90, 95, 100, 101, 105–110, 113, 114, 118–120, 122, 128, 129, 134–137, 139, 151–153, 158–160, 164–167, 172, 175–177, 194, 198, 199, 218, 222, 224, 227 Contingency, 35, 37, 48 Contingent, 2, 12, 33, 35, 40, 70 Contradictions, 15, 32, 33, 37, 47, 48, 62, 68, 81, 209, 210 Conversation analysis, 107, 108, 176, 177 Cooperation, 1, 172, 189 Cooperative learning, 167 Culture, 24, 32, 33, 36, 42, 43, 52, 62, 65, 175, 195 reproduction of, 33, 62 transformation of, 2, 33, 211 Curriculum, enacted, 39 D Damasio, Antonio, 2, 14 Davidson, Richard, 2, 33, 34 Davis, James P., 9–26, 57–83, 105–129, 211

INDEX

Decibel, 205 Decision making, 158, 176 Deficit view, 177 Dialectical relationship, 33 Dialogical relationship, 32 Dialogue, 4, 15, 24, 26, 32, 36, 37, 41, 99, 121, 125, 167, 171–190 Difference, learning from, 44 Difficult students, 171–190 Disappointment, 48, 88–90, 95–97, 99, 100, 134, 138, 158, 160, 200, 204 Discontinuity, 12, 105 Discrepant event, 57, 59 Discrete emotions, 1, 3, 4, 15, 16, 107, 127, 161, 195, 200, 201, 203, 204, 210, 211 Disengaged, 76, 171, 186 Disgust, 16, 46, 93, 138, 157, 160, 162–166, 200, 210 Disruptive behavior, 176, 178, 180, 182, 189 Dramatic emotion, 17, 23, 58, 63, 68, 78, 101, 106, 115 Dramatic event, 106 Durkheim, Emilé, 11, 12, 14, 16, 23, 58, 61, 62, 65–67, 70, 72, 82, 106, 172 E Educational, 3, 5, 17–19, 33, 34, 50, 51, 58, 91, 98, 153, 158, 194, 196–198, 218, 225, 229 Eightfold pathway, 51 Eisenhart, Margaret, 38 Ekman, Paul, 15, 16, 33, 46, 47, 64, 68, 76, 109, 114, 115, 117, 144, 147, 148, 209 Embarrassment, 134, 157, 158, 161–167, 193, 200 Embodied experience, 9, 10, 12–14 Embodied expression, 10, 12–14 Emergence, 5, 35, 37, 43, 48, 72, 134, 158

Emic, 175, 176 Emotion, 1–5, 9–26, 31–34, 38–49, 51–53, 57–83, 87–101, 105–107, 109–111, 113–115, 117, 118, 120–129, 133–153, 157–168, 171–190, 193–212, 217–231 and cognition, 25, 105, 129 diary, 13, 87, 90, 93, 94, 99, 107, 138–144, 149, 153, 157, 160–163, 166, 167, 193, 200–203, 206, 209, 211, 230, 231 label, 15, 89, 93–97, 107, 160, 161, 200, 218 regulation, 133–138, 153, 157–160, 162, 164, 166, 167, 193, 195–197, 199, 201, 211, 212 response tendencies, 135–138, 153 expressed, 32, 34, 38, 39, 45, 144, 207, 211 facial, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 32, 33, 40, 45–49, 63, 64, 109 Emotional analysis, 207 arousal, 5, 18, 57, 58, 77, 107, 138, 144, 152, 172, 196, 198, 201 change, 21, 90, 105, 218, 220 climate, 4, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23–26, 32, 43, 77, 134, 135, 171–190 climate rating, 24, 172, 179, 180, 183, 184, 186, 189 energy, 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 14–17, 23, 24, 26, 57, 58, 62–68, 70–7, 74, 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 105, 107, 108, 110, 113–115, 118, 120–128, 134–138, 142, 143, 145, 149, 151–153, 171, 173, 174, 186–190 engagement, 4 event, 3, 4, 9, 12, 20, 21, 23–26, 57, 63, 87–101, 217–220, 222, 224, 226, 228–231 experience, 23–25, 57–83, 95, 97, 101, 105, 107, 109–120, 126–129, 235

