Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning (Springer Texts in Education) 3031421159, 9783031421150

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Springer Texts in Education

Sachiko Nakamura

Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning

Springer Texts in Education

Springer Texts in Education delivers high-quality instructional content for graduates and advanced graduates in all areas of Education and Educational Research. The textbook series is comprised of self-contained books with a broad and comprehensive coverage that are suitable for class as well as for individual self-study. All texts are authored by established experts in their fields and offer a solid methodological background, accompanied by pedagogical materials to serve students such as practical examples, exercises, case studies etc. Textbooks published in the Springer Texts in Education series are addressed to graduate and advanced graduate students, but also to researchers as important resources for their education, knowledge and teaching. Please contact Yoka Janssen at Yoka.Janssen@ springer.com or your regular editorial contact person for queries or to submit your book proposal.

Sachiko Nakamura

Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning

Sachiko Nakamura Center for English as a Lingua Franca Tamagawa University Machida, Tokyo, Japan

ISSN 2366-7672 ISSN 2366-7680 (electronic) Springer Texts in Education ISBN 978-3-031-42115-0 ISBN 978-3-031-42116-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42116-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgements

I am immensely grateful to Springer Nature for inviting me to contribute this book for Springer Texts in Education. I would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback and suggestions on the drafts of this book. My special thanks to the editors, Natalie Rieborn and Ambrose Berkumans, for their support and guidance in publishing this book and those who shared their valuable insights through the vignettes and interviews. Finally, I want to thank my family and friends for their love and continuous encouragement throughout the journey. The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this book.

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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Scope, Aims, and Intended Audience of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Background of the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 How to Engage with This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 4 5 5

2 Emotions in Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Conceptualizing Emotions Through Insights from Psychological Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Advancement in Emotion Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Current View of Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Conceptualizing Emotions Through Insights from Educational Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Circumplex Model of Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 State, Trait, and the Domain Specificity of Emotions . . . . . . 2.3.3 Discrete Emotions Significant in Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.4 Roles of Emotions in Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.5 Antecedents of Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Researching Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Looking into Emotions Through Vignettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Baloo’s Vignette of Shame to Pride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Abigail’ Vignette of Anxiety and Empathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.3 Yuki’s Vignette of Anger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.4 Coco’s Vignette of Fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Pedagogical Implications and Classroom Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.1 Building an Open, Trusted Student-Teacher Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.2 Being Mindful of Own Interpretations and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.3 Acknowledging All Types of Emotional Experiences as a Natural Part of the Learning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7 7 9 10 11 12 12 13 15 17 22 26 27 30 30 30 31 32 33 33 34 36 vii

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Contents

2.6.4 Recognizing the Impact of Peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36 37 37

3 Emotion Regulation and Emotion Regulation Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation Through Insights from Psychological Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Process Model of Emotion Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Types of Emotion Regulation Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Features of Emotion Regulation Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.4 Effects of Emotion Regulation Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation Through Insights from Educational Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Types of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Learning Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Roles of Emotion Regulation in Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Researching Emotion Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Looking into Emotion Regulation Through Vignettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 The Author’s Vignette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 Abigail’s Vignette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Pedagogical Implications and Classroom Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.1 Value Appraisal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.2 Control Appraisal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.3 Self-conditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6.4 Study Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 58 60 61 65 65 69 71 71 73 77 80 81 82

4 Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 4.2 Strategy Instruction Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 4.3 Analysis of Strategy Instruction Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 4.4 Self-regulated Learning Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.5 Moderators of the Effects of Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 4.6 Suggestions for Designing and Implementing Emotion Regulation Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 4.6.1 Suggestion 1: Strengthening Theoretical Foundation and Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 4.6.2 Suggestion 2: Building a Positive, Trusted Relationship Among Students and Teacher/Researcher . . . . 99 4.6.3 Suggestion 3: Understanding Students’ Emotions First . . . . 99 4.6.4 Suggestion 4: Focusing on Certain Emotions Based on a Well-Thought-Through Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 4.6.5 Suggestion 5: Suggesting Rather Than Instructing . . . . . . . . . 101

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4.6.6 Suggestion 6: Strategy Instruction as an Embedded or Separate Component of the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Examples of Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.1 Reappraisal Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.2 Boredom Regulation Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Behind the Scenes: Interview with Researchers and Teachers . . . . . 4.8.1 An Interview with Nakamura et al. (2021b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8.2 An Interview with Milliner and Dimoski (2022) . . . . . . . . . . 4.8.3 An Interview with Littleton (2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

102 103 103 109 116 117 119 121 122 123

5 Innovating Your Own Strategy Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Step 1: Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Undertaking Your Project as a Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Step 2: Designing Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Undertaking Your Project as a Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Step 3: Implementing Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 Undertaking Your Project as a Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Step 4: Evaluating Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 Undertaking Your Project as a Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Final Suggestions and Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

127 127 128 128 129 131 131 132 133 133 134 135 136 136 137 140

Abbreviations

AEQ CVT FLCAS L2 LLS PANAS SLA

The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire The control-value theory of achievement emotions The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale English as a second/foreign language Language learner strategies or language learning strategies The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Second language acquisition

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1

Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter lays out the aim and scope of this book to provide readers with a clear overview of what to expect in each chapter. It provides a list of objectives that this book aims to help readers achieve detailed descriptions of intended audience and short summaries of each chapter. The background of the author is briefly introduced. The chapter ends with suggestions for how to use this book. Keywords

Emotion • Emotion regulation • Strategy instruction • Innovation

1.1

Introduction

My classmate is about to finish her presentation. Next is my turn. Today in class we are supposed to present a short interview project as part of this course assignment. I hate speaking in front of people. I can feel my cold palms sweating. I can even hear my heart thumping. “Coco, it’s your turn.” My teacher smiles. I stand up and walk to the front. Oh gosh, I hope no one sees my legs shaking. I tell myself that I can do this because I have practiced many times. I start my presentation. My voice trembles. I look up and see some faces smiling, which makes me feel a bit better. I manage to finish my presentation. My classmates clap their hands. “Thank you,” I mumble and walk back to my desk. I sit on my chair with a deep sigh. What a relief. I also notice that I’m feeling pretty good about myself. “I did it,” I say to myself. Coco, Bangkok

A story like this is probably not uncommon in many classrooms. This story illustrates a range of emotions that Coco has experienced within one classroom activity:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Nakamura, Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning, Springer Texts in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42116-7_1

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1 Introduction

anxiety about speaking in front of the classmates, fear about not being able to perform well, empathy from peers, gratitude toward the support from her teacher and peers, relief from managing the presentation, a sense of pride about her work, to name a few. Students experience a wide range of emotions in the course of their studies, and these emotions have a profound impact on their learning and achievement (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015; Nakamura, 2018; Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014; Sampson, 2018; Schutz & Pekrun, 2007). For years, learner emotion had not been one of the major concerns in the field of education. For the past decade, however, research on emotions in learning has made substantial advancements. Emotions are now no longer a “fuzzy” concept that teachers intuitively deal with. Instead of sensing students’ boredom and trying to make the lesson more fun, for example, teachers can take approaches underpinned by theories and empirical evidence. Students too can learn how to use emotions as fuel for their learning and cope with those that affect their learning in an unhealthy manner. The remaining of this introductory chapter discusses the scope, aims, and intended audience of this book, its background including a brief introduction of the author, and suggestions for how to engage with this book for readers’ best benefit.

1.2

Scope, Aims, and Intended Audience of This Book

This book is written for graduate students, teachers, practitioners, early-career researchers, and those who are interested to learn more about student emotions and various ways to help them enhance their capacity to self-regulate emotions, i.e., emotion regulation. To this end, this book aims to help readers achieve the following: • To cultivate sufficient knowledge about the topics of emotions, emotion regulation, and emotion regulation strategy instruction from theories and research. • To deepen their understanding of the above topics by reading vignettes offered by teachers and students as well as reflecting on their own experiences. • To make better sense of what they encounter in their classes with regard to emotions (e.g., why students feel bored). • To develop ideas about what they can do to enhance learners’ positive emotional experiences. • To develop practical ideas and/or detailed plans to design and implement emotion regulation strategy instruction in the classroom. • To gain ideas about turning their ideas into research projects. As such, this book can be a useful resource for those who: • are interested in the topics of emotions, emotion regulation, or emotion regulation strategy instruction,

1.2 Scope, Aims, and Intended Audience of This Book

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• hope to get the best gist of insights into the above topics from various fields (without doing an in-depth literature review themselves), • want to find out ways to better understand their students’ emotional experiences, • keen to work with students’ emotions or emotion regulation but are not sure where to begin, • have some interest in emotion regulation strategies but are reluctant to implement strategy instruction in their teaching, believing that it requires too much work, • are looking for some examples of different methodologies to investigate learner emotions and emotion regulation, or • are interested in conducting a study on the topics of emotions, emotion regulation, or emotion regulation strategy instruction. This book is divided into five chapters, each of which covers one topic. Chapter 2 addresses emotions, including the conceptualization of emotions based on the insights from psychology-related fields and the discussion of learner emotions specific to learning contexts. Vignettes from learners and teachers offer different angles to further understand emotions in learning. The chapter ends with pedagogical implications, namely, suggestions and ideas for teachers to better work with students’ emotions in the classroom. Chapter 3 covers emotion regulation and emotion regulation strategies and follows the similar organization as that of Chap. 2, that is, beginning with a concise summary of theories and research from the psychology fields and shifting the discussion to learner emotion regulation and strategies used in academic contexts. Vignettes this time are used to offer readers opportunities to analyze different emotion regulation strategies introduced in the chapter. Pedagogical implications offered at the end are geared toward learners and introduce various science-based tools to optimize positive emotional experiences in their learning processes. Chapter 4 introduces strategy instruction as a venue to incorporate what readers have learned in Chaps. 2 and 3. Based on several widely adopted strategy instruction models, suggestions and ideas specific to emotion regulation strategy instruction are offered. Examples of classroom strategy instruction involving reappraisal and boredom regulation are provided to illustrate the points covered in the chapter. Interviews with researchers and teachers showcase behind the scenes of their research on emotion regulation and strategy instruction in order to further equip readers with knowledge and skills useful in embarking on their own projects. Chapter 5 is offered for those who are interested in implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction in the classroom, either as part of their classroom activities or a research project. A list of questions is designed to guide readers to generate various ideas for their project, choose the ones that are in line with their interest and suitable for their context. Reflective questions and suggested activities are inserted throughout the book, and they are designed to make readers think and engage with the newly cultivated knowledge so that it will be enriched and utilizable for various purposes. In other words, each chapter is organized in a way that first helps readers develop their theoretical and empirical knowledge of the topic and then reflect their own teaching while generating new ideas through

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1 Introduction

examples and reflective questions. Each chapter becomes a road map for laying out and executing their own innovations in a unique, contextualized manner.

1.3

Background of the Author

The focus of my research has long been the psychology of language learning. This originates in the beliefs and values that I developed as an English teacher. For 15 years, I have devoted myself as an instructor to helping learners of English as a second/foreign language (L2). While assisting learners with their wide range of backgrounds and goals, I came to recognize the significant roles that learners’ emotions played in their language learning experiences and outcomes. This led me as a language teacher and researcher to become deeply involved in learning more about psychology of language learning and searching for pedagogical means to support learners not only with their language learning but also but with affective areas. In doing so, one of the dilemmas I often experienced was the exclusiveness, or lack of information fluidity, across different research fields. Because I am an English teacher, I belong to the field of language learning and teaching, which I also refer to as second language acquisition (SLA) interchangeably in this book. Naturally, my learning of emotions, literature review to be more precise, started in this field. Soon I found out a whole new emotion theories/research tradition outside my field, i.e., the fields of general education and educational psychology, which was far more advanced than that of my field. Such reading and learning further led to works in other fields, e.g., affective science, neuroscience, quantum mechanics, which were filled with fascinating histories and new discoveries. Even more fascinatingly, my personal interest in biology and spirituality led me to discover that they have a lot to offer in understanding student emotions. It is true that certain phenomena involved in a discipline are unique to that discipline (e.g., anxiety evoked from speaking a foreign language with speakers of other languages), and therefore we cannot blanketly apply theories from other disciplines. However, this should not stop us from introducing, discussing, and sharing what is out there in other fields, especially when they have a great potential to enrich our knowledge and contribute to the advancement of our works. This was the driving force to write this book, which I was extremely fortunate to be invited to contribute for Springer Texts in Education. I have written this book in a way that it integrates all the useful resources from various fields and presents them in a concise manner so that busy readers can understand the topics relatively easily without traveling across the fields or being buried in theoretical articles and research papers. I have also written this book in a way that readers can resonate, link to their own experience and teaching/learning context, and make practical use of the contents covered in the book. As such, I discuss topics such as emotions, emotion regulation, and emotion regulation strategy instruction through insights from the fields of psychology, education, and second language learning and teaching, neuroscience, biology, and others while remaining to be clear about the sources and cautious about overgeneralizing them. I acknowledge that discussions and practical examples in this

References

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book are often centered around experiences of English language learners, due to the nature of my primary discipline; however, I also offer modifications and suggestions so that the topics can be applied to different disciplines.

1.4

How to Engage with This Book

Each chapter is written in a way that it can stand on its own, and thus, readers can skip or choose a particular chapter of their interest without having necessarily read from Chap. 2. However, it is recommended that readers start from Chap. 2 because the knowledge about emotions cultivated in Chap. 2 becomes the foundation aiding readers in understanding emotion regulation, covered in Chap. 3. Many of the arguments made about emotion regulation strategy instruction, covered in Chap. 4, will make sense when readers are equipped with sufficient insights into emotions and emotion regulation. This book (i.e., Chaps. 2 through 4) can be used as a resource to enrich the knowledge of topics and apply the knowledge into teaching. This book (i.e., the primary focus of Chap. 5) can also be used as a guidebook to plan and implement strategy instruction in the classroom and turn it into a study.

References Dörnyei, Z., & Ryan, S. (2015). The psychology of the language learner revisited. Taylor & Francis. Nakamura, S. (2018). How I see it: An exploratory study on attributions and emotions in L2 learning. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 8(3), 553–574. https://doi.org/10. 14746/ssllt.2018.8.3.2 Pekrun, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2014). International handbook of emotions in education. Routledge. Sampson, R. J. (2018). The feeling classroom: Diversity of feelings in instructed l2 learning. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 14(3), 203–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229. 2018.1553178 Schutz, P. A., & Pekrun, R. (2007). Emotion in education. Elsevier Gezondheidszorg.

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Emotions in Learning

Abstract

This chapter explains what emotions are as well as how one experiences emotions, based on theories in the fields of psychology and educational psychology. The first half of this chapter offers theoretical and empirical discussions on the topic and answers questions such as: • • • • •

What are “emotions”? What types of emotions exist? Which emotions are important in learning? Can emotions facilitate learning? Can emotions inhibit learning? Means to investigate emotions is then discussed, including popular research tools. The second half of the chapter is pedagogical, offering stories from students reflecting on their emotional experiences in relation to learning and ideas for classroom application.

2.1

Introduction

During the late twentieth century, a psychologist, Ekman (1992), proposed that there are six basic emotions that are universally experienced in all human cultures. They were anger, surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear, and sadness. Today lists of emotions available in the literature contain as many as 200–300 emotions, some of which are listed in Table 2.1.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Nakamura, Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning, Springer Texts in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42116-7_2

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8 Table 2.1 A list of selected emotions

2 Emotions in Learning

Enjoyment

Joy

Happiness

Sadness

Pride

Worry

Anxiety

Amusement

Fear

Contentment

Frustration

Guilt

Anger

Shame

Disgust

Embarrassment

Admiration

Calmness

Grief

Boredom

These are all called emotions. One important distinction to make, before going into a deeper discussion of emotions, is that emotions are, although we often articulate our emotional experiences as “I feel…,” different from feelings. Feelings differ from emotions in that they are purely mental, namely they are the subjective experience of emotions, which are typically evaluated as pleasant or unpleasant (LeDoux & Hofmann, 2018; Reeve, 2008; VandenBos, 2007; See, Damasio, 1995; Damasio & Carvalho, 2013; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007, for further conceptualization of the differences between emotions and feelings). A distinction between moods and emotions can be made in terms of their duration and intensity. Moods are generally longer-lasting and less intense than emotions (Dispenza, 2013; Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014; See, Tyng et al., 2017, for the discussion of differences from neuroscientific point of view). At the same time, this description should not be understood that all types of emotions are intense. Indeed, a range of intensity that a specific emotional experience typically entails is an important feature of emotions, which will be further discussed in Sect. 2.3.1. Perhaps, a more consensual view regarding the intensity would be that moods are far less specific (e.g., good, bad) than emotions. Then, what exactly is emotion? How and why do we experience different kinds of emotions, and in what way do we recognize them? These questions are addressed in the subsequent sections. Although the primary focus of this chapter is understanding emotions in the educational context, we will first conceptualizes emotions through insights from psychology fields as they are the foundation of educational research on emotions today. Then the chapter discusses emotions associated with learning, by identifying some of the important features of emotions, constructs (e.g., motivation, engagement) shown to be affected by or associated with emotions, and constructs (e.g., appraisal, goal orientation) shown to be the antecedents of emotions. The discussion then moves to researching emotions while reviewing some of the widely adopted research tools. This is followed by vignettes depicting learners’ emotional experiences. The chapter ends with a discussion of pedagogical implications and classroom application. Reflective questions and activities inserted throughout are design to deepen readers’ understanding of and generate further thoughts on the topics.