INDEX

135, 139, 158, 159, 186, 193, 196, 217, 218, 222, 227, 229 expression, 15, 16, 68, 76, 82, 207, 209, 211 intensity, 13, 34, 106, 124–126 interaction, 3 management, 196 mood, 76, 147 needs, 172 outcomes, 17, 22, 23, 71, 212 pedagogy, 87, 97–101 response, 1, 16, 133, 136, 159, 160, 165, 166, 193, 196 state, 20, 45, 135, 164, 203 styles, 34 thought, 2 transition, 3 Emotions, background, 14 Enable, 2, 11, 12, 14, 70, 80, 106, 108, 118, 122, 127, 143, 184, 194, 198, 201, 206, 211, 212 Energy, channels Energy flow, 41, 49, 53, 81–83 Engagement, 4, 22–24, 58, 59, 63, 67, 71, 72, 76, 87, 88, 90, 98, 100, 101, 110, 115, 127, 133, 134, 137, 138, 149, 153, 158, 159, 166, 168, 171, 172, 182, 186, 187, 189, 194, 195 Enjoyment, 19, 46, 58, 88, 91, 93, 138, 140, 143, 157, 160, 195, 200 Entrainment, 79, 80, 107, 108, 113, 114, 124, 125, 173, 188, 190 Epistemology, 9–12, 61, 62 Erickson, Frederick, 35, 36, 175 Ethics, 51, 52, 91, 199 conduct, 41, 50, 51 Ethnographic data, 200, 203 observations, 175 study, 171, 175, 193, 200 techniques, 175 Ethnography, 100, 175 Ethnomethodology, 13, 23, 31, 108 236

Etic, 175 Event, 1–5, 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23–26, 31–34, 36, 42–48, 52, 57, 59, 61–63, 67, 70, 76, 78, 82, 83, 87–102, 105–129, 135, 139, 141, 144, 148, 151, 161, 173, 176, 196, 210, 211, 217–222, 224, 226, 228–231 Eventful learning, 1, 3, 5, 18, 57, 101, 222 Event-oriented inquiry, 31–33, 42–44 Excitement, 19, 24, 46, 75, 76, 87, 88, 93, 100, 101, 140, 148, 158, 160, 200, 222 Expectation states, 63, 174, 187, 189 Expressive suppression, 167 Extrinsic emotion regulation, 137, 196 F Facial actions, 13, 16, 62, 107, 109, 111, 114, 115, 117, 120 Facial Action Coding System (FACS), 15, 16, 109, 144, 209 Facial expression, 15, 16, 18, 32, 33, 40, 43, 45–49, 63, 76, 144, 145, 147, 148, 177, 207–209 Fear, 1, 18, 20, 45, 48, 90, 194, 200 Feelings, 3, 14, 19, 21, 25, 47, 58, 60, 65, 67, 90, 95, 96, 101, 107, 133, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142–144, 149–153, 157–167, 172, 173, 183, 196–200, 202, 203, 206, 210, 211, 215, 221, 222, 224, 229 Feelings of morality, 3 Fluctuation in emotion, 23, 105, 115, 118, 120, 127, 139 Friendship, 51, 219, 224–227 Frustration, 20–22, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95–101, 107, 133–153, 157, 159, 160, 166, 167, 174, 177, 178, 180, 182, 193, 195, 197, 200, 202–204, 207–211, 229

INDEX

G Garfinkel, Harold, 13, 33, 36, 67, 108, 109, 118 Geertz, Clifford, 32 Generalizability, 38, 52, 60, 127, 226 Gestures, 3, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 42, 65, 80, 99, 106, 107, 120, 121, 123–126, 144, 145, 174, 177, 188, 207–209 Goffman, Erving, 13, 69, 172 Goldberg, Rube, 92 Graphical representation, 4, 118 Gross, James, 135–137, 153, 159, 166, 195, 196, 211 Group membership, 60, 134, 135, 152, 187, 188 Group work, 99, 134, 138, 141, 157, 166, 199 Guba, Egon, 11, 32, 37, 39 Guilt, 147, 200 H Happiness, 16, 20, 45, 46, 52, 59, 64, 76, 77, 89–91, 93, 101, 103, 135, 138, 140, 143, 151, 152, 157, 158, 160, 166, 194, 195, 200, 207, 209, 218, 222 Harmony, 41, 42, 52 Heart beat, 50 Henderson, Senka, 2, 4, 15, 22, 32, 34, 59, 60, 71, 83, 89, 91, 93, 99, 102, 133–153, 159, 161, 193–212 Hermeneutic phenomenology, 31, 35, 37, 82, 91 Heuristic, 19, 31, 40–43, 51, 52, 139, 161 Historical perspective, 105 Hudson, Peter, 4, 23, 93, 172 Human experience, 175 Human reproduction, 157, 160, 162, 165, 166 Humour, 68, 148, 149, 151, 152 Hybridized text, 4