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Food for thought: Reflect on your classes for the last several weeks. Name all the emotions that you experienced during those classes. How many emotions can you name? Are there any patterns or trends that you can recognize (e.g., emotions that you repeatedly experience, emotions that are associated with specific classes/activities)?

2.2

Conceptualizing Emotions Through Insights from Psychological Fields

An inquiry into human emotions began to captivate psychologists’ minds in the late 19th, with Darwin’s (1872) inspirational publication, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. James (1884), Arnold (1960), Dewey (1894), Young (1943), Wundt (1987/1998), and Damasio (1995, 1999), are among those scholars who significantly contributed to the work on emotions. Numerous definitions of emotion were proposed during the late ninetieth to twentieth centuries, which is often described as the golden years of emotion research. At the same time, such definitions became so diverse that scholars began to claim that emotion was impossible to be defined (English & English, 1958; Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981). Notable advancements to resolve this problem were made by psychologists who proposed a categorization of the varying emotion definitions (For details, see, Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981). Table 2.2 summarizes one such classification developed by Kleinginna and Kleinginna (1981). They complied emotion definitions and statements from psychological dictionaries and texts on emotion, motivation, physiological psychology, and introductory psychology, and classified them based on the primary characteristics of emotion emphasized in the definitions. Based on this review, Kleinginna and Kleinginna (1981) concluded that: [S]ince psychologists cannot agree on many distinguishing characteristics of emotion, we suggest, for the time being, a definition that emphasizes the many possible aspects of emotion. As a working model, we propose the following definition: Emotion is a complex set of interactions among subjective and objective factors, mediated by neural/hormonal systems, which can (a) give rise to affective experiences such as feelings of arousal, pleasure/displeasure; (b) generate cognitive processes such as emotionally relevant perceptual effects, appraisals, labeling processes; (c) activate widespread physiological adjustments to the arousing conditions; and (d) lead to behavior that is often, but not always, expressive, goal-directed, and adaptive.

Although their proposed definition was “for the time being,” a number of aspects discussed in their definition, as well as the ones in the categories, are argued to be the important characteristics of emotions today (see Sect. 2.3). At the same time, subsequent advancement in the scientific study of emotions called some of

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Table 2.2 Grouped definitions of emotions Category

A brief explanation of the definitions

Affective

Definitions put primary emphasis on the subjective experience of emotion, i.e., feelings of arousal level and of pleasure/displeasure

Cognitive

Definitions emphasize perceptual aspects of emotion, i.e., with arousal occurring, individuals engage in various types of cognitive-emotional activities, such as sensing emotional stimuli and responses, appraising the experience, labeling the emotion, and planning to deal with the emotional situation

External emotional stimuli

Definitions emphasize external triggers of emotion, i.e., emotions are triggered by external factors

Physiological

Definitions emphasize the dependence of emotions on biological mechanisms, e.g., changes in effector organs and innervation from the autonomic nervous system

Emotional/expressive behavior

Definitions emphasize externally observable emotional responses, e.g., changes in breathing, vocal, surface skeletal muscles, or exocrine gland secretions

Disruptive

Definitions emphasize the disorganizing and dysfunctional effects of emotion

Adaptive

Definitions emphasize the organizing and functional effects of emotion

Multi-aspect

Definitions emphasize several components of emotion, including affective, cognitive, physiological, and expressive behavior

Restrictive

Definitions emphasize distinctions between emotion and other affective components, e.g., motivation

Motivational

Definitions emphasize the overlap between emotion and motivation, i.e., emotion energizes motive systems

the views into doubt. As a detailed historical account of emotion research in psychology fields is beyond the scope of this book (For a brief history of theories of emotions, see, e.g., Barrett & Satpute, 2019), the next section summarizes three of the major research findings that challenged these original works and in turn advanced the understanding of emotions.

2.2.1

Advancement in Emotion Research

One of the most significant research findings that challenged the historical views of emotions was offered by neuroscience research, which indicated invalidation of the physiological approach to emotions that believed emotions were caused by emotion process localized to specific brain regions. Research findings consistently showed that emotions do not correspond to a specific swath of brain tissue, neurocircuits, or functional brain activity (Barrett & Satpute, 2013; Barrett et al., 2007a,

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2007b; Guillory & Bujarski, 2014; Lindquist et al., 2012). In a somewhat similar vein, the expressive behavior approach to emotions hypothesizing that there were objective physiological signatures for individual emotion kind was also questioned for its validity. Ample research evidence was presented to show that emotions are not associated with consistent and specific peripheral physiological responses, facial muscle movements, or vocal patterns (Barrett, 2006; Mauss & Robinson, 2009; Russell et al., 2003). These findings also indicated that emotions are not measurable discrete packages of bodily, facial, and behavioral outputs (Lindquist, 2013). Finally, the theories postulating that emotions are triggered by external factors were challenged for their validity through a proposition of a new—and perhaps the most prominent to date—framework to understand emotions based on neuro and affective science research, which is further reviewed in the next section.

2.2.2

Current View of Emotions

The field of psychology is currently experiencing a surge in psychological constructionist models of emotion. Lisa Feldman Barrett as the leading researcher of this movement, psychological constructionist models, unlike the classical models summarized in the previous section, draws on neuroscientific findings for generating and testing hypotheses and demonstrate rigorous empirical validations of the hypotheses (Barrett et al., 2007a, 2007b; Gendron et al., 2012; Kirkland & Cunningham, 2012). While slight variations exist among psychological constructionist researchers, one of their key arguments is that emotions are not caused by dedicated mechanisms or mental states such as cognition or perception, hence unique in form or function (Barrett & Satpute, 2019; Gross & Barrett, 2011). In psychological constructionist models, emotions are defined as psychical compounds, or so-called mental events, that are constructed in the mind of an individual by making internal sensations and external sensations meaningful while reinstating prior experiences that are similar to the present context (Barrett, 2016; Gendron & Barrett, 2009; Hoemann et al., 2019; Lindquist, 2013). In other words, it is the individuals who put a label on the psychical compound, using emotion words, such as anxiety, excitement, fear, and so on. This also implies the importance of the language and culture that come into play in the emotional experiences and articulation of them (see, e.g., Gendron et al., 2012; Hoemann et al., 2019; Lindquist, 2013, for more discussion on this subject). A further discussion on languages and emotions is provided in Sect. 2.4. Another notable movement in recent years that has been facilitated by researchers in the field of affective neuroscience is the introduction of neuroscientific approach to emotions and learning (Gotlieb et al., 2022; Immordino-Yang, 2015; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). Immordino-Yang, for example, highlights the profound impact of emotions on a range of cognitive variables, such as memory, attention, and learning, and encourages interdisciplinary collaborations across fields of neuroscience, psychology, and education (Immordino-Yang, 2015; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007).

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Conceptualizing Emotions Through Insights from Educational Fields

In the field of education, emotions had long been a neglected area of research except for anxiety (e.g., language learning anxiety, test anxiety, mathematics anxiety). It was the late 1900s to early 2000s when the significance of emotions experienced by students at school began to be recognized. Reinhard Pekrun and his research team were the major contributors to this movement (Pekrun, 1992, 2000; Pekrun & Hofmann, 1999; Pekrun et al., 1999, 2002a, b). Their view of emotions, together with the control-value theory of achievement emotions (CVT), proposed by Pekrun in 2006, became the most predominantly adopted approach to conceptualizing emotions in educational contexts. In line with the definition of emotions by Kleinginna and Kleinginna (1981), reviewed in Sect. 2.2, the theory views emotions as multifaceted phenomena involving affective, cognitive, physiological, motivational, and expressive processes (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). For example, the experience of anxiety before giving a classroom presentation could involve these dimensions in the following way: uneasy feeling (affective), worries about what might go wrong (cognitive), dry mouth (physiological), wishes to run away (motivational), and nervous smile (expressive). It is important to note however, as reviewed in Sect. 2.2.1, that these dimensions are not necessarily always present and that they should not be viewed as universal phenomena for each emotion type (e.g., the experience of anxiety always involves an expressive component). This recognition is particularly important in researching emotions, e.g., designing and/or choosing instruments to measure emotions, which is discussed further in Sect. 2.4. The remaining section will look at two more features of emotions that are fundamental in deepening the knowledge of emotions associated with learning.

2.3.1

Circumplex Model of Emotions

A set of characteristics useful in defining emotions is their valence and activation based on the circumplex model of affect (Barrett & Russell, 1998; Linnenbrink, 2007; Russell, 1980). The model was originally developed by Russell and Barret (Barrett & Russell, 1998; Russell, 1980) to depict affective states consisting of emotions and moods. Based on this model, each emotion can be defined based on the intersecting dimensions of valence (pleasant vs unpleasant) and activation (activating vs deactivating), as illustrated in Fig. 2.1. Emotions such as boredom,1 disappointment, and sadness can be characterized as unpleasant, deactivating emotions; emotions such as enjoyment and joy can be characterized as

1

It should be noted that there has been an ongoing debate on the characterization of boredom as a high arousal state. Some researchers argue that boredom involves both high and low arousal experience because experiencing boredom involves feelings of frustration and aggression (Danckert et al., 2018; Eastwood et al., 2012; Fahlman et al., 2011).

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Fig. 2.1 Circumplex model of affect

pleasant, activating emotions. Examples of pleasant, deactivating emotions are relaxation, contentment, and relief. Examples of unpleasant, activating emotions include anxiety, anger, and frustration. It is generally understood that positive activating emotions play a positive role in learning, which we will come back to in Sect. 2.3.4. Adapted with permission from Linnenbrink (2007). The role of affect in student learning: A multidimensional approach to considering the interaction of affect, motivation, and engagement. In P. A. Schutz & R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in education (pp. 107–124). San Diego, CA: Elsevier. Copyright 2007 by Elsevier.

2.3.2

State, Trait, and the Domain Specificity of Emotions

Another feature of emotions important to be recognized in conceptualizing emotions in learning is their state and trait characteristics. Emotions can be described as state-like when they are experienced in relation to a specific event (e.g., anxiety when being called on by the teacher to give an answer to a question in class) or other situational variables (e.g., enjoyment while engaging in pair-work with a friendly classmate). At the same time, individuals can have a dispositional tendency to experience certain emotions, such as being generally relaxed or easily getting angry. These emotions are described as trait-like, and some scholars conceptualize this as a personality trait (Pekrun et al., 2014). Emotions that students repeatedly experience in a specific academic domain are also categorized in this group. For instance, you as a teacher might recognize students who always show curiosity toward your lesson contents or those who always appear indifferent or

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even bored in class. These students could have different tendencies while studying in another academic domain. Such tendencies could be attributed to a range of individual variables, including students’ perceived value in learning the subject, interest, and goal orientations (see e.g., Bong, 2001; Goetz et al., 2006a, 2006b; Pekrun, 2006, for more empirical discussions on this topic). To further illustrate the domain specificity of emotions, below are the definitions of three types of anxiety, the extensively studied emotion across disciplines: text anxiety, language learning anxiety, and mathematics anxiety. Test anxiety Test anxiety refers to “the set of phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses that accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure in an evaluative situation” and is “typically evoked in educational settings when a student believes that his/her intellectual, motivational, and social capabilities and capacities are taxed or exceeded by demands stemming from the test situation” (Zeidner, 2007, p. 166). Language learning anxiety Language learning anxiety “encompasses the feelings of worry and negative, fearrelated emotions associated with learning or using a language that is not an individual’s mother tongue. The term covers language being learned in locations where intergroup contact is available (so-called ‘second’ language) or not available (so-called ‘foreign’ language) and also covers various language skills (especially speaking, but also reading, writing, and comprehension)” (MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2021, p. 103). Mathematics anxiety Mathematics anxiety “involves feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and academic situations” (Richardson & Suinn, 1972, p. 551), which consists of “negative cognition (i.e., worry) and negative affect (i.e., negative emotions and physiological reactions)” (Namkung et al., 2019, p. 465). In relation to the domain specificity of emotions, it is noteworthy that a contextdependent nature of emotions is increasingly depicted in the field of language learning (Nakamura et al., 2021a, 2021b, 2022; Ryan, 2020; Toth, 2010). For example, while there are large overlaps among findings reported as the antecedents of boredom, many of the reasons are uniquely characterized by contextual factors, e.g., a particular group of students’ expectations, online study environments (Kruk, 2016; Nakamura et al., 2021b; Zawodniak et al., 2017).

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Suggested activities: So far we have reviewed different theoretical views on emotions. Select one or two research articles investigating emotions in your subject area. Read them through and analyze the studies with the following questions: • In which theories are the studies grounded and what are the rationales for selecting the theories? • Would their findings have been different if they had adopted different theoretical frameworks?

2.3.3

Discrete Emotions Significant in Learning

Despite a wide range of emotions that learners could experience, anxiety had long been the only emotion that received attention in research in the educational context. However, any teacher would intuitively know that students do experience various emotions, and not just anxiety. At the same time, it might be challenging to pinpoint which emotions students experience more frequently, let alone those that have a meaningful impact on learning. This exact issue was addressed by Pekrun and his colleagues through a proposition of academic emotions and CVT reviewed in Sect. 2.3. Based on the extensive review of emotions that appeared in the educational literature as well as a series of qualitative and quantitative exploratory studies, Pekrun and his colleagues narrowed the wide range of emotions available in the field of psychology down to several, termed as academic emotions (Pekrun et al., 2002a, b). Academic emotions are emotions that “are directly linked to academic learning, classroom instruction, and achievement” (Pekrun et al. 2002a, b, p. 92). These emotions are typically discussed based on four categories (Boekaerts & Pekrun, 2015; Pekrun, 2000; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012; Pekrun et al., 2011), as summarized in Table 2.3. Achievement emotions are emotions that are tied to achievement activities or their outcomes. As such, an emotion can be defined as an achievement emotion if it “relates to an activity or outcome of an activity which is evaluated by the subject according to some external or internal standard of quality” (Pekrun, 2000, p. 145). Examples of activity-related achievement emotions include enjoyment, boredom, frustration, and anger. For example, a student can experience enjoyment in performing a communicative task with engaging classmates, boredom in completing a monotonous exercise, or frustration and anger in dealing with a difficult task. The outcome-related achievement emotions can further be characterized as prospective and anticipatory (e.g., hope, anxiety) or retrospective (e.g., pride, shame). For example, a student can experience anxiety about possible poor performance or hope for success in the coming task. The student can also experience pride or shame upon the feedback given after completing the task.

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Table 2.3 Groups of academic emotions Group

Description

Emotion

Achievement emotions

Students experience these emotions in relation to achievement activities (i.e., learning) or achievement outcomes (i.e., success and failure)

Enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom

Epistemic emotions

Students experience these emotions while performing knowledge-generating cognitive tasks

Curiosity, surprise, delight confusion, frustration, and boredom

Topic emotions

Students experience these emotions in relation to topics presented in learning material

Anxiety, disgust, enjoyment, empathy

Social emotions

Students experience these emotions in association with teachers and peers

Love, sympathy, compassion, admiration, gratitude, contempt, envy, anger, anxiety

Epistemic emotions “relate to the knowledge-generating qualities of cognitive tasks and activities” (Pekrun et al., 2016, p. 2). As such, the objects of epistemic emotions are knowledge and the generation of knowledge, which makes this group of emotions different from achievement emotions whose objects are success and failure. Examples of positive epistemic emotions include curiosity, surprise, and delight while negative ones include confusion, frustration, and boredom. Among them, curiosity and confusion are by nature object focus (e.g., students feel curious about or confused with an information discrepancy) while others can be experienced as achievement emotions during cognitive tasks. For example, Pekrun and Stephens (2012) explain that a student’s frustration at not being able to reach a solution to a problem in a task can be regarded as an epistemic emotion if the focus is on the cognitive incongruity while it is regarded as achievement emotion if the focus is on the incapability of solving the problem or personal failure. Emotions that students experience with regards to the contents of learning material can be grouped as topic emotions. They include anxiety, disgust, enjoyment, and empathy. For example, students may feel empathy toward a character in a story and anxiety when the character deals with difficult situations. Topic emotions are suggested to influence students’ interest and motivation and in turn affect their engagement (Ainley, 2007; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). Social emotions are groups of emotions that students experience toward/with their peers and teachers. Examples of positive social emotions are love, sympathy, compassion, admiration, contempt, and gratitude; examples of negative ones are envy, anger, and anxiety. In contrast to traditional teacher-centered classroom approaches, collaborative learning is receiving increasing attention in various educational settings. This is particularly the case for language learning. Students are instructed to work with peers in completing communicative tasks and projects. This indicates an increase in the frequency of experiencing these emotions as well as critical roles that these emotions can play during such types of learning contexts.