I Ideas, 9, 11, 21, 24, 25, 39, 41–43, 52, 59–62, 65–67, 79–81, 88, 105–107, 113–115, 118–122, 124–127, 129, 146, 148, 149, 163, 165, 188, 197, 214, 218, 220–222 Immersion, 175 Immordino-Young, Mary, 2 Incommensurability, 53 Individual, 1, 3, 14, 16, 22, 31, 39–41, 43, 58, 60–62, 65–67, 70, 81, 82, 89–91, 95, 98, 101, 107, 108, 120–126, 135, 143–149, 152, 159, 172, 173, 175, 176, 184, 186, 187, 189, 193, 197, 201, 218, 219, 227 Inquiry activities, 4, 20, 24, 87–94, 97–99, 101, 108 Inquiry outcomes, 26 Inquiry processes, 26, 59, 87–102, 167 Interaction, 3–5, 11–17, 21, 23, 24, 26, 32–35, 37, 40, 41, 48, 52, 57, 59, 60, 62–65, 67–72, 77, 80–83, 88, 90, 99, 105–110, 113–115, 118–122, 125, 127–129, 134, 135, 143, 144, 146, 148, 150, 152, 171–178, 180, 185–190, 195, 207, 217–222, 224–231 ritual, 26, 33, 57, 60, 65, 72, 77, 82, 83, 107, 114, 134, 135, 146, 148, 150, 152, 171–173, 187, 188 ritual chains, 3, 33, 57, 65, 72, 173 social, 12–14, 16, 17, 35, 40, 105–110, 113–115, 128, 134, 175, 195, 222 Interactive ritual, 15, 23, 26, 33, 57, 60, 65, 72, 77, 82, 83, 107, 114, 134, 135, 146, 148, 150, 152, 171–173, 187, 188 outsider, 72, 173, 186, 188 Interdependent relationship, 5 237

INDEX

Interest, 2–5, 12, 14, 17, 19, 31, 33–35, 41, 42, 45, 46, 88–90, 93, 111, 113, 122, 133–135, 138–145, 150–152, 157–163, 165, 185, 188, 189, 199, 202, 205, 208, 216, 219, 222, 226 scale, 161 Interpretive research, 35, 36, 175 Interruption, 114, 177, 182, 194, 207 Intervention, 4, 10, 18, 19, 31, 32, 34, 36, 40–42, 48, 50, 133, 134, 136, 148–150, 152, 167, 188, 190, 193–212, 215 Interview, 13, 16, 19, 22, 42, 60, 162, 163, 171, 173, 176–179, 182, 184, 193, 199–203, 206, 209–211, 215, 221 Intrinsic emotion regulation, 166 J Jin Shin Jyutsu, 11, 17, 18, 37, 53 K Keypad, 176 Kincheloe, Joe, 25, 33, 51 King, Donna, 4, 15, 16, 19, 22, 32, 57–83, 89, 91, 93, 99, 128, 133–153, 159–161, 193–212 Knowledge, 10–12, 20, 34, 52, 53, 60–63, 71, 74, 75, 89, 100, 106, 127, 129, 148, 151, 158, 212, 219 L Learning, 1–5, 9–26, 31, 32, 34–38, 41, 43–45, 48, 50, 52, 53, 57–59, 62, 65–67, 69, 71, 73–75, 81, 87, 89–91, 97–102, 105–129, 133–135, 137, 138, 141–144, 147–153, 157–168, 171, 172, 174, 180, 181, 184–186, 189, 193–195, 197–199, 206, 212, 217–220, 222, 226, 228–231 environment, 11, 32, 34, 44, 91, 149, 153, 166, 167, 172, 174, 229 238