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Food for thought: This section introduced various emotions and their associated groups. Which of these emotions are most significant to you as a teacher, student, or researcher and why? If you are already researching emotions, explain on which emotions your research focuses and why you made that decision when you first embarked on your projects. If you are those interested in investigating emotions in the future, which emotions will you investigate and what are the rationale behind the selection?

2.3.4

Roles of Emotions in Learning

The above-reviewed emotions play a profound role in learning. In the literature, it might be often the case that negative emotions such as anxiety and boredom are by and large discussed for their negative impacts (e.g., poor task performance and disengagement from learning) and that positive emotions such as enjoyment and pride are discussed for their positive association with learning (e.g., greater effort and engagement in learning). However, such information in the literature should not be taken into a misconception that all positive emotions are always beneficial for learning and all negative emotions are always detrimental to learning. Indeed, some scholars both in and outside educational contexts argue against this valencebased approach to understanding the roles of emotions (Boekaerts & Pekrun, 2015; Lerner & Keltner, 2000; Pekrun, 2006; Solomon & Stone, 2002; Zeelenberg et al., 2007). For example, Solomon and Stone (2002, p. 431) in their review article contend that analyzing emotions in terms of valence “serves no purpose but confusion and perpetuates the worst old stereotypes about emotion.” Boekaerts and Pekrun (2015) and Pekrun (2006) too acknowledge this issue and highlight the importance of attending to the activation dimension in the analysis of emotion roles in education. These claims should further be supported by empirical findings showing a wide range of both positive and negative effects of negative emotions. One such example is anger. In emotion literature, anger, which can be categorized as an unpleasant, activating emotion, is often viewed as a complex emotion that “involves both displeasure at undesirable outcomes and disapproval of the blameworthy actions that caused them” (Clore & Huntsinger, 2009, p. 46). As such, anger is argued to convey the message to the individuals who are experiencing the emotion that their perspective is positive, and as a result, the individuals often experience a sense of confidence in their viewpoint and motivation to take action accordingly (Clore & Huntsinger, 2009; Lerner & Tiedens, 2006). In educational contexts, anger, while its negative effect (e.g., production of task-irrelevant thinking) is acknowledged, is argued to generate motivation to exert effort to avoid failure (Boekaerts & Pekrun, 2015). Anxiety is another example of negative emotions with mixed discussions on

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the positive and negative effects. Studies have generally shown detrimental effects of anxiety, such as on language learning, self-efficacy, and autonomy (Dewaele, 2007; Hewitt & Stephenson, 2011; Jin et al., 2015; Marcos-LIinas & Garau, 2009; Phillips, 1992; Ushioda, 2012; Woodrow, 2006; Yan & Horwitz, 2008). However, some scholars suggest its facilitative effects (Chastain, 1975; Ellis, 2012; Kleinmann, 1977; Scovel, 1978) such as the promotion of extrinsic motivation and rigorous learning strategy use, which could result in a positive learning outcome in a long term (Pekrun, 2006). Conversely, relaxation and contentment are examples of positive emotions discussed with mixed effects. For example, Pekrun et al. (2017a) argue that relaxed contentment resulting from success could hinder immediate motivation to reengage with learning but facilitate long-term motivation to study. One factor that distinguishes positive emotions with mixed effects from positive emotions with positive effects is their activation dimension. Enjoyment, which is by and large associated with positive roles in learning, is positive, activating emotion, whereas relaxation and contentment are positive but deactivating emotions. Taken all together, it is important to, when evaluating the effects of emotions, consider activation dimension—and not just valence—as well as to acknowledge that each discrete emotion plays different roles. Now the caution against oversimplifying the findings of emotion roles in learning has been highlighted, the remaining section reviews five constructs often argued for their association with emotions. Well-being Of any constructs relevant in education, students’ well-being should receive the highest value and importance. Individual students’ well-being, that is, “a state of happiness and contentment, with low levels of distress, overall good physical and mental health and outlook, or good quality of life” (APA dictionary of psychology, n.d.) is the foundation of everyday-life activities, including learning, and emotions can play significant role in this state, particularly those experienced repeatedly. Imagine a student continuously being made incompetent while attending a particular course, perhaps because of an inappropriate course level, an unprofessional teacher providing feedback that damages the student’s self-concept, or peers showing superiorities in their skills. One can easily imagine a whole range of negative emotions that this student has to go through for a semester, such as disappointment and sadness in his/herself, anger toward the teacher and/or peers, worries and anxiety about exams, assignments, and final grade, all of which having a profound negative effect on other areas of the student’s life, including physical and mental health. While this is an extreme scenario, recent research has continuously demonstrated a negative impact of negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, shame, anger, boredom, hopelessness, disappointment, and hatred, depression) on student wellbeing (Geng et al., 2020; Rezapour et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2017). The opposite link, namely a positive correlation between positive emotions and well-being, has also been suggested in the literature. While it is still relatively a new research domain, growing research informed by positive psychology, “the scientific study of what goes right in life” (Peterson, 2006, p. 4), and the broaden-and-build theory

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of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) is providing empirical evidence that positive emotions contribute to psychological and physical well-being (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002; Gloria et al., 2012; Lyubomirsky et al., 2011; Tugade et al., 2004). For instance, Fredrickson and Joiner (2002) tested the theory that positive emotions broaden the scopes of attention and cognition, and, in turn, initiate upward spirals toward increasing emotional well-being by surveying 138 college students at two time points five weeks apart. Their findings showed empirical support for this prediction. Conversely, student well-being can influence the types of emotions students experience while learning. For example, in a study by Nakamura et al. (2021a) that investigated the reasons for students experiencing boredom in the classroom, physical fatigue was one of the causes most frequently reported by the students. In interviews and surveys, students explained that they had attended the class without sufficient sleep the previous night due to assignments and projects from other classes and that it had caused them trouble focusing, missing instructions, feeling bored, and choosing to disengage from the learning. Another type of negative emotion, anger, is also suggested to be induced when students perceive threats to their well-being (Pekrun et al., 2017b). For example, students may feel anger toward their teacher who assign them an overwhelming volume of complex tasks that negatively impact their well-being, such as deprivation of sleep and quality time with friends and families, together with increased stress levels. Resilience is another construct often studied in relation to well-being. Resilience can be broadly understood as “positive adaptation, or the ability to maintain or regain mental health, despite experiencing adversity” (Herrman et al., 2011, p. 258). In academic contexts, different terms are used, such as motivational resilience, which involves the process in which “students bounce back from academic difficulties and problems and re-engage with the challenging material” (Skinner et al., 2014, p. 337) or academic buoyancy, which refers to the capacity to handle difficulties and challenges in school (Skinner & Pitzer, 2012). Empirical evidence is providing support for the notion that positive emotions could fuel resilience. For example, Gloria and Steinhardt (2014) studied 200 postdoctoral researchers and found a statistically significant relationship between resilience and positive emotions measured through the modified differential emotions scale (Fredrickson et al., 2003) designed to tap into sets of positive (e.g., amused, funloving, silly) and negative emotions (e.g., angry, irritated, annoyed). The study also found that resilience moderated the effect of stress on trait anxiety and depressive symptoms. Motivation Motivation is one of the constructs most widely discussed for its relation to emotions. While varying definitions exist, motivation in this chapter refers to goal orientation, that is, learners’ perceptions about the reasons why they are engaging in learning activities (Pintrich et al., 1991). Such goal orientations can be described as intrinsic (i.e., intrinsic motivation) when their reasons are based on interest, curiosity, and/or mastery. In other words, learners with intrinsic motivation

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engage in a learning activity for its own sake. Conversely, goal orientations can be described as extrinsic (i.e., extrinsic motivation) when the reasons in engaging in a certain activity are about attaining outcomes, such as grades, rewards, evaluation by others, and competition (Pekrun et al., 2017a; Pintrich et al., 1991). Theoretically, the following links between emotions and motivation are postulated (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun et al., 2016, 2017a). First, positive activating emotions (e.g., enjoyment, pride, hope) facilitate both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Second, positive deactivating emotions (e.g., relaxation, relief, contentment) reduce immediate motivation but strengthen long-term motivation. Third, negative deactivating emotions (e.g., boredom, hopelessness) undermine both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Fourth, negative activating emotions (anger, shame, anxiety) reduce intrinsic motivation but induce strong extrinsic motivation to make effort to avoid failure. Empirical findings are by and large in support of these claims (Ganotice et al., 2016; Nakamura, 2018; Pekrun et al., 2011). For example, in a study by Nakamura (2018), adult Japanese learners of English as a foreign language reported an increased level of motivation, at the end of a course, to learn and improve their English skills, and one of the most frequently reported reasons were a wide range of positive emotions that they experienced while participating in the course. In a similar vein, emotions are shown to affect decision making (Finucane et al., 2003; Lerner et al., 2004; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012; Zeelenberg et al., 2007). Zeelenberg et al. (2007) account for this effect based on the association between emotion and motivation, which they coin “feeling-is-for-doing approach” (p. 186). This approach views that individuals experience emotions when events and/or outcomes are related to their concerns or preferences, and thus the emotions make the individual, the decision maker, inclined toward behavior that most adequately serves their strivings. In other words, emotions can act as “programs for intuitive decision making” (p. 186). Engagement Engagement describes a state of heightened attention and involvement in learning (Philp & Duchesne, 2016). It is a multifaceted construct involving behavioral (i.e., what students do), cognitive (i.e., how they think), social (i.e., how they interact with others), and affective (i.e., how they feel) dimensions (Reinders & Nakamura, 2021). There has been an increasing recognition that emotional experiences are a crucial part of engagement. More specifically, positive activating emotions such as enjoyment, excitement, and curiosity, are said to be experienced when students are actively engaged in learning (Reeve, 2012; Skinner et al., 2008). Conversely, the experience of negative activating and negative deactivating emotions such as boredom, anger, frustration, fear, and anxiety, can be a sign of disengagement (Reeve, 2012). While this conceptualization views the presence of emotions as the affective dimension of engagement, some scholars argue that emotions affect engagement, indicating directionality (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014). It

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should also be noted that the term, participation, is used to denote engagement in some literature. Empirical findings are by and large in support of this link between emotions and engagement, whether it is correlational or directional (Ganotice et al., 2016; Linnenbrink, 2007; Linnenbrink-Garcia et al., 2011; Nakamura et al., 2020; Phung et al., 2020). For example, in a study by Nakamura et al. (2020), learners in an English class reported higher levels of enjoyment while performing a task in which they demonstrated greater engagement, as opposed to a task that produced less task engagement. A study by Ganotice et al. (2016) showed that students in a mathematics class whose emotional profile consisted of high levels of positive academic emotions (i.e., enjoyment, pride, and hope) and low levels of negative academic emotions (i.e., anxiety, boredom, anger, and hopelessness) exhibited the high engagement variables (i.e., university intention, school valuing, affect to school). Related to the behavioral dimension of engagement, effort is another construct shown to have a meaningful linkage with emotions. For example, studies have shown that negative activating and deactivating emotions, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom, negatively relate to students’ overall effort in learning whereas positive activating emotions, enjoyment, hope, and pride, positively relate to effort (Pekrun et al., 2011; Pekrun et al., 2002a, b). Another construct somehow related to the cognitive aspect of engagement might be the effect of positive emotions on thinking. Fredrickson (2001), in proposing the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, posits that positive emotions, by broadening scopes of attention and cognition, promote flexible and creative thinking, which in turn helps individuals to better cope with problems. Memory Although more studies need to be conducted to confirm this link in educational contexts, numerous studies across fields have shown that emotions influence memory retention and recall (Anderson & Shimamura, 2005; Blake et al., 2001; Kensinger & Corkin, 2003; Phelps, 2004). Recognizing this, educational scholars are increasingly suggesting implications for education (Kuhbandner & Pekrun, 2013; Pekrun et al., 2017a; Tyng et al., 2017; Vogel & Schwabe, 2016). Pekrun et al. (2017a), for example, discuss the emotional impact on memory through a framework termed, mood-congruent recall. Mood-congruent recall refers to the facilitated encoding of information that is congruent with mood (Nouchi & Hyodo, 2007). It is assumed that “mood state influences memory by semantically priming content that is congruent with the mood, which in turn leads to selective retrieval of mood-congruent information” (Sakaki, 2007, p. 422). In an educational context, this information could be about learners themselves, learning material, tasks, or peers. When students come to a positive state through the experience of positive emotions, for example, this positive state can facilitate recalling positive things about themselves such as their strengths and achievements as well as positive learning experiences. This could further improve their motivation about and attitudes toward furthering their learning. Based on a mood-congruent recall model, it can

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also be assumed that students pay more attention to the material that matches their mood—whether positive or negative—that they encounter in class, resulting in remembering more of that particular information. Another factor affecting memory that is worth noting is stress, albeit stress is not an emotion (Joëls et al., 2006, 2011; Schwabe et al., 2012; Vogel & Schwabe, 2016). Vogel and Schwabe (2016) review decades of research on stress, hormones, and neurotransmitters and discuss its educational implications as follows. Stress can facilitate or impair memory depending on the timing of the stress during the learning process consisting of encoding, consolidating, retrieving, and updating new information. Stress shortly before and after encoding, namely, being presented with new information, generally enhances subsequent memory performance. Conversely, stress long before encoding hinders memory formation. Stress before memory retrieval also negatively affects the recall of previously learned information, which could further impair the integration of new knowledge into the current one. Academic achievement and learning The reciprocal linkage between emotions and the learner variables reviewed above indicates a critical relationship between emotions and learning overall. In fact, studies have shown significant links between emotions and learning variables typically operationalized through GPA, course grades, and test scores. While the majority of these studies are cross-sectional, indicating correlations between emotions and these learning variables, some studies attempted to explain cause-effect relations by employing longitudinal designs (Ahmed et al., 2013; Artino et al., 2010; Pekrun et al., 2014, 2017a). For example, Pekrun et al. (2014) tested a reciprocal effect of emotions and achievement in mathematics by measuring 3425 German students’ emotions (i.e., enjoyment, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, boredom, and hopelessness) and achievement (i.e., test scores and grades) at five time points. Their structural equation modeling showed that enjoyment and pride positively predicted subsequent achievement and that achievement positively predicted these emotions. It also showed that anger, anxiety, shame, boredom, and hopelessness negatively predicted subsequent achievement and that achievement negatively predicted these emotions.