process, 1–5, 9–26, 31, 32, 34–38, 41, 43–45, 48, 50, 52, 53, 57–59, 62, 65–67, 69, 71, 73–75, 81, 87, 89–91, 97–102, 105–129, 133–135, 137, 138, 141–144, 147–153, 157–168, 171, 172, 174, 180, 181, 184–186, 189, 193–195, 197–199, 206, 212, 217–220, 222, 226, 228–231 Lesson, 19, 21, 34–36, 44–47, 64, 66, 71, 72, 75, 77, 88, 91–94, 96, 97, 105, 106, 112, 114, 127, 137–145, 149–151, 157, 158, 160–163, 165, 171, 173, 176–180, 183–185, 187, 193, 194, 199–202, 204–207, 214, 220–223, 230 Lewis, Michael, 5 Lincoln, Yvonna, 11, 32, 37, 39 Lived experience, 11, 13, 14, 62, 81, 82, 89, 90, 93, 105, 110, 217–31 M Managing emotions, 99, 193–212 Marx, Ronald, 3 Mauss, Marcel, 106 Meditation, 18, 19, 32, 34, 38–40, 43, 51, 194, 197, 198 Mergard, Victoria, 4, 23, 172 Meso-level analysis, 200 Method, 4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 24, 26, 31–53, 58, 62, 83, 89, 91–93, 101, 107–110, 113, 174–177, 184, 193, 194, 200–211, 219, 220, 231 Methodology expansive, 32, 33 multilevel, 35 multilogical, 31–34, 36, 43, 50–53 Microanalysis, 4, 43 Microsociology, 17 Middle school, 22, 89, 133–153, 161, 165, 193, 195, 198 Middle-years students, 76, 193, 197, 200

INDEX

Mindfulness, 9–11, 15, 19, 33, 34, 40, 43, 137, 160 curriculum, 199 intervention, 194, 211 meditation, 51, 198, 211 practice, 53, 194 practice, 19, 194, 196–199, 201, 202, 212 strategies, 99, 197 tool, 196, 199 training, 194 Mindfulness-based stress reduction, 194, 198 Motivation, 63, 90, 158 Mouth, 34, 45–50, 68, 73, 75, 76, 109, 111–113, 115–117, 119, 148, 209, 217 Multilectical relationship, 51 Mundane interaction, 58, 64, 67, 78, 82, 92, 101, 107, 115, 118, 127, 157 Mutual focus, 3, 16, 64, 72–75, 78, 79, 81, 113, 124, 125, 146, 173, 174, 187, 189 N Negative affect, 197, 199 attitude, 174 emotional climate, 25 emotions, 2, 3, 16, 19, 20, 22–25, 87–102, 133–136, 138, 140–145, 148–152, 157–159, 162, 164–167, 193–197, 199, 201–204, 206, 210, 211, 229 Neoliberalism, 51 Neuroception, 34, 38, 40, 41, 44, 45, 48–50 Neuroscience, social, 34 Neutral, 109, 117, 123, 124, 161, 176, 183, 201, 203 Noble truths, 51 Nose, 42, 45, 46, 48–50, 109, 115, 148, 209

O Oakley, Jenny, 4, 23, 171–190 Object, 66, 67, 70, 77, 125, 134, 225 Observation, 14, 20–24, 34, 35, 62, 74, 75, 77, 78, 88, 92–95, 127, 139, 145, 149, 152, 171, 177, 200–204, 211, 220, 223, 225 Olitsky, Stacy, 90, 106, 135, 159, 186, 187 Online learning, 17, 26, 106, 107, 110–120, 126, 128, 219 community, 4 Ontology, 9–12, 14, 23, 31, 33, 37, 38, 43, 83 Oximetry, 13, 16, 18, 19 P Parasympathetic nervous system, 34 Participant observation, 35 Participants, 1, 16, 18, 19, 31, 32, 34–42, 48–50, 52, 63, 65, 82, 83, 91, 134, 173–176, 178, 186–189, 199, 200, 220, 226 Passivity, 42 Pedagogical friendship, 224–227 Pedagogy, 2, 3, 20, 22, 24, 31, 59, 75, 77, 87, 88, 97–101, 143, 150, 152, 160, 166, 167, 174, 215, 217–219, 224–228, 230 Pedagogy of Emotion, 87, 97–101 Perceptions, 13, 16, 139, 140, 171, 172, 175, 176, 189, 190, 228 Phenomenology, 13, 35, 82, 83, 89–91, 217, 219, 220, 231 Physiological change, 16, 32, 45, 48, 99 expression, 33, 34, 44 measures, 14, 18, 26, 34 triggers, 41 Pintrich, Paul, 3 Plethysmograph, 34, 37 Polyphonia, 15, 33 239