2.3.5

Antecedents of Emotions

The above-reviewed research depicting the significant roles of emotions in learning may urge teachers and researchers to immediately apply the knowledge into practice, such as designing activities to promote positive emotions or interventions to reduce unwelcomed emotions. Before proceeding to such applications, however, there is another crucial aspect to be learned about learner emotions: antecedents. An antecedent can be understood as “an environmental event, situation, condition, or stimulus which increases or decreases the likelihood of target behavior and/

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or its precursors” (LaVigna & Willis, 1997, p. 1). This section reviews two constructs as the antecedents of emotions in educational context that are theoretically grounded and empirically supported. Appraisal As reviewed in Sect. 2.2.2, the most prominent approach to understanding how individuals experience emotions is offered by psychological constructionist models, according to which emotions are mental events that are created in the mind of an individual to fit a certain situation by making internal sensations and external sensations meaningful (Barrett, 2016; Gendron & Barrett, 2009; Hoemann et al., 2019; Lindquist, 2013). This indicates that how an individual appraises the event plays a major role in deciding what emotions to be recognized and experienced by the individual. Indeed, the notion of appraisals as the antecedents of emotions is proposed by CVT (Pekrun, 2006). CVT postulates that two types of appraisals, subjective control and subjective value, are the proximal antecedents of achievement emotions. Subjective control refers to the perceived controllability of actions (i.e., action control expectancy) and outcomes (i.e., outcome control expectancy). To illustrate the action control at the task level, learners can experience low subjective control when task demands exceed their capabilities. Learners can perceive adequate or high control when they can perform a task successfully, but such control can become too high when the task is too easy. For the outcome control, learners can perceive high outcome control when they believe that their effort results in a positive outcome. The second type of appraisal, subjective value, refers to the perceived value of actions, activities, and outcomes. Such value includes the perceived usefulness of a learning task for the attainment of goals or the importance of successfully completing it. Different types of appraisals are suggested to influence the experience of emotions. For example, enjoyment, as an activityrelated achievement emotion, can be experienced when students perceive the task as meaningful and themselves as capable of performing it. With the same task, however, boredom can be experienced if the task is perceived as unimportant, too difficult, or too easy. For outcome-related emotions, frustration or helplessness might be experienced when students observe that they are not getting the desired outcome regardless of the effort that they have exerted. Growing research guided by CVT continues to find evidence in support of this link between appraisals achievement emotions (Ganotice et al., 2016; Goetz et al., 2006a; Nakamura et al., 2021a, 2021b; Pekrun et al., 2011; Sánchez Rosas, 2015). Goal orientation Goal orientation is another construct believed to influence emotional experiences, an account offered by the achievement goal theory (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Linnenbrink, 2007; Linnenbrink-Garcia & Barger, 2014). Goal orientation can be broadly defined as learners’ perceptions about the reasons why they are engaging in learning activities (Pintrich, 2000). According to the achievement goal theory, goal orientations are primarily be described as mastery and performance. Students with a mastery goal orientation are focused on developing their competence,

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valuing self-improvement and learning. As such, they tend to attribute insufficient progress to the lack of their effort rather than to their inability. Such goal orientation can increase the likelihood of experiencing positive activating emotions such as joy and decrease the likelihood of experiencing negative emotions such as anxiety, shame, or guilt in the process of moving toward mastery-focused goals. Students with a performance goal orientation are focused on demonstrating their competence, typically in comparison to others, and thus use normative standards when evaluating their progress (Linnenbrink-Garcia & Barger, 2014). Such goal orientation can increase the likelihood of experiencing negative deactivating emotions, such as sadness and depression, and negative activating emotions, such as anxiety and frustration, in the process of achieving performance-focused goals. With a perception that sufficient progress has been made to demonstrate competence, it is possible to experience positive activating emotions such as pride. Empirical findings are in support of this theory (Huang, 2011; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002; Pekrun et al., 2006). Several important points should be noted in relation to emotion antecedents. First, in addition to appraisals and goal orientations reviewed above, empirical studies on the antecedents of learner emotions have reported various factors, which are typically related to teachers, peers, and lessons/tasks (Daschmann et al., 2014; Khajavy et al., 2018; Kruk, 2016; Nakamura, 2018; Nakamura et al., 2021a, 2022; Pekrun et al., 2014). Teacher-related factors include instructional style (e.g., authoritative, facilitative), specific classroom practice (e.g., adequate scaffolding, clarity of learning objectives, types of feedback provided), and even teachers’ emotions (e.g., enjoyment in teaching) and engagement. Such effects can be immediate (e.g., teacher’s insufficient explanation leading to students’ confusion or frustration) as well as long-term (e.g., teacher’s instructional style creating a safe, positive learning atmosphere wherein students tend to feel lower levels of anxiety). With a growing movement to promote collaborative learning, peers can have a profound impact on the arousal of both negative and positive emotions. For example, it is possible for a student to experience enjoyment in performing a task, not necessarily because of the perceived value of the task but because of the peers working together to complete the task. Peer support and encouragement, which can enhance the sense of belonging, i.e., relatedness (Reeve, 2012), and positively affect students’ perceived capability to perform and succeed, may increase the likelihood of experiencing positive emotions such as hope and enjoyment. Features of lessons/ tasks can also be the reasons for students to experience particular emotions. Such features may include task difficulty, interestingness, and novelty (e.g., too difficult task making a student feel frustrated). A review of various factors suggested to be antecedents to emotions indicates the impact of interpretation. For example, when a student experiences boredom in performing a task that is too difficult, the arousal of boredom can be attributed to different factors, depending on how the situation is interpreted. It could be attributed to the student herself/himself, such as a low level of perceived control or lack of her/his skills and knowledge. Alternatively, it can be attributed to the task being too difficult. Furthermore, it could be attributed to the teacher, such

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as for her/his inadequate task design or lack of sufficient instructional support. Lastly, the antecedent can be explained more mutually, for example, as a mismatch between the task demand and the student’s capacity. In other words, it is possible that theories and/or research findings are explaining the same phenomenon but focusing on different components within it thus different factors being highlighted as antecedents. Lastly, while the two theories reviewed in this section cover a group of emotions, there is a vast array of theories specifically dedicated to individual discrete emotions, and they offer varying accounts of what factors are related to the occurrence of a particular emotion. To illustrate this point, we will look at theories on epistemic curiosity. Epistemic curiosity is “a desire for knowledge that motivates individuals to learn new ideas, eliminate information gaps, and solve intellectual problems” (Litman, 2008, p. 1586) and increasingly acknowledged for its beneficial roles in learning (Arnone et al., 2011; Eren & Coskun, 2016; Kang et al., 2009; Lauriola et al., 2015; Mahmoodzadeh & Khajavy, 2018; Markey & Loewenstein, 2017; Rotgans & Schmidt, 2014; Shin et al., 2019). A number of theories on epistemic curiosity across different fields have been proposed. Among them, Loewenstein’s (1994) information gap theory is perhaps one of the most widely acknowledged. According to the theory, epistemic curiosity arises when individuals come to focus on a gap in their knowledge. When individuals’ informational reference point, that is, what they want to know, becomes elevated above their current knowledge level, epistemic curiosity can be experienced. As such, the object of epistemic curiosity is the unknown information that is expected to be rewarding (Kang et al., 2009). An explanation of epistemic curiosity antecedents that are specific to learning context is offered by Litman and Jimerson (2004) in their interest/deprivation model of epistemic curiosity. According to the model, students experience epistemic curiosity under two conditions: when they perceive to have been deprived of information and wish for the reduction or elimination of their ignorance and/or when they simply enjoy learning new things without particularly experiencing the deficiency of the information. Lastly, Boekaerts and Pekrun (2015) and Pekrun et al. (2016), posit that, while advocating the notion of discrepant information as the antecedent of epistemic curiosity, students’ positive appraisals of epistemic activities can lead to the experience of epistemic curiosity.

Food for thought: Reflect on your memorable emotional experiences. Can the antecedents reviewed in this section be a suitable explanation for your emotions? If not, what factors were involved?

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2.4

Researching Emotions

Two of the fundamental elements in researching emotions—or with any other constructs for this matter—are their conceptualization and operationalizations. For example, an emotion, boredom, is an abstraction that needs to be conceptualized, and doing so is a complex task. This is because, as discussed in Sect. 2.2, the vocabulary used to label discrete emotions plays a vital role in our understanding of them. Simply put, is your understanding of “pride” for example the same as that of your participants? This notion becomes even more critical when the researcher and participants come from different countries and/or cultures. Thus, the first step prior to researching emotions is to build a collective understanding of the emotions that are to be investigated. There can be various ways to achieve this, but one of the practical and effective is probably to hold a session where the researcher and participants discuss the emotions through scenarios (e.g., typical situations to experience the target emotions) and discuss as many aspects of the emotional experience as possible, such as reasons for experiencing the emotion, thoughts associated with the experience, physical sensations, and subjective feelings of that emotional experience. Below is a description of such a session taken from a study by Nakamura 2022, where a Japanese researcher conducted a classroom-based study with Thai students learning English as a second/foreign language enrolled in her English oral communication course for a semester, in order to gain insights into on a situated, context-dependent view of boredom that the Thai students experienced in the class. English was selected as the primary medium of communication, and therefore, the researcher hosted the session to collectively develop a shared understanding of the emotion, using the English vocabulary, boredom, at the beginning of the project. Before students started to respond to the questionnaire in Class 2, the researcher held a short session about boredom with the students. The purpose of this session was to conceptualize boredom and agree on its definition. The researcher illustrated the multidimensional characteristics of boredom (Pekrun, 2006) through visual aids (i.e., pictures of a bored face, a clock, etc. in PowerPoint slides) and concluded with the students that boredom is a multidimensional emotion involving affective (e.g., an aversive feeling), cognitive (e.g., a perception of slowed time), motivational (e.g., a desire to change or escape from the situation or to do something else), expressive (e.g., postural, facial, and vocal expressions), and physiological (e.g., low arousal) components. This served as the working definition of boredom based on which the data collection began and continued until Class 7.

Once the target emotion (i.e., construct) is conceptualized, it needs to be operationalized. The act of operationalizing in a research context can be understood as “constitut[ing] a variable in such a way that it does a good job of measuring, identifying (or “operating on”), or representing a theoretical construct of interest” (Vogt & Johnson, 2015, p. 303). For example, in a study investigating a relationship between university students’ enjoyment of attending mathematics course and their course achievement, “enjoyment” can be operationalized as a score that

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individual students assign to on a Likert-scale questionnaire designed to measure course/domain-specific enjoyment (e.g., “I enjoy learning mathematics in this course.”), and “achievement” can be operationalized as a course grade that students receive at the end of the mathematics course. In operationalizing constructs, the selection of variables needs to have a clear, solid rationale, which is supported theoretically and/or empirically. For example, heart rate, typically measured through a wristwatch, has been one of the commonly used variables to represent anxiety in second language acquisition (SLA) research. Indeed, experiencing anxiety could involve a physiological dimension, such as an increase in heart rate; however, so could excitement and other activating emotions. It is also important to note that, as reviewed in Sect. 2.2.1, ample research evidence from neuroscience and phycology has been presented to show that there is no consistent correspondence between emotions and specific peripheral physiological responses (Barrett, 2006; Cacioppo et al., 2000; Mauss & Robinson, 2009; Russell et al., 2003). Reflecting on the research findings such as above, Barrett (2004, p. 266) posits. As a result, there is no known objective, external measure of the subjective, internal events that we experience as anger, sadness, fear, and so on. If we want to know whether people feel these emotions, we have to ask them.

In fact, self-reports are by and large the most widely adopted instruments in research on emotions.

2.4.1

Instruments

There exist a number of self-report instruments designed to assess emotions. They can include questionnaires, student logs/diaries, and focus group/individual interviews. Among them, this section first reviews four widely adopted questionnaires, typically used for quantitatively oriented studies. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), developed by Watson and his colleagues (1988), is a long and widely used self-reported scale to assess positive and negative affect. Positive affect assessed through this scale reflects “the extent to which a person feels enthusiastic, active, and alert” while negative affect reflects “a general dimension of subjective distress and unpleasurable engagement that subsumes a variety of aversive mood states” (Watson et al., 1988, p. 1063). The PANAS has a longer root in the field of psychology, but because of its psychometric soundness and broad utility, it has been adopted in educational fields. The PANAS consists of 20 words, half of which correspond to positive affect (interested, excited, strong, enthusiastic, proud, alert, inspired, determined, attentive, and active) and the other half to negative affect (distressed, upset, guilty, scared, hostile, irritable, ashamed, nervous, jittery, and afraid). For each item, respondents are instructed to answer to what extent they feel in the way on a scale from one

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to five; 1 (Very slightly or not at all), 2 (a little), 3 (moderately), 4 (quite a bit), 5 (extremely). The PANAS can be used to assess general/trait-like affective states or those within a specific time frame (e.g., right now, today, past few weeks). As an example of studies in educational contexts, Schmitz and Wiese (2006) used the PANAS to evaluate the effectiveness of their four-weekly training sessions aimed to increase self-regulated learning. The PANAS was used at the pre- and poststages to assess positive and negative affect as trait measures. It was also used before and after studying on a weekly basis five times to measure affect as state measures. For an extensive review of studies using the PANAS in the psychology field, see Quoidbach et al. (2015). Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) is a self-report instrument that assesses students’ emotions in a tertiary context. It was developed by Pekrun and his colleagues (Pekrun et al., 2002a, b, 2005) and is probably the most widely used instrument in educational research today. The AEQ consists of 232 items on a five-level Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and measures eight achievement emotions: enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom in three different academic situations: attending class, learning, and taking exams. As such, it can be used to measure students’ typical, individual emotional reactions in academic situations as well as those experienced in single courses and in specific situations at specified points in time. The AEQ builds upon the control-value theory of achievement emotions, and thus the items pertain to the affective, cognitive, physiological, and motivational components of each measured emotion. For instance, one of the items “I get excited about going to class” is designed to assess the affective dimension of class-related enjoyment while the item “My enjoyment of this class makes me want to participate” measures the motivational dimensions of the emotion. The AEQ has been validated in different languages and shown to be highly reliable and internally and externally valid across diverse samples, academic domains, and languages (Paoloni et al., 2014; Pekrun et al., 2011; Sánchez Rosas, 2015). The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), developed by Horwitz et al. (1986), is a Likert-scale questionnaire that assesses foreign classroom anxiety, defined as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviours related to classroom learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (Horwitz et al., 1986, p. 128). Although the scope of this instrument is a lot narrower than those reviewed above in that it deals with a distinct form of anxiety, foreign language anxiety, in a classroom context, it is probably the most widely, and almost exclusively, used instrument to assess emotions in the field of SLA. The FLCAS contains 33 items using a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and measures three components of foreign classroom anxiety: communication apprehension (e.g., “I would not be nervous speaking the

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foreign language with native speakers”), test anxiety (e.g., “I worry about the consequences of failing my language class”), and fear of negative evaluation (e.g., “I can feel my heart pounding when I’m going to be called on in language class”). The FLCAS is often adapted (e.g., selecting certain items, modifying the wording of items) to suit the research context and purposes (Djafri & Wimbarti, 2018; Jin et al., 2015; Marcos-Llinás & Garau, 2009). Single-Item Measures Single-item measures are emerging modes to measure emotions, with which a latent variable (e.g., an emotion) is measured by a single item. While multi-item scales can measure various dimensions of a single construct (e.g., motivational, affective, expressive, and cognitive aspects of enjoyment), it can be timeconsuming as respondents have to respond to several items for one construct. As such, single-item measures, shown to demonstrate adequate psychometric characteristics (Gogol et al., 2014), are actively adopted as real-time assessments (e.g., experience sampling methods) to capture situational fluctuations and dynamics of emotions for their practical use (Becker et al., 2014; Goetz et al., 2010, 2016, 2020; Moeller et al., 2020). Below lists such single-item measures adopted in studies by Goetz and his colleagues (Goetz et al., 2010, 2020). Enjoyment: How much enjoyment are you experiencing in this class? Boredom: How much boredom are you experiencing in this class? Anxiety: How much anxiety are you experiencing in this class? The items are rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very strongly). Enjoyment: The current activity makes me feel happy. Pride: The current activity makes me feel proud. Contentment: The current activity makes me feel content. The items are rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Another notable instrument to collect data about students’ real-time emotions has been developed by Bourgeois et al. (2022) as a computer-based application called S2* emotion application. Once respondents log into the system, the screen displays two questions; one “How are you feeling right now?” and a list of 20 discrete emotions (e.g., embarrassed, stressed, nervous, bored) to choose from, and the other “What was the cause?” and options of teacher, peers, schoolwork, self, and others to choose from. In addition to the above-reviewed instruments design to measure emotions quantitatively, studies have adopted tools to qualitatively investigate emotions. Such tools include various kinds of interviews: individual interviews (e.g., Cooper et al., 2018; Güven, 2015), focus group interviews (Nakamura et al., 2021a, 2021b), stimulated recall interviews (Abdurahman & Rizqi, 2020; Eteläpelto et al.,

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2018); journals/diaries (Sampson, 2018; Zawodniak et al., 2017); and observations (Hernández et al., 2021; Johnson et al., 2016).

2.5

Looking into Emotions Through Vignettes

So far in this chapter emotions have been discussed in light of theories and research. This section offers a different angle to learn more about emotions, that is, through vignettes. Learners and teachers have been invited to talk about their stories and thoughts with regard to particular emotions of their choice. As will be seen, many of the comments and explanations appear to resonate with the theoretical/empirical discussions of emotions offered in this chapter. The vignettes also depict richness and complexity of emotions when people are asked to talk about them. Stories and ideas are often evolved around several emotions, which can dynamically shift in relation to different thoughts and/or times.

2.5.1

Baloo’s Vignette of Shame to Pride

Baloo was born and raised in India. He shares his stories that evolve around shame and pride in relation to learning English as a second language as well as statistics as a subject majored at graduate school. My story is a mix of emotions like shame, helplessness, frustration and pride. In fact I experienced the emotions transitioned from a moment I felt ashamed to the pride of achievement. I was raised in a community with no English speakers. At the school, we had the option to take the subjects in English or in our native language. I was wary of getting a bad score if I opted for English, so I studied all the subjects in native language. Moving to the university all was to be studied in English. I faced the challenge to comprehend what was being taught as all subjects were in English and all textbooks were in English too. I hardly understood anything taught in the class. I often felt ashamed when I was to explain any topic in the class. I felt helpless as I couldn’t find any support/help to improve my English to be able to understand the subjects. I couldn’t prepare well for my exams and often had very minimal scores which led to much frustration. In my masters I was to choose between statistics and economics. When asked for an opinion I was reminded of my not so good performance in graduation and challenged to clear the very first semester in statistics. This motivated me to pick statistics and I take a lot of pride to share that I worked really hard, and I was the university topper too.