INDEX

Polysemia, 15, 33, 35, 37 Polyvagal theory, 16, 34, 43, 44 Porges, Stephen, 16, 34, 41, 43, 44 Positive emotions, 2, 3, 16, 20, 22–25, 72, 77, 133, 135, 140, 148, 150, 152, 157, 158, 161, 171, 173, 174, 187–189, 195, 197, 229, 230 interactions, 59, 171 Power differential, 174 Predict-Observe-Explain, 59, 77 Present moment, 194, 196, 199, 201, 202, 211 Pre-service teacher, 2, 59, 60, 76, 77, 107 Pride, 13, 21, 34, 90, 93, 127, 133, 135, 138, 140, 143, 150, 152, 160, 166, 195, 200 Process model of emotion regulation, 135, 137, 153, 159, 166 attentional deployment emotion regulation, 136, 137, 151, 159, 163, 196 cognitive change emotion regulation, 127, 133, 136, 137, 150, 152, 160, 163, 196 situation modification emotion regulation, 133, 136, 137, 150–152, 159, 164, 196 Professional development, 166, 194 Prosody, 13, 19, 26, 31, 32, 34, 38–40, 43–45, 49, 107, 108, 122, 124, 204, 205 Proxemics, 31, 32, 34, 39, 43 Pulse rate, 14, 18, 19, 31, 34, 35, 37–41, 44, 45, 49 Q Qi, 41, 48, 49 R Rate of speech, 109 Reflect, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 25, 26, 35–37, 39, 41, 59, 61, 63, 75, 80, 240

82, 83, 88, 90, 93, 98–102, 106, 137, 149, 164, 180, 183, 184, 190, 194, 206, 217, 219–222, 224, 225, 227, 229–231 Reflexive, 15, 41 Relationship, 5, 14, 17, 32, 33, 38, 44, 49, 62, 65, 92, 111–113, 128, 136, 164, 172, 174, 176, 177, 184–186, 188, 217, 219–226, 229 social bonds, 22, 61, 65, 67, 69, 99, 107, 128, 217–231 Representation, crisis of, 35 Reproduction, 2, 32, 33, 57–60, 62, 67, 101, 134, 157, 160, 162, 163, 165–167 Research benefits, 39 collaborative, 50 Respect, 39, 58, 62, 66–68, 70, 77, 96, 174, 218, 225, 227, 229 Response-focused emotion regulation, 136, 196, 197 Response-focused emotion regulation; Response modulation emotion regulation, 133–138, 153, 158–160, 162, 164, 166–168, 195–199 Restorative practice, 69, 70 Rigano, Donna, 22, 91, 133–153, 157–168, 197 Rinchen, Sonam, 4, 17, 189 Ritchie, Stephen, 1–5, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20–23, 26, 32, 34, 43, 44, 57, 59, 60, 70, 71, 81, 88–93, 99, 101, 105–107, 127, 133–135, 138–141, 144, 150, 160, 161, 166, 167, 172, 193–212, 218, 219, 227, 230, 231 Roth, Wolff-Michael, 2–4, 34, 44, 89, 99, 124, 134, 174, 218 S Sacred, 58, 59, 62, 63, 65–70, 77, 80

INDEX

Sadness, 18, 58, 134, 138, 144, 147, 151, 152, 160, 193, 194 Sandhu, Maryam, 15, 83, 102, 133–153, 193–212 Sameness, 33 Sanction, 61, 63, 65–69 Scheff, 218–220 School science, 9, 13, 23, 26, 57–60, 70, 88–91, 105, 106, 128, 129, 133–153, 158, 161, 199, 230 Schutz, Paul, 5 Science, 1–5, 9–26, 32, 35, 39–41, 45, 57–83, 87–102, 105–129, 133–153, 157–168, 171, 173–175, 177, 180, 185–189, 193–212, 217–231 classroom, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 24, 59, 82, 90, 91, 101, 105, 106, 128, 133–135, 138–140, 153, 157–160, 166, 167, 173, 175, 180, 187, 189, 193, 206, 214, 215, 217–231 demonstrations, 19, 23, 57–83, 89, 91 inquiry, 20–22, 87–102, 108, 126, 138, 160 learning, 1–5, 9–26, 90, 98, 101, 105–129, 134–138, 161, 171, 186, 189, 217–220, 226, 229–231 pedagogy, 230 teaching, 19, 57, 58, 60, 65–67, 82, 139, 140, 212 Science-Technology-Society (STS), 158 Scientific ideas, 88, 105–107, 124, 126, 127, 129 Scientific literacy, 4 Self report, 4, 13, 16, 83, 107, 139, 144, 150, 157, 160, 161, 198, 230, 231 Self-awareness, 10, 14, 99, 100, 198 Self-talk, 165 Sewell, William, 2, 15, 32, 43, 106 Sex education, 157–168