2.5.2

Abigail’ Vignette of Anxiety and Empathy

Abigail is from Hong Kong, moved to Thailand to become an English teacher. She talks about her English learning experiences and how they positively impacted her teaching practice.

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I always have difficulties in comprehending what people say or catching the gist. I’m not sure but I guess I’m more of a visual learner than an auditory one. I’d feel a lot more comfortable and confident when I read and write. Another reason for my terrible listening skill may be due to my very limited English ability and vocabulary. I simply don’t know enough of the words and expressions. What’s more, when English speakers speak very fast, mumble a lot, use too many colloquial expressions, and/or have a very strong accent, all those could easily fluster me. It would even further scare me when the speaker adds “You know what I mean, right?” because I couldn’t help but think “Oh, no, I must look really stupid right now.” It could be quite upsetting sometimes. I remember once my friend explained things to me and throughout the whole process I kept rather quiet (and probably looked very puzzled as well). Then he paused and asked, “You know what I’m saying?” I was instantly freaked out and then frankly told him “No”. My friend seemed to immediately lose interest in continuing his talk and so changed to another subject. I knew he didn’t mean anything by doing so but such experience (I have a lot!) could easily beat me up. I certainly understand that it could be just a habit for native English speakers to say “You know what I mean” or oftentimes they say so in quite an unconscious way, but I still can’t get rid of the fear and the thought that it must be my problem! I have a lot of problems in speaking too. I easily feel nervous and anxious when I need to speak in English. Whether I’m talking to one person or speaking in front of a group of people, I have great fear, which grows bigger and bigger especially when I can’t find the right word or appropriate expression to explain my ideas. That again is because of my limited knowledge and terrible English ability. When the listener(s) start(s) to look confused, it would make me even more nervous and anxious. Then I would start to stammer, twist my tongue, feel embarrassed and lose confidence to continue my talk. It would still be fine if I’m talking to someone I feel comfortable with. I’d just find my own ways to explain what I’m trying to say as much as I can to that person. However, if it happens when I’m with a group of people or someone not close to me, I would feel a lot more scared, making me lose focus, drift away from the topic, or unconsciously repeat the same things and/or say some unnecessary stuff. In the end, I would dare not say anything anymore. Interestingly, I can see some positive sides despite having those unpleasant listening/speaking experiences, which I guess are exactly what enables me to show much empathy for my students, especially when they were not able to speak in front of me or make me understand what they wanted to say. I always told them not to worry and showed a lot of patience to them, making them feel more comfortable and encouraging them to build more confidence in expressing their ideas.

2.5.3

Yuki’s Vignette of Anger

Yuki is a first-year university student majoring in education. He looks back the time when he was studying hard for his university entrance exam and talks about anger and related emotions. Anger gives us great negative effects. They can cause us to make something worse in studying. Although you may sometimes have ever gotten annoyed when you are studying, I wonder you could not make this situation better. When I studied for the university entrance examination, I was able to smoothly answer the questions at first. However, when I was working on difficult questions, and I could not find answers for them, I was gradually getting annoyed. This irritation made me unable to answer the questions calmly and I was getting more annoyed. Finally, the irritation turned into anger, and I threw my pencil and struck my desk. At last, I hit the wall and made a hole in this. I managed to be calm, but I could not be because I do not understand explanatory leaflet. Based on this experience, I found it

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2 Emotions in Learning absolutely impossible to study calmly once I got annoyed. Since then, I have tried not to get angry, thinking it is natural that there are some questions which I can not understand. As a result, I was able to improve efficiency for studying and develop my score smoothly.

2.5.4

Coco’s Vignette of Fear

Coco has recently obtained her doctoral degree in applied linguistics. She talks about fear in relation to her Ph.D program. Fear is probably one of the emotions that I most often experienced during my PhD endeavor. It was mainly the fear of rejection and uncertainty. One of the requirements for graduation in my PhD program was to publish two articles based on my PhD study in Q1 journals, which indeed were in line with my ultimate academic goals. Another goal I had as a full-time PhD student was to graduate in three years so that I can start working. This combination put me in a constant state of being afraid of and worrying about not being able to achieve these objectives. I carried around this constant fear whenever I worked on my research. In the designing stage, for example, I was afraid of being too original, having small sample size, and being too qualitative, as possible reasons for rejections from high-standard journals. In the writing stage, I constantly had prospective reviewers’ voices in my head criticizing my work and writing. This produced both positive and not-so-positive outcomes in my life. The latter was that I became such a serious person who could not enjoy free time and that my whole life depended on my PhD research. The former was that I was able to achieve my goals, albeit it took a bit longer than three years. The most profound outcome of this though was a series of learning experiences that taught me life-long lessons to improve myself at personal and academic levels.

The above vignettes show various description of emotions and emotional experiences as well as individuals’ varying ideas and viewpoints regarding them, and they seem to depict many of the arguments laid out in this chapter. One striking aspect is the common phenomenon appeared in all four vignettes. These individuals were simply invited to talk about their emotional experiences in relation to learning without any instructions on which emotions to choose or how to talk about them. Interestingly however, they all told stories evolved around negative emotions and ended their stories by talking about the profound, positive impact of these negative emotions on their personal growth and achievement. In Baloo’s vignette for example, he talks about how frustration, anger, and hopelessness that he had experienced as a beginner learner of English motivated him to study harder and how this experience resulted in him feeling pride in his hard work and accomplishment. In Yuki’s vignette, recognizing the antecedents of his frustration and anger in preparing for difficult entrance exams and appraising them differently, he found ways to better handle these negative emotions as well as challenging situations in order to pursue his goals. These vignettes do not only support the literature suggesting positive roles that negative emotions could play in learning and powerful impact of appraisals on emotions, but also indicate the importance of emotion regulation, i.e., how to cope with emotions, which will be discussed in Chap. 3.

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Food for thought: Does any of the stories offered here resonate you in any way? If so, what are similarities and differences? Have you shared your emotional experiences with anybody? If so, what impact did it have on you?

2.6

Pedagogical Implications and Classroom Application

Now a rich understanding of emotions in learning has accumulated through insights from theories, empirical evidence, teachers, and learners, this section considers the application of the knowledge into teaching. One of the keen interests among teachers is probably how to increase students’ positive emotional experiences and reduce or avoid negative ones. A means to achieve this could be to design lessons in light of the antecedents of emotions discussed in Sect. 2.3.5. For example, we can aim to increase enjoyment by designing and providing tasks that students most likely perceive as useful, meaningful, and/or interesting at an appropriate level of difficulty, because the appraisal of value and control is shown to be one of the key antecedents of emotions. In fact, a range of pedagogical suggestions for teachers and classrooms are offered based on theories and empirical evidence, which can be found in books (e.g., Pekrun, 2014; Pekrun et al., 2017a, 2017b) and pedagogical implication sections in research articles. Before working with students’ emotions, however, there is fundamental work that we need to invest ourselves in: student–teacher relationships. This section therefore begins with the discussion of this important relationship, which is followed by three points that could be useful to keep in mind when working with students’ emotions in a wide range of contexts.

2.6.1

Building an Open, Trusted Student-Teacher Relationship

In working with students’ emotions, whether it is to increase positive emotional experiences in the classroom or to find out the causes of negative emotions, the very first step is to work on student–teacher relationships. As indicated in this chapter, working with students’ emotions most likely involves communicating with students about their emotions and emotional experiences. It is therefore vital that students feel safe and willing to openly share their experiences and thoughts about their emotions with the teacher. There can be a range of approaches to cultivating a positive, trusted student–teacher relationship, and the appropriateness and effectiveness of these approaches can greatly differ depending on a number of factors such as cultures, teacher personalities, student characteristics, and teacher–student

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(or class) dynamics. Nevertheless, keeping several points in mind when interacting with students can be useful regardless of varying contexts, two of which are authenticity and curiosity. Brown (2010) defines authenticity as “the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are” (p. 64), which involves choosing to let our true selves seen, exercising the compassion based on the understanding that we are all made of strength and struggle, and “nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough” (Brown, 2010, 2018). Your act of finding time out of your busy schedule to learn about student emotions, such as reading this book, clearly shows that you are a compassionate teacher/researcher who deeply cares about students’ emotional experiences and strive for their emotional wellbeing. Being authentic with students means that this part of you is what matters. It means that even when we see some areas of improvement in our teaching practice or when students experience negative emotions in our class, we can all embrace the experiences, be compassionate and understanding for each other without judgement, and in turn strengthen the connection and sense of belonging. Curiosity, particularly interest-type epistemic curiosity (Litman & Jimerson, 2004), discussed in Sect. 2.3.5, also plays a facilitative role in developing a positive teacher–student relationship. Some of the common roles of teachers in the classroom involve assessing and evaluating students’ work. Therefore, it is possible for students to assume that they are being evaluated or analyzed, resulting in unwillingness to open to the teacher. Having interest-type epistemic curiosity can naturally drive teachers to talk to students and ask questions in a manner that can help students feel relaxed and cared for. Such interaction can further help both teachers and students exercise authenticity.

2.6.2

Being Mindful of Own Interpretations and Assumptions

Interpretation is an act of explaining the meaning of something, and it often involves assumptions, that are, “ideas we create in our head for explaining why some things are the way they are, or why they work the way they work” (Integrated Consulting Group, n.d.). The more attuned you are to your students’ behaviors and eager to understand your students, the more likely you engage in this act to make sense of what you observe. “Students seem rather confused. Let me simplify my explanation.” “Students look a bit bored. Let me throw an active, fun activity at this point before moving on to the next topic.” These are some of the common internal dialogues that teachers can have with themselves in a daily class, and a careful examination of these dialogues indicates some degrees of assumptions made by the teachers. When working with students’ emotions, however, it is important to be aware of whether or how interpretations and assumptions are made. Here is an example to illustrate this point. Let’s suppose, you see your students often seem bored in your class. You then decide to re-design your lesson by making your classroom activities more “interesting.” However, how do you know that uninterestingness of your lesson is the reason for your students to experience boredom?

2.6 Pedagogical Implications and Classroom Application

35

Even taking one step back, are you sure that students experience boredom because of your lesson? As reviewed in Sect. 2.3.5, there is a vast array of factors that come into play in experiencing emotions. In other words, we cannot assume that our students experience (or do not experience) certain types of emotions without first understanding why they experience (or do not experience) them. One of the best ways to develop this understanding is to ask students. As reviewed in Sect. 2.2, emotions are internal events, whose observable signs might not be very helpful. It is therefore best to ask and talk with students to learn about their emotions, given that a positive student–teacher relationship has been cultivated (see, Sect. 2.6.1). When asking students about their positive emotional experiences questions such as the following could open a conversation. • I felt that you enjoyed today’s class so much. If you did, can I ask why? I want to use the ideas to plan my lessons later. • I’m interested in figuring out what makes you curious. Can you tell me about it? • I’d like to do the types of activities that you find interesting. Can you tell me about your interest? Conversations can be carried out as a form of informal out-of-class talk (e.g., before class with students who come to the classroom early, after class with students who are hanging around the classroom) or focus group interviews with volunteered students. Alternatively, the topic can be arranged as a classroom activity where students in a group discuss and present one activity that they would like to do in class and the rationale behind it. Asking students about their negative emotional experiences most likely requires a great amount of vulnerability and sensitivity from both student and teacher sides. Therefore, the positive, trusted, open student–teacher relationships discussed in Sect. 2.6.1. helps students become willing to talk about their negative emotional experiences. In addition, authenticity, discussed in Sect. 2.6.1., plays a facilitative role in this process. Dyner (2017) once stated: When you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice because that’s what’s inside. He used this analogy to emphasize the importance of our inner work (e.g., we cannot be an indifferent teacher and present to be a caring teacher). The same principle could apply to this case. What is important in communicating with students about their negative emotions may not be how tactfully we use various instrumental techniques in eliciting information form the students, but it may be our genuine epistemic curiosity toward students’ emotions, desire to be useful to them, and willingness to be vulnerable, which can be squeezed while communicating with students. These elements further influence how we respond to students’ negative emotional stories, which can include teacher factors as antecedents. Depending on the interaction, students may become more willing to or hesitant to talk about their emotions. Therefore, self-questioning such as through the following questions before communicating with students can be useful.

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• Am I genuinely trying to understand my students? • Am I ready to listen to my students’ voices?

2.6.3

Acknowledging All Types of Emotional Experiences as a Natural Part of the Learning Process

It is certainly important to ensure that students do not experience extremely high levels of and/or a long period of negative emotions during the course of their learning. At the same time, it is useful to acknowledge that experiencing negative emotions is a natural part of any learning process, and thus striving for lessons with no negative emotions is an unrealistic pedagogical goal. Below are excerpts from interviews with students for studies exploring classroom emotions (Littleton & Nakamura, in preparation; Nakamura et al., 2021b) that illustrate this point. I felt bored when doing exercise in textbook. I understand that textbook’s exercise is necessary for today’s topic, but it still not that fun. I cannot concentrate and not bored and be happy all the time…. For me, it might not be really important. I don’t have to like concentrate and not boredom every second in class. I’m really not good at listening, so when I heard that we were going to do a listening activity, I became anxious, ‘meh… I cannot.’ When the dictation started though, I noticed I was able to catch what was being said better than I’d thought. Then my anxiety level gradually decreased. It’s actually often like that.

These students’ comments indicate that students, too, recognize the nature of emotions associated with learning. They acknowledge that usefulness of the tasks is not necessarily accompanied by positive emotions and that it is okay to experience negative emotions. It is therefore useful to acknowledge any improvement and development that require hard work can evoke some degrees of discomfort and negative emotions such as frustration, anxiety, and disappointment, yet such tenacious work can result in something greater such as sense of accomplishment, greater self-efficacy, motivation to continue pursuing further goals, and empathy to understand and help others, to name a few.

2.6.4

Recognizing the Impact of Peers

It might not be so uncommon among teachers to believe that we are responsible for generating positive emotional experiences, typically through designing tasks and creating a classroom environment in a certain way. However, it is useful to remember that peers have a profound impact on student emotions, as indicated in Sect. 2.3.5. What this implies is that sometimes we can take our hands

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off the steering wheel and let things unfold. Students can teach and learn from each other through collaborative work, which can involve a wide range of positive emotional experiences. In a similar vein, it is also useful to recognize that certain emotions may be experienced more often in relation to peers. This phenomenon is well depicted in a study (Littleton & Nakamura, in preparation) that explored what emotions students experienced in a 100-min English class and the reasons behind it by interviewing six volunteered students. Certain emotions, such as anxiety and enjoyment, were commonly reported by all the students, but their reasons varied. For example, in a reading activity with which all of the students reported experiencing enjoyment, one student attributed her enjoyment to learning new vocabulary, another student to the content of the reading material, another to discussing answers to the comprehension and follow-up questions. However, such reports were different with one emotion, admiration. The experience of this emotion was exclusively attributed to peers. Students said that they felt admiration toward their classmates, who were courageous enough to voice their opinions in class, whose ideas were creative, and who helped them with their higher English skills. This type of admiration can be a great driving force that encourages students to work harder. This finding also highlights a wide range of benefits that collaborative work could offer in students’ positive emotional experiences.

2.7

Summary

By reading this chapter while engaging in the suggested activities and contemplating the reflective questions, you have achieved the followings. • Understood the evolvement of emotion research and the latest views of emotions. • Understood the important characteristics of emotions. • Understood the roles of emotions in learning. • Learned possible means to investigate emotions. • Linked your experiences and pedagogical contexts with some of the theoretical/ empirical discussions about emotions. • Generated ideas about how to apply the knowledge you gained about emotions into your teaching practice. • Got ready to read the next chapter to learn about how to regulate emotions.

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3

Emotion Regulation and Emotion Regulation Strategies

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is emotion regulation. The first half of the chapter helps to deepen theoretical and empirical understanding of the concept. Laying out the discussion of why emotion regulation is a beneficial practice in learning, the chapter describes the process through which emotions can be regulated together with families of strategies shown to be effective for regulating emotions in the fields of psychology and education. As such, while the discussions in Chap. 2 focused on the applications for teachers, this chapter is geared toward the learners, namely what they can do to self-regulate their emotions. The second half of the chapter offers opportunities to apply the insights into examining types of emotion regulation strategies appeared in teachers’ and learners’ vignettes. The chapter ends with practical ideas and suggestions for the application of emotion regulation strategies to enhance learning. Keywords

Emotion regulation • Emotion regulation strategy Language learning strategy

3.1

•

Self-regulated learning

•

Introduction

Suppose one of your colleagues said something that upset you. What would you then do? You could, for example, get back to work and forget about it. You could share the event with someone else. Depending on its significance to you, you might keep thinking about it for the whole day. All of these activities are called emotion regulation or emotion regulation strategies, both of which refer to the things that we do to influence our emotions in certain ways (Gross & Barrett, 2011). In Chap. 2, we reviewed that learning processes entail a great range of emotions and that these emotions can significantly affect students’ learning and well-being in both positive and negative ways. It was repeatedly discussed that it is not that all

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Nakamura, Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning, Springer Texts in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42116-7_3

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negative emotions are bad, and positive emotions are good; the impact of emotions is largely influenced by how the experience of these emotions are perceived and dealt with. These insights indicate that having adequate capacity to be able to regulate emotions is one of the crucial skills with which students need to be equipped for optimal learning. Emotion regulation has a long history in the field of psychology, and it grounded the foundation of educational research on emotion regulation today. Therefore, we first learn about emotion regulation through insights from psychology fields and then from the fields of education and SLA. Following the review of widely used instruments to measure emotion regulation, the chapter introduces two vignettes, one from a teacher and the other from a learner, as an opportunity to examine the types of emotion regulation strategies used by them. The chapter ends by offering detailed examples of strategies that learners can use to regulate their emotions.

3.2

Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation Through Insights from Psychological Fields

Research on emotion regulation dates back to the 1900s, originating from the study of ego defense, stress and coping, and developmental psychology. As part of inquiries into ego defense, conceptualized as “psychological mechanisms for managing distressing or overwhelming affects” (Parker et al., 1998, p. 91), researchers identified different styles of ego defense mechanisms, such as denial and repression, and explored the relationships between these mechanisms and other copying styles or affective variables (Freud, 1936; Parker et al., 1998; Paulhus et al., 1997). Defining coping as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 14), researchers on stress and coping sought to uncover the processes by which individuals coped with physical and phycological challenges (Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Such coping was mainly categorized as problem-focused coping, which referred to problem-solving, and emotion-focused coping, which related to decreasing negative emotions (Gross, 1998). In the field of developmental psychology, which concerns human development across the life span, interest increased in exploring emotions among children, such as individual differences in the capacity to handle negative emotions, their understanding of the strategic control of negative emotions, and the effects of parents on their disruptive behaviors (Cole et al., 1994; Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997; Gaensbauer, 1982; Terwogt & Stegge, 1995). Grounded on these works, research on emotion regulation began to be established as one of the most flourishing fields in the early 2000s. With a skyrocketing number of theoretical and empirical works on emotion regulation proposing varying definitions, the conceptualization of emotion regulation became problematic. A critical advancement was made to such conceptual issues through the work of James Gross. Building on a thorough review of the previous work on emotion regulation, Gross continuously contributed to the advancement of research on emotion

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regulation by critically synthesizing emotion regulation research, refining the definition, and proposing theoretical models (e.g., Gross, 1998, 1999). His definition of emotion regulation, that is, shaping which emotions to have when to have them, and how to experience or express these emotions (Gross, 1998), together with the process model of emotion regulation, by and large, grounds emotion regulation research today across disciplines.

3.2.1

The Process Model of Emotion Regulation

The process model of emotion regulation, proposed by Gross and his colleague (Gross, 1998; Gross & Thompson, 2007), is one of the most widely used theoretical frameworks to understand emotion regulation across disciplines. The model depicts five points at which emotions can be regulated: situation, attention, appraisal, and response. Below each emotion regulation process is explained with examples of their usage in educational contexts. Situation selection refers to choosing or creating a situation in which we experience (or do not experience) desirable (or undesirable) emotions. As such, it is suggested to be the “most forward-looking approach” (Gross, 2014, p. 9.) to emotion regulation. In the classroom, for example, teachers can offer this situation selection by for example giving students options (e.g., how to perform a task), through which they can the one that will give rise to positive emotions such as enjoyment and satisfaction. Situation modification involves altering the situation to intervene in its emotional impact. Situation modification is suggested to be an important strategy to regulate emotions in the classroom because it can help students to seek out social and instructional support (Boekaerts & Pekrun, 2015). For example, students could ask the teacher to make an assignment a collaborative project, as opposed to individual work, so that they can help each other to complete it. Attentional deployment refers to intentionally directing attention to something—typically positive—in order to influence emotional reactions to a situation. Although some researchers claim that attentional deployment is not particularly relevant in academic settings (Boekaerts & Pekrun, 2015), there can be situations where learners could make use of this approach. For example, a student may try to lower her anxiety before giving a speech in class by distracting herself by recalling a funny joke that her friend has made or her favorite pet’s cute behavior. Cognitive change involves changing our interpretation of a situation in order to alter its emotional impact. It can also involve changing the way we think about our capability to handle the situation. One particularly well-studied form of cognitive change is reappraisal, which refers to changing perceptions of the significance (e.g., meaning, self-relevance) of the emotional stimulus or situation, as well as the self-perceived capacity to handle the situation. Response modulation occurs later in the emotion-generative process, namely after the emotional responses have been generated. It involves altering experiential, behavioral, or physiological responses to emotions. For example, a student can

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hide her frustration toward her teacher by putting on a smile (suppressing the expression of the emotion), or she can attempt to not allow herself to feel the frustration (suppressing the experience of the emotion).

3.2.2

Types of Emotion Regulation Strategies

The above processes can also be referred to as emotion regulation strategies. More specifically, emotion regulation strategies can be understood as particular processes that people engage in in order to achieve a particular emotion regulation goal (Gross, 2014). With increasing interest in emotion regulation, research continued to identify and investigate a range of emotion regulation strategies (Aldao et al., 2010; Koole, 2009; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Webb et al., 2012). Below is a list of emotion regulation strategies, which have most commonly been researched in psychology fields (See Brockman et al., 2016; Naragon-Gainey et al., 2017; Webb et al., 2012, for the references to these definitions). • Problem-solving: Actively coping with the antecedents of the emotion by generating new or alternative solutions to them. • Avoidance: Avoiding internal stimuli (e.g., thoughts, physical sensations) or antecedents (e.g., situations, events) that would generate a particular emotion. • Distraction: Thinking about something that is unrelated to the emotion or its antecedents, in order to distract ourselves. One of the most common forms of attentional deployment. • Concentration: Concentrating on the emotion itself by focusing on, making judgments about, or reliving the emotional experience; on the antecedents by thinking about the reasons or meaning; or on the implications of the emotion. • Rumination: Repetitively and passively thinking about the emotion, its antecedents, or consequences in a self-immersed manner. Rumination can be viewed as a type of concentration. A distinctive characteristic of rumination is its passiveness by letting thoughts repeatedly run through the head. • Acceptance: Being open to experiencing negative emotions regardless of their aversiveness and/or accepting the experience itself. • Reappraisal: Changing perceptions of the significance (e.g., meaning, selfrelevance) of the emotional stimulus or situation, as well as the self-perceived capacity to handle the situation. • Mindfulness: Focusing on the present moment and observing emotions and/or related thoughts in a non-judgmental manner. • Suppression: Suppressing the subjective experience of emotions and/or suppressing the expression of the emotions. While above strategies are typically discussed in reference to Gross’ process model of emotion regulation, Garnefski et al. (2001) have proposed nine types

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of strategies that focus on the cognitive component of emotion regulation, which they define as “the conscious, cognitive way of handling the intake of emotionally arousing information” (Garnefski ei al., 2001, p. 141). Three of the nine, rumination, positive reappraisal, and acceptance, have already been covered in the above list, and thus, the remaining six strategies are summarized below. • • • •

Self-blame: Attributing the negative event to ourselves. Other-blame: Attributing the negative event to others. Catastrophizing: Emphasizing the terror of the negative experience. Putting into perspective: lightening the severeness of the negative event or considering the relativity by comparing with other events. • Positive refocusing: Focusing on the thoughts about positive matters instead of the ones on the actual event. • Refocus on planning: Planning on how to handle the negative experience. Kraaij and Garnefski (2019) have further proposed five types of strategies that tap into the behavioral dimension of emotion regulation, which concerns dispositional, behavioral style as well as situational behavioral strategies to respond to stressful events. Of the five, seeking distraction corresponds to the behavioral aspect of distraction reviewed earlier, and actively approaching corresponds to the above-reviewed problem-solving. Thus, the remaining three strategies are listed below. • Withdrawal: Isolating ourselves from situations and social contacts. • Seeking social support: Sharing emotions with someone and asking for support and advice. • Ignoring: Behaving as if nothing has happened.

Food for thought: This section reviewed different emotion regulation strategies in psychology-related fields. Do you see that some of these strategies can be used by students in learning contexts? If so, how can they be useful? What positive impacts can be expected?

3.2.3

Features of Emotion Regulation Strategies

Several features of emotion regulation strategies should be noted in order to have an accurate, comprehensive understanding of emotion regulation. First, emotion regulation involves both up-regulating (i.e., increasing) and down-regulating (i.e., decreasing) emotions. Both up- and down-regulating emotions can be done in a

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continuum manner ranging from explicit to implicit. An instance of explicit emotion regulation can be that a teacher, getting upset with ill-behaving students in the classroom, makes a conscious effort to stay and look calm to handle the situation appropriately. Teachers who love coffee might make a cup of coffee to uplift or soothe themselves before or after class without paying conscious attention to it, and this is an instance of relatively automatic, implicit emotion regulation. As indicated in these examples, emotion regulation entails certain goals, namely individuals typically have a goal that they want to accomplish by regulating their emotions (Gross, 2014). Such goals can be focused on emotions themselves (e.g., increasing or decreasing certain emotions) as well as on other objects (e.g., increasing productivity at work by regulating emotions in a certain way). Next, emotion regulation can be intrinsic (i.e., we regulate our own emotion) or extrinsic (i.e., we regulate someone else’ emotion). In the literature, emotion regulation strategies are often discussed according to certain categories. For example, they are typically labeled as either adaptive (e.g., reappraisal, problem-solving, mindfulness) or maladaptive (e.g., avoidance, suppression). They can also be regarded as cognitively oriented (e.g., reappraisal) or behaviorally oriented (e.g., problem-solving). Lastly, emotion regulation can be categorized as antecedent-focused or response-focused. Situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, and cognitive change are typically categorized as antecedent-focused strategies because individuals apply them before they appraise the situation, which otherwise leads to an unaltered emotional response. On the other hand, response modulation is typically categorized as response-focused because this type of strategy is applied after the emotional responses occur.

3.2.4

Effects of Emotion Regulation Strategies

The above-revived emotion regulation strategies have long been researched for their effectiveness in psychology-related fields, including clinical psychology, psychopathology, and neuroscience. Such effectiveness includes the greater experience of positive emotions, lesser experience of negative emotions, and treating mental disorders (for reviews and meta-analyzes see, e.g., Aldao et al., 2010; NaragonGainey et al., 2017; Webb et al., 2012). Studies on emotion regulation typically employ two designs: cross-sectional and experimental. Cross-sectional studies use self-reported measures (e.g., questionnaires) and investigate links between certain types of emotion regulation strategies and behavioral/psychological measures such as anxiety, depression, and stress (Aldao et al., 2010). Experimental studies provide participants with training on the target strategy, instruct them to use the strategy under a given condition, and measure its effect (Aldao et al., 2010; Webb et al., 2012). It is also noteworthy that substantial research has been conducted on attentional deployment and cognitive change while situation selection and modification have been minor (Webb et al., 2012).

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Due to the diverse kinds of emotion regulation strategies, together with different study designs and outcome measures, interpreting the effects of emotion regulation strategies requires caution. For instance, suppression is generally reported for its negative effects as it is shown to be linked with the experience of greater negative emotions (Aldao et al., 2010; Gross & John, 2003), lower social support, less closeness to others, and lower social satisfaction (Srivastava et al., 2009), depressive symptoms (De France et al., 2018), and speaking disfluency (Roche & Arnold, 2018). At the same time, a meta-analysis of experimental studies reported that suppressing the expression of emotions proved effective (i.e., having a smallmedium-sized effect on emotional outcomes as indexed by experiential, behavioral, and physiological measures) but suppressing the experience of emotions or suppressing thoughts of the emotion-eliciting event did not (Webb et al., 2012). It also reported that such a positive effect of suppressing the expression of emotions was entirely based on the effects on behavioral measures and that it had a small negative effect on physiological measures. Another example to illustrate the complexity of strategy effects can be taken from reappraisal. Reappraisal is widely recognized for its positive effects such as better handling of negative emotions (Brooks, 2014; Hofmann et al., 2009), enhanced memory (Hayes et al., 2010; Richards & Gross, 2000), and well-being (Gross & John, 2003). For example, an experimental study by Jamieson et al. (2012) used reappraisal strategies and investigated whether changing the way individuals perceive their stress-induced arousal could improve their physiological and cognitive reactions to stressful events, measured by cardiovascular responses and self-reported affective states. Participants in the experimental group were instructed to perceive their physiological responses to performing a stressful task as functional and adaptive. The results showed that these participants demonstrated more adaptive cardiovascular stress responses, as compared to the control groups, indicating the physiological and cognitive benefits of reappraisal. At the same time, the meta-analysis by Webb et al. (2012), which distinguished different types of reappraisal strategies, reported that reappraising the emotional response proved less effective than reappraising the emotional stimulus or adopting a more objective perspective. Furthermore, a meta-analysis by Aldao et al. (2010) found that although reappraisal was negatively associated with psychopathological symptoms like anxiety and depression, its effect size was smaller than those of rumination and avoidance. As indicated by these findings, the effectiveness of a particular emotion regulation strategy can be discussed differently depending on the goals of the emotion regulation. In psychology-related fields, such goals are typically handling negative emotional experiences and psychopathological symptoms, which differ from those in learning contexts. In the 0ions that follow, we look at emotion regulation specific to learning.

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Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation Through Insights from Educational Fields

As emotion has long been a neglected area of research (see Sect. 2.3), it is only recently that emotion regulation as a construct began to be established in educational research fields. Until then, regulating emotions was typically discussed within self-regulated learning in education and educational psychology fields and within language learning strategies in the SLA field. Self-regulated learning can be defined as “a proactive process whereby individuals consistently organize and manage their thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and environment in order to attain academic goals” (Ramdass & Zimmerman, 2011, p. 198). It is widely used as a theoretical framework to understand learning processes and to design strategyrelated interventions aimed to enhance self-regulated learning. Over the years, different models of self-regulated learning have been proposed (e.g., Boekaerts, 2011; Efklides, 2011; Pintrich, 2000; Zimmerman, 2000; Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009), and each of them places emphasis on certain areas for regulation, such as cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational/affective aspects of learning processes. Boekaerts (2006, 2011) and Boekaerts and Cascallar (2006) dual processing model is one such model in which emotions play a critical role. Boekaerts continuously highlighted successful emotion regulation as an essential aspect of self-regulated learning and discussed how emotions can be regulated through strategies, including venting (expressing positive and negative emotions), suppression, denial, distraction, reappraisal, and help-seeking (Boekaerts, 2011). In 2015, Boekaerts and Pekrun conceptualized emotion regulation in the learning context and defined it as learners’ capacity to understand their own emotions, use emotions as a source of energy, as well as modify or temper aspects of the emotional experience when they interfere with the pursuit of important goals (Boekaerts, 2011; Boekaerts & Pekrun, 2015). Language learner strategies or language learning strategies (LLS) have been an extensively studied topic over the decades in the SLA field. While varying definitions exist, LLS can be understood as thoughts and actions taken by language learners for the purpose of learning languages or regulating language learning (Cohen, 2010; Griffiths, & Cansiz, 2015). Research on LLS, initially proposed as an individual difference variable to explain good learners (Oxford, 1990), continued to gain popularity with a movement toward learner-centered approaches to understanding language learning (for a comprehensive overview on LLS, see, e.g., Cohen, 2010; Lee, 2010). LLS falls into three major categories: cognitive, metacognitive, and affective/socio-affective. Affective strategies broadly refer to the types of strategies that serve learners to regulate their emotions, motivations, and attitudes (Cohen, 2010; Oxford, 1990). The majority of investigations were conducted with cognitive and metacognitive strategies; affective areas were much less commonly investigated (see, Hassan et al., 2005; Plonsky, 2011, for a systematic review and meta-analysis). In other words, similar to self-regulated learning, the topic of emotion regulation had only been part of the bigger category of learner affect, until the notion of self-regulation in language learning was introduced by

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Tseng et al. (2006), based on Dörnyei’s (2001) work. Tseng et al. (2006) proposed that the self-regulation process in language learning involves controlling five elements: goal commitment (commitment control), focus and concentration (metacognitive control), boredom (satiation control), emotional states and mood (emotion control), and study environment (environmental control). Researchers have been increasingly arguing that learners’ self-regulatory capacity to cope with disruptive emotions in the pursuit of their goals is crucial in language learning (Kormos & Csizér, 2013; Nakamura et al., 2021a, 2021b; Tseng et al., 2006).

3.3.1

Types of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Learning Contexts

Based on research on emotion regulation in psychology field reviewed in Sect. 3.2, educational researchers have proposed several sets of strategies specific to learning contexts. One of them, developed by Buri´c et al. (2016), is academic emotion regulation, consisting of eight types of emotion regulation strategies that students predominantly use in various academic situations. The strategies, together with a questionnaire (see Sect. 3.4.1), were developed based on Gross’ (1998) process model of emotion regulation and a series of qualitative and quantitative empirical studies. The strategies can be summarized as follows: • Avoiding situations: Circumventing academic situations that may evoke unpleasant emotions. • Developing competencies: Engaging in the behaviors and activities to develop capabilities and competences that will prevent or decrease unpleasant emotional experiences. • Redirecting attention: Refocusing attention in order to prevent unpleasant emotional experiences. • Reappraisal: Diminishing the relevance of academic situations that trigger unpleasant emotions. • Suppression: Hiding unpleasant emotions from others in academic situations. • Respiration: Breathing deeply to reduce subjective feelings of tension accompanied by unpleasant emotions. • Venting: Behaviorally expressing unpleasant emotions to release negative energy. • Seeking social support: Sharing unpleasant emotions with peers and seeking comfort from them. Emotion control strategies and satiation control strategies have been suggested by Dörnyei (2001) as part of self-motivating strategies for language learning. Emotion control strategies are intended to help learners handle obtrusive emotions, such as anxiety, fear, and hopelessness, as well as generate emotions that are effective to implement their intentions. Dörnyei introduces nine examples:

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• • • • • • • • •

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Focusing on unrelated but absorbing activities or topics under stressful situation. Self-affirmation. Constructing positive narratives of negative events. Self-encouragement. Finding humorous elements in unentertaining situation. Using techniques to relax and mediate. Counting to ten to control anger and other temperaments. Sharing emotions with others to seek for help. Praying.

Satiation control strategies are intended to infuse extra attraction to routine tasks, which otherwise may become boring. Two examples suggested are as follows: • Modifying the tasks to make them more fun or challenging. • Making tasks more exciting through fantasy and imagination. Several specific examples of affective strategies, as part of language learning strategies reviewed in Sect. 3.3, have been suggested by Oxford (1990): • Lowering anxiety through the use of progressive relaxation, deep breathing, meditation, music, or laughter. • Self-encouraging through positive statement, wise risk-taking, or self-rewards. • Taking emotional temperature by listening to the body, using a check list, writing a learning diary, or discussing emotions with others.

Food for thought: In this section, we have looked at emotion regulation strategies specific to learning contexts. Did any of them spark your interest as a teacher or researcher? If so, which one and why? If you were to introduce the strategy to your students, how would they perceive the relevancy and utility of the strategy?

3.3.2

Roles of Emotion Regulation in Learning

Though emotion regulation is still a relatively new research domain, studies are showing useful insights. For example, a quantitative study by Kormos and Csizér (2014) investigated the impact of self-regulatory strategies on autonomous learning behaviors, involving 638 language learners in Hungary. Their structural equation

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model showed that efficient regulation of boredom (satiation control) was necessary to promote autonomous use of traditional learning resources (e.g., course books, references). Other correlational studies have investigated more specific emotion regulation strategies. For instance, Ben-Eliyau and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012) investigated links between three emotion regulation strategies (rumination, suppression, reappraisal) and emotions consisting of activating emotions (joyful, excited, enthusiastic, energetic, and happy), positive deactivating emotions (pleased, at ease, relaxed, and calm), negative activating emotions (annoyed, irritated, and agitated), and negative deactivating emotions (exhausted, worn out, and tired). The data was collected from 250 undergraduate students with various racial and ethnical backgrounds by using questionnaires addressing favorite and least favorite academic courses. Their results indicated a positive correlation between rumination and negative emotions in both contexts and a negative correlation between them in the least favorite courses. Suppression was negatively linked to excitement in favorite courses and positively linked to relaxation in the least favorite courses. Reappraisal was positively linked with positive emotions in both contexts and negatively with negative emotions in favorite courses. Such a positive link between reappraisal and a positive achievement emotion, pride, was also found in a study by Harley et al. (2019) that investigated the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies among North American university students. The study also found that suppression was related to negative achievement emotions (anxiety, shame, hopelessness). A study by Xu et al. (2015) found links between reappraisal and learning variables including mastery and performance goal orientation, positive homework behaviors (e.g., completion and effort), and learning strategies (e.g., critical thinking) among 796 middle school students in China. Another statistically positive effect of reappraisal was demonstrated in an experimental study by Leroy et al. (2012). Compared with a control group, participants who were instructed to reappraise a tedious learning task as an opportunity to improve their memory demonstrated lower susceptibility to temptation, higher enthusiasm for the task, and better performance in a subsequent memory test. Another research methodology worthy of attention is one that designed, implemented, and investigated the effects of strategy instruction designed to regulate–typically down-regulate–specific types of emotions. Anxiety is one such emotion that has been most targeted in language learning research. In these studies, participants were given strategy instruction, where they learned how to reduce their anxiety, and the effect of the strategy instruction was typically measured by the level of anxiety experienced by the participants during certain tasks and the quality of task performance. For example, Kralova et al. (2017) sought to reduce Slovac student teachers’ English pronunciation anxiety through psycho-social training. Their experimental group received psycho-social training and intensive English pronunciation training while their control group received only pronunciation training. Their analyzes showed a positive effect of psycho-social training. Before the training, the two groups were homogeneous in their self-reported foreign language pronunciation anxiety levels and pronunciation quality, as evaluated by native English-speaking teachers. After the training, however, the experimental group’s

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anxiety levels were statistically significantly lower, and their pronunciation quality was statistically significantly higher. Another positive effect of affective strategy instruction on anxiety was reported by Mostafavi and Vahdany (2016). In their study, the experimental group received affective strategy training, using Oxford’s (1990) affective strategies; the control group received no training. The foreign language classroom anxiety scale (Horwitz et al., 1986) and two equivalent oral tests (adopted from Heaton, 1975) were used as pre-and post-tests. The experimental group outperformed the control group on the oral post-test and demonstrated lower anxiety than the control group. In contrast with these two studies, Bielak’s (2018) quasi-experimental study produced mixed findings. He investigated the effectiveness of affective strategy instruction aimed at a reduction of test anxiety and improvement in affective strategy use among 23 Polish university students learning English. Activities suggested by Gregersen and MacIntyre (2014) and a TED talk by Cuddy (2012 cited in Bielak, 2018) were used for the strategy instruction. The results showed that the strategy instruction resulted in an improvement in the frequency of affective strategy use and wider use of affective strategies in general as well as an improvement in the intensity of their use in relation to an EFL test. Statistically significant reduction of anxiety levels on the other hand was not observed. He attributed this result to the amount of treatment and a small number of anxious learners in the study.

3.4

Researching Emotion Regulation

As indicated in the reviewed research in Sect. 3.3.2, cross-sectional and experimental/quasi-experimental are the most common research designs across fields. Cross-sectional studies typically use self-reported measures (e.g., questionnaires) and investigate links between certain types of emotion regulation and other variables such as emotions. In experimental and quasi-experimental designs, participants typically receive training on the target strategy and are instructed to use the strategy under a given condition and measure its effects. Dependent variables are typically positive and negative emotions but also include learning and learning-related variables in educational research. Another notable research type in learning contexts is an inductive, exploratory approach to identifying types of emotion regulation strategies used by students (or teachers, e.g., Littleton, 2018; Talbot & Mercer, 2018) in specific contexts (Bielak & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2020; Webster & Hadwin, 2014; Zhang et al., 2021). These studies employ qualitative data collection, such as open-ended questionnaires, interviews, and diaries, and thematic-analysis approaches to coding and grouping strategies. For example, Bielak and Mystkowska-Wiertelak (2020) used a questionnaire containing nine scenarios typical of language learning in the classroom and asked Polish university students to describe emotion regulation strategies that they would employ in each scenario as well as the strategies that they had used in the past. A mixture of thematic and content analysis yielded a great range of strategies that were contextualized and nuanced in reference to language learning. For instance, under one

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of Gross’s taxonomy, response modification, the study reported nine emotion regulation strategies (breathing, positive suppression, simple meditation, suppression, resting, emotional release, food and drink, listening to music, and negative induction). This line of inquiry sheds light on the ways learners regulate their emotions in the process of learning a specific subject or in certain learning contexts.

3.4.1

Instruments

This section reviews four widely adopted quantitative instruments to measure emotion regulations and one to measure boredom regulation. As reviewed in this chapter, research on emotion regulation has a longer root in psychology and clinical psychology fields, and thus, the last three instruments introduced in this section were developed and have largely been used in these fields. Ideas for adaptations and application of these instruments in educational contexts are offered in the end. Academic Emotion Regulation Questionnaire Recognizing the importance of emotion regulation in learning yet the scarcity of this research domain, Buri´c et al. (2016) developed a self-report instrument, the academic emotion regulation questionnaire, assessing eight types of emotion regulation strategies specific to academic contexts. The instrument, including the selection of the eight types, was developed based on Gross’ (1998) process model of emotion regulation and a series of qualitative and quantitative empirical studies. In order to ensure satisfactory psychometric properties of the scales, they conducted multiple steps of analyzes and established their latent structure and convergent, divergent, and criterion validity.1 The eight scales and their sample items are listed below. Respondents are instructed to choose their answer on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). • Avoiding situations (five items): “When I am very nervous about an exam, I decide to skip classes that day.” • Developing competencies (five items): “Through investing additional effort in learning, I reduce shame due to failure at school.” • Redirecting attention (six items): “When I get frustrated by the teacher, I try to think about something that brings me joy.” • Reappraisal (five items): “When I am ashamed of bad grades, I remind myself that grades don’t always reflect real knowledge.”

1

Convergent validity refers to how closely different methods (e.g., a newly developed scale and an existing instrument) to measure the same construct are correlated. Conversely, divergent validity refers to the degree to which similar methods to measure theoretically different constructs demonstrate low correlation. Criterion validity refers to how well one measure predicts another external criterion or standard, which is relevant or reliable.

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• Suppression (five items): “I try to suppress the anger and rage I feel in class.” • Respiration (three items): “I breathe deeply in order to reduce the tension that I feel in exam situations.” • Venting (five items): “I yell at someone when I become anxious in school.” • Seeking social support (four items): “When school demands frustrate me, I share my troubles with friends.” The Coping with Boredom Scale The coping with boredom scale (Nett et al., 2010) is a self-report instrument that addresses how students cope2 with boredom. Unlike other instruments reviewed in this section, this scale exclusively targets boredom, an emotion that has been increasingly recognized for its detrimental effects on learning. It was developed by Nett et al. (2010) as the first instrument that taps into strategies to regulate boredom in academic contexts. Based on a theoretical framework adopted from extensive research on stress coping, they conducted a series of studies and identified four major components of boredom-coping strategies: cognitive approach, behavioral approach, cognitive avoidance, and behavioral avoidance. Strategies can be categorized as approach-oriented when they involve solving the problem (i.e., the cause of boredom), by either changing the perception of the boredom-causing situation (cognitive approach) or changing the situation itself (behavioral approach). In contrast, strategies are categorized as avoidance-oriented when they involve evading or fleeing the problem, by either thinking about something irrelevant to the situation (cognitive avoidance) or doing something unassociated with the situation (behavioral avoidance). These four types of coping strategies are measured by five items each, on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items begin with a common statement, “when I am bored in class…” followed by a coping strategy. A sample item for each strategy type is provided below: • • • •

Cognitive approach: “I tell myself to concentrate again.” Behavioral approach: “I ask my instructor for more interesting tasks.” Cognitive avoidance: “I study for another subject.” Behavioral avoidance: “I start talking to my classmate sitting next to me.”

Emotion Regulation Questionnaire The emotion regulation questionnaire, developed by Gross and John (2003), is a simple Likert-scale instrument designed to measure two types of emotion regulation: reappraisal and expressive suppression. It is a widely used measure of

2

The term, cope, is often used in the literature when discussing dealing with negative emotions as the term typically refers to the behaviors aimed at dealing with stressful encounters (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

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emotion regulation in psychology and education. Respondents are instructed to answer 10 items in a Likert-type format ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Of the 10, six items address reappraisal (e.g., “When I’m faced with a stressful situation, I make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm”) and four items relate to expressive suppression (e.g., “I control my emotions by not expressing them”). The questionnaire has been translated into over 30 languages (Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory, n.d.), and its psychometric properties have been examined in various contexts. Generally, good validity and reliability have been reported (Ioannidis & Siegling, 2015; Preece et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020). Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire The cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire, developed by Garnefski et al., (2001, 2002) and Garnefski and Kraaij (2007), aims to measure nine types of cognitive emotion regulation strategies, which are summarized with sample items below (see Sect. 3.2.2, for the definition of cognitive emotion regulation and that of each strategy type). Respondents are instructed to answer 36 items (four items for each strategy) on a scale of 1 (almost never), 2 (rarely), 3 (occasionally), 4 (frequently), or 5 (almost always). While the questionnaire is designed to measure general coping styles, its instruction can be modified to address a specific event (e.g., how respondents regulated their emotions after experiencing a tragic event). This questionnaire, mainly used in phycology fields, has shown to have good factorial validity and high reliabilities (Feliu-Soler et al., 2017; Garnefski et al., 2001, 2002; Ireland et al., 2017). • Self-blame: “I feel that I am the one who is responsible for what has happened.” • Other-blame: “I feel that basically the cause lies with others.” • Rumination: “I am preoccupied with what I think and feel about what I have experienced.” • Catastrophizing: “I keep thinking about how terrible it is what I have experienced.” • Putting into perspective: “I think that it hasn’t been too bad compared to other things.” • Positive refocusing: “I think of pleasant things that have nothing to do with it.” • Positive reappraisal: “I think that the situation also has its positive sides.” • Acceptance: “I think that I have to accept that this has happened.” • Refocus on planning: “I think about how I can best cope with the situation.” Behavioral emotion regulation questionnaire The behavioral emotion regulation questionnaire focuses on the behavioral aspect of emotion regulation and was developed by Kraaij and Garnefski (2019) in response to the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire. It consists of 20 items and measures five types of behavioral emotion regulation strategies (four items for each strategy type) that people generally use in order to regulate their emotions

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after experiencing stressful events (see Sect. 3.2.2, for the definition of behavioral emotion regulation and that of each strategy type). The response categories are the same as those of the cognitive emotion regulation strategy questionnaire. The examinations of its psychometric properties have produced generally positive results (Kraaij & Garnefski, 2019; Tuna, 2020; Zhao et al., 2020). The five scales with sample items are listed below. • • • • •

Seeking distraction: “I engage in other, unrelated activities.” Withdrawal: “I close myself off to others.” Actively approaching: “I take action to deal with it.” Seeking social support: “I look for someone to comfort me.” Ignoring: “I move on and pretend that nothing happened.”

While the last three instruments, emotion regulation questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003), the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2007), and the behavioral emotion regulation questionnaire (Kraaij & Garnefski, 2019) have mainly been used outside of educational fields, items previously validated, and published questionnaires can be great resources in developing a scale to measure emotion regulation in a specific context, e.g., emotion regulation among students at medical school. If researchers decide to devise original items, they need to conduct a series of preliminary empirical studies and analyze a large qualitative data (see, e.g., Lou & Noels, 2017; Pekrun et al., 2004). More specifically, developing a new, original questionnaire requires a number of tasks including defining and operationalizing construct through rigorous procedures, deciding on the internal structure of the construct and response scale format, getting expert panel reviews, piloting the items, revising the items, and testing the psychometric properties of the scale. Alternatively, researchers can assemble items from the literature, such as those introduced above. For example, items in the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire and the behavioral emotion regulation questionnaire can be modified to measure how college students cope with negative emotions evoked by experiencing stressful events in academic contexts such as receiving an F grade, or a poor score on an important test. More specifically, one of the items listed above, “I feel that I am the one who is responsible for what has happened” can be revised as “when I get a bad score on a test, I feel that I am the one who is responsible for this bad result.” Similarly, “I look for someone to comfort me” can be revised as “when I encounter stressful events at school, I look for someone to comfort me.” In doing so, it is useful to seek for feedback and insights from those familiar with the contexts (e.g., teachers/researchers at the same institution, students from the target population) as well as with the construct (e.g., experts in the topic). Even when items are adapted from the existing instruments, it is critical that researchers follow appropriate steps to develop and validate the items. For comprehensive, detailed guides to scale developments, resources such as DeVellis (2017) and Kyriazos and Stalikas (2018) are recommended. For good examples of studies adapting existing scales, see for example, Alamer (2022) and Zarrinabadi et al. (2021).

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Lastly, it is worth noting that abilities to regulate emotions are sometimes seen as part of emotional intelligence, defined as “the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth” (Mayer & Salovey, 1997, p. 10). A range of instruments is available including one of the most widely used tests, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (Mayer et al., 2002).

3.5

Looking into Emotion Regulation Through Vignettes

In Chap. 2, we looked at stories of learners and teachers sharing specific events and memories associated with emotions. This section introduces two vignettes as a venue to identify various emotion regulation strategies reviewed in earlier sections. The first vignette is about an emotional event I encountered in my English class. Beautifully coincidentally, the event happened at the time of writing this chapter. The next vignette is offered by Abigale, reflecting how she feels about her English skills as her second language and that of other learners. Each vignette is followed by an examination of how the individuals coped with emotions. As such, the first examination is conducted in a self-case study manner.

3.5.1

The Author’s Vignette

It happened in one of my afternoon beginning-level English classes with about 30 first-year students. One of the tasks in the class was to review a grammar point, infinitive/gerund, and to write sentences using “like” “hate” and so on. I asked students to create sentences and write them on an online platform where people can post anonymously. I told my students that they could use their own name or nickname and that we would go over those sentences in class. Students started to post their sentences, many of which were about themselves, such as “I like playing baseball” and “I don’t like eating vegetables.” Then one post caught my eye. It said, “I hate you.” I gasped. “Is this you me??” I felt my heart pounding and something cold running in my body. Then I saw another post, saying “I hate you. Don’t touch me.” Another post said, “I don’t like talking to my course teacher.” My worry exacerbated. A lot of thoughts started running in my head. Did any of those students write these to say that they hate me? What did I do to make them hate me? I never touched them, did I!?? I understand, as a teacher, that there are always students who like or dislike us. It is thus inevitable to encounter incidences where students’ unfavorable feelings become noticeable. However, hatred is such a strong negative emotion that is usually formed by seriously negative events. I consider myself as a quite straight-forwarded teacher, which sometimes may seem strict, but I am definitely the kind of teacher who cares about each student and always think about the best for them while building a rapport with each student. Looking at such posts, therefore, was nothing but shocking, confusing, upsetting, and sad. I tried to stay calm but those posts definitely had a strong, negative emotional effect on me. To my relief, the time came and we had to close the class before reviewing the sentences. Walking out of the classroom, I felt so sad and upset. I kept thinking to myself, “was that really about me? Who wrote those? What were the things I did or said that made them build

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3 Emotion Regulation and Emotion Regulation Strategies such a strong emotion as hatred? I thought we often had a good time in class. Where or how on earth had I gotten this wrong? You know what, it wasn’t me. Yeah, that’s right. Students were just playing around. Besides, I shouldn’t think too much about whether students like me or not. My main job is to support them in their English learning process. Besides, I do like my students and I want the best for them. Let’s not think too much about it…” Despite my continuous effort not to think about it, I kept thinking about it. I felt something tight in my chest, and I felt I was sinking. On the way home, I got off the train two stations earlier and decided to walk home, thinking it might help. I also listened to one of my favorite audiobooks about spiritual guidance while walking. None of these were helpful. I got home, poured myself a big glass of my favorite red wine, cooked my favorite meal, and watched something casual on my computer while eating. My heart was still down. I also wished that I could talk to someone. Reading a novel in bed at least took some of my thoughts away for a while. I wasn’t as confused or upset as I was earlier, but I was still sad. I went to sleep, thinking “I want to disappear…” The next morning I woke up feeling not so well although I did notice that the pain subsided. That afternoon, I lightly mentioned this story to someone I feel close to and respect. His compassionate and empathetic attitudes immediately made me feel better. He also said to me that “I hate you,” just like “I love you,” is one of the colloquial expressions that English learners are familiar with so “I hate you” can be the first sentence coming up in their head when they have to write a sentence using the word. A verse, “i hate u. I love u…” in a song popped in my head. “Hmmm! OK,” I said. With several more helpful insights and advice, I was feeling so much better by the time we finished the conversation. The next day, I had to teach the class, including reviewing the sentences. Unexpectedly, I noticed that I wasn’t worried or stressed about teaching the class. I also knew that it was mainly because I had a clear direction and conclusion. It could have been one of those common phrases that students wrote with some humor. It could also have been that students addressed those posts to me. Even if it had been the latter, I was certain about myself as a teacher, which was that I had never done anything ill-intended to my students. Therefore, if I had made any of my students angry unintentionally, I could clarify the miscommunication and apologize. Interestingly, that class turned out to be one of the most engaging, fun classes. Many of us laughed and enjoyed the interesting game that a group of students presented in class, and students worked quite hard on reading tasks in groups. When reviewing the sentences, they seemed to be enjoying reading their classmates’ sentences, some of them were creative and funny. I lightly commented, “I wonder if this you is me” pointing at the posts. I didn’t get any clear reactions or signs from the students, but I didn’t feel anything heavy in my chest, either. Now I’m back from the classroom, writing this story. If I have to name what emotions I think I’m feeling now, I’d say, relief, confusion, and gratitude. The whole atmosphere and students’ attitudes in class today make me even wonder, “What was that all about!?” (confusion). I am obviously relieved by not getting a clear sign that the message was directed at me although I cannot be certain about it (relief). Either way, the strongest emotion I feel is gratitude. I’m grateful for this experience that has taught me valuable lessons and helped me realize important things in my life.

The above vignette showcases various characteristics of emotions and emotion regulation reviewed in this chapter and in Chap. 2. To begin with, it illustrates the powerful impact of interpretations on the occurrence of emotions. When I saw the word “you,” I immediately interpreted it as me. Such interpretation generated panicky thoughts and emotions, which led to more negative thoughts and emotions.

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In dealing with such emotions, I employed several strategies. The first strategy appears to be concentration: Walking out of the classroom, I felt sad and upset. I kept thinking to myself, was that really about me? Who wrote those? What were the things I did or said that made them build such a strong emotion as hatred? I thought we often had a good time in class. Where or how on earth had I gotten this wrong?

In this case, the focus was not necessarily on the emotions themselves, which is a form of concentration as described in Sect. 3.2.2; it was on the antecedents, namely students’ posts, by thinking about the reasons and meaning. Soon after, I employ another strategy, reappraisal, as described in the story: You know what, it wasn’t me. Students were just playing around. Besides, I shouldn’t think too much about whether students like me or not. My main job is to support them in their English learning process.

The thoughts in the first two lines show my attempt to reappraise the event in order to make myself feel less of the negative emotions that I was experiencing based on my initial interpretation. The next two thoughts indicate my attempt to downplay the significance of the event and my perception of the possible meaning of the event. In hindsight, the employment of these strategies was all automatic, namely it was not that I objectively observed this situation or my emotional states and planned on using emotion regulation strategies to regulate my emotions, let alone was I aware of my strategy use that time. This is indeed well captured by the definition of automatic emotion regulation, that is, “goal-driven change to any aspect of one’s emotions without making a conscious decision to do so, without paying attention to the process of regulating one’s emotions, and without engaging in deliberate control” (Mauss et al., 2007, p. 148). The next lines in the story, “despite my continuous effort not to think about it, I kept thinking about it, I felt something tight in my chest, and I felt I was sinking,” show that the two types of strategies did not lead to an improvement. This is a reasonable result because concentration, whether on the emotions, antecedents, meaning, or consequences, is shown to have negative effects on emotional experience (Webb et al., 2012). Although research has repeatedly shown positive effects of reappraisal (see Sect. 3.2.4), in this case, it seems that my initial negative appraisal of the event was so powerful that it overrode the alternative ideas. Moreover, the above lines contain indicators of rumination, thinking about the event in a repetitive, passive manner. Rumination, when used in distressful situations, is suggested to immobilize individuals or diminish problem-solving abilities (Aldao et al., 2010; Watkins & Moulds, 2005), and thus, it is widely recognized as a maladaptive strategy. The next four strategies I used were (1) walking home by getting off the station earlier, (2) listening to an audiobook about spiritual practice while walking, (3)

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drinking, cooking, and eating while watching a show after getting home, and (4) reading a novel in bed. These are good examples of distraction. While some seem healthier than others, they are all a means to direct my attention away from the thoughts about the event by behaviorally, cognitively, and/or affectively engaging in the activities that are unrelated to the event. Distraction, particularly in clinical psychology, is reported with mixed findings. More specifically, it is shown that distraction can produce positive outcomes when it is used with an intention to return to the event and accept the emotional experience whereas it can be maladaptive when it is used with avoidant strategies (Wolgast & Lundh, 2016). If I have to recall, yes I did have the intention to shift my focus away by engaging in these activities. If I ask myself whether I had the intention to come back to the discomfort and fully accept feeling the negative emotions, I have to say, “I’m not so sure.” All I knew was the fact that I would have to continue to teach the class for the semester and go over the sentences with my students in the next class. To summarize, the strategies used on the day of the event were concentration, reappraisal, and distraction. The next day, however, a new strategy appears in the vignette, that is, seeking social support, by talking to my friend about the event and my thoughts. In the literature, seeking social support, as an emotion regulation strategy under the category of response modulation in Gross’ model (see Sects. 3.2.1 and 3.2.2), is recognized as an adaptive strategy that is associated with higher levels of wellbeing (Kato, 2013), positive academic emotions, and academic achievement (Buri´c et al., 2016). In line with the empirical findings, the use of seeking social support appears to have had a significantly positive impact on my emotional states and perceptions, leading to another three adaptive emotion regulation strategies: reappraisal, acceptance, and refocus on planning. My friend’s new insights to look at the event differently as well as what to expect as a teacher appeared to have greatly helped me to shift my attention away from my repetitive negative thoughts and assumptions and to pour more energy into thinking about constructive, movingforwarding ideas and actions while accepting all possible meaning of the event, which are indicated in the lines: I had a clear direction and conclusion. It could have been one of those common phrases that students wrote with some humor. It could also have been that students addressed those posts to me. Even if it had been the latter, I was certain about myself as a teacher, which was that I had never done anything ill-intended to my students. Therefore, if I had made any of my students angry unintentionally, I could clarify the miscommunication and apologize.

Acceptance is another emotion regulation strategy recognized for its positive roles. Research has shown acceptance which is negatively associated with psychopathological symptoms such as anxiety and depression (Aldao et al., 2010; Kato, 2013; Webb et al., 2012). It is also widely used in therapies and treatments (Apolinário-Hagen et al., 2020). Refocus on planning captures a cognitive aspect of action-focused coping strategies by “thinking about what steps to take and how

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to handle the negative event” (Garnefski et al., 2001, p. 1315). Refocus on planning, positively correlated with reappraisal, is suggested to be an adaptive strategy (Garnefski et al., 2001). Unlike acceptance, however, little empirical evidence is reported to support the positive role of refocus on planning (Feliu-Soler et al., 2017; Garnefski et al., 2001). As explained at the beginning of this section, the vignette was written without an intention to analyze emotion regulation. What strikes from this analysis is a range of strategies that employed without an explicit intention. In other words, I did not use any of the strategies with an explicit intention such as “I’m going to use this strategy in order to regulate my emotions.” Let alone think about possible consequences of using them (although I am an emotion regulation researcher!). It is also noteworthy that the effects of the strategies appeared in the vignette are in line with theories and research findings reviewed in Sect. 3.2.

3.5.2

Abigail’s Vignette

I always dream that I could speak like a native English speaker and so I have dedicated a lot of time, effort, and energy to learning English and bettering my skills. However, after so many years, I still can’t do very well. It looks like I can never make my dream come true no matter how hard I’ve tried. To me, my English is still very mediocre. This makes me feel frustrated and disappointed at times. When I happen to meet someone who is also an ESL learner and whose English is absolutely perfect and beautiful, whether that person is a friend/co-worker/student of mine or even someone I’ve never seen before and/or I’ll never see again, I would admire them a lot. The thought “Oh my gosh, his/her English is so good…” would stay on my mind for quite a while. Sometimes I would be jealous to be honest. I wouldn’t help but keep thinking: How come I can never be like that? How wonderful it would be if my English could be as perfect as his/hers! Well, to be fair to myself though, my English isn’t bad but to be as perfect as theirs? It’s not even close. Such thoughts and feelings could be quite discouraging and beat myself up sometimes. But I’ve changed my mindset telling myself that learning English is never a comparison or even a competition, there’s indeed no need to feel defeated just because of someone else’s perfect English. The point is I love learning English, which is the most important. Therefore, I just keep doing all the best I can to improve it and trying to enjoy every bit throughout the learning process.

Abigail’s emotion regulation processes are beautifully depicted in this vignette. As she describes, she experiences strong admiration when she meets other ESL learners with high English proficiency. Upon this occurrence of admiration, she goes through the following emotion regulation sequence: concentration, rumination, and reappraisal. Concentration is indicated in the line, “the thought ‘Oh my gosh, his/her English is so good…’ would stay on my mind for quite a while,” which seems to be done relatively implicitly. When this admiration leads to or is mixed with jealousy, she employs rumination, as indicated in the line: “I wouldn’t help but keep thinking: How come I can never be like that?…” Her self-critical thoughts, as she articulates, “beat her up.” She then uses reappraisal strategies in order to encourage herself and continue working. The descriptions such as

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“but I’ve changed my mindset telling myself that” and “there’s indeed no need to feel” show her intentional, explicit employment of reappraisal strategies. She not only does reappraise her self-critical thoughts and negative perceptions about her English skills but also gives herself new, positive perspectives, as indicated in the lines such as “I love learning English, which is the most important…I just keep doing all the best I can to improve.”

Suggested activities: This activity is designed to help you analyze your emotion regulation, more specifically, the antecedents that tend to trigger your certain emotional reactions, your typical behaviors to regulate them, and the effects of your habitual emotion regulation strategies. For this activity, writing your responses to the questions–rather than “thinking” in your head–is recommended, as writing helps you to deepen and organize your ideas. Completing activity will also help you to generate ideas for your future research. Step 1 Think about a time when something or someone upset you. Now answer the following questions: • What happened? Describe the situation • Why did you feel upset? • What were your cognitive and behavioral reactions to the event? • How long did the upsetting feeling last? • What did you think and do during that time? Step 2 Now let’s look at what you have written and analyze your emotion regulation: • Your response to question 1 contains information useful to identify the antecedents of your negative emotional experience. Read your response and examine how the reasons are described. Are they explained based on facts or your perspectives and/or interpretations? Do you see the possibility of perceiving and interpreting the event differently? If so, why do you think you had that particular interpretation at the time of the event? • Your responses to questions 2 and 4 contain information about emotion regulations strategies that you used. Identify and list the strategies. In so doing, strategies listed in Sects. 3.2.2 and 3.3.1 can be helpful. To what extent, were they used in an automatic, subconscious manner? In the literature, how are these strategies categorized: maladaptive or adaptive?

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• Your responses to questions 3 and 4 help you to analyze the effects of the strategies. Go back to the list that you have just created. Underneath each strategy, report the effects and next review the literature on the effects of strategies in Sects. 3.2.4 and 3.3.2. To what extent do they support the theories and/or empirical findings? Step 3 Pay attention to the events to which you had a strong–positive or negative– emotional reaction for the next few weeks. Do the tasks in Step 1. Do you identify any habitual patterns, regarding the antecedents of particular emotions and strategies to handle the emotions?

3.6

Pedagogical Implications and Classroom Application

There are a number of ways in which the literature on emotion regulation can be utilized in everyday learning/teaching. As shown in this chapter and in Chap. 2, emotion regulation can be considered based on various aspects, such as internal (e.g., learners’ appraisals) and external factors (e.g., tasks), the antecedents of emotions, characteristics of emotion regulation strategies (e.g., adaptive or maladaptive), the use of such strategies, and up/down-regulating positive or negative emotions. The pedagogical implications in Chap. 2 primarily focused on what teachers can do. This section is geared toward the learners, namely what learners can do to self-regulate their emotions. In the next sections, specific strategies and practical ideas are offered, based on Gross’ process model of emotion regulation (see Sect. 3.2.1), the antecedents of academic emotions discussed in Sect. 2.3.5, as well as various science-based resources from a wide range of research fields. Teachers can select and/or modify these ideas according to their own teaching contexts and introduce them at the beginning of a semester as part of a course orientation, or at a particular time of the course (e.g., during examination periods).

3.6.1

Value Appraisal

As discussed in Sect. 2.3.5, learners’ value appraisals play an important role in the types of emotions that they tend to experience. Such value appraisals include the perceived importance and usefulness of learning a particular subject and performing and completing learning tasks. To enhance positive value appraisals, students can try the following strategies. • Always start with the “why.” Asking yourself why-questions before embarking on any tasks is a great way to identify and clarify the rationale