Shame, 48, 69, 70, 134, 147, 157–159, 162, 164–166, 200 Shyness 186 Situation 12, 13, 24, 43, 59, 62, 63, 65, 67, 69, 70, 79, 81, 88–90, 93–95, 97, 99, 101, 106, 107, 109, 110, 113–115, 118, 120–124, 129, 133, 136, 137, 150–152, 158, 159, 161, 164, 165, 172, 182, 186–189, 194, 196, 200, 205, 218–220, 229 Social bonds, 22, 61, 65, 67, 69, 99, 107, 128, 217–231 interaction, 12–14, 16, 17, 35, 40, 105–110, 113–115, 128, 134, 175, 195, 222 practice, 2, 12, 57, 61, 62, 65, 72, 76, 82, 106, 127 roles, 217, 222, 224–226, 228, 229 structure, 2, 105, 106, 172, 195, 218, 220 talk, 41 Socioemotional adjustment, 167 Sociology of emotion, 17, 60 Sociology of knowledge, 60–62 Socio-scientific issues, 22, 91, 138, 158, 162, 165, 166 Solidarity, 3, 67, 68, 76, 78–81, 107, 134, 135, 145, 151, 152, 174, 186, 187 Status, 5, 25, 65, 66, 68–70, 188, 217–220, 224, 227–230 Strategies, 3, 19, 35, 75, 77, 81, 89, 98–101, 133, 135–137, 143, 148, 150–153, 157, 160, 162–167, 193, 194, 196, 197, 211, 212 Stress, 18, 46, 48, 79, 194, 197, 198, 202–206, 210, 211 Student behaviour, 171, 190 interviews, 193 Study context, 108, 175 241

INDEX

Success, 20, 58, 59, 71, 75, 77, 81, 96–98, 100, 128, 182, 189, 190, 195, 197, 211 Successful interaction, 3, 4, 16, 107, 115, 121, 134, 148, 150, 172, 173, 186–190 Sustainability, 199 Swidler, Ann, 36 Symbol, 3, 22, 25, 26, 61, 62, 65–68, 70, 82, 90, 106, 114, 186, 187, 224, 226–228 Sympathetic nervous system, 34 Synchronous interaction, 105, 106, 113, 115 Synchrony, 3, 14, 16, 49, 72, 128, 147, 173, 174, 188 T Tantra, 49, 53 Teacher affiliation, 171, 172, 186, 189, 190 Teaching practice, 58–60, 65, 66, 81–83, 135, 190 Temperature, body, 41, 42, 49 Temporal, 2, 12, 17, 22, 62, 66, 70, 91, 106, 107, 196 Thematic analysis, 91, 93, 94, 101 Time, 1, 2, 4, 9–12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 26, 36–38, 40, 42–44, 48, 50, 52, 57, 58, 60, 63, 65–69, 73, 76–81, 90, 98, 99, 101, 102, 107–110, 117–120, 122, 127, 135, 142–144, 146, 149, 151, 158, 161, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 181, 184, 185, 196, 197, 200–204, 206, 207, 214, 217, 218, 223, 228, 229 Tobin, Kenneth, 2–4, 11–13, 15–19, 23, 24, 31–53, 59, 62, 89, 91, 93, 99, 124, 134, 158, 172–174, 218

242

Tomas, Louisa, 22, 91, 133–153, 157–168, 197 Transformation, 2, 4, 12, 20, 32, 33, 43, 62, 89, 90, 101, 105–129, 145, 148, 185, 189, 201, 211, 218, 219, 222 Turner, Jonathan, 3, 5, 15, 16, 33, 43, 46, 63, 69, 83, 88, 89, 95, 161, 174, 187, 194, 195, 200, 211, 220, 229 TurningPointTM, 171, 176 Turn-taking, 173, 188 U Understanding, 2–5, 10–15, 17, 20–26, 32, 41–43, 49, 57, 62, 67, 74–76, 82, 83, 87–91, 94, 97, 101, 105–129, 134, 138, 143, 146, 148, 151–153, 157, 159, 164–167, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180, 182, 184–186, 195, 212, 218–220, 224, 227, 228, 230, 231 Undramatic emotional energy, 17, 23, 58, 66, 76, 107, 110, 120, 126, 127 University of Pennsylvania, 3 V Vagus nerve, 34, 38, 40, 41, 48, 49 van Manen, Max, 82, 90, 91, 93, 100, 219, 220, 223, 225, 230 Vicarious experiences, 217–230 Vygotsky, Lev, 5 W Wellness, 31, 34, 50, 52 Williams-Johnson, Meca, 5 Wisdom, 51, 52, 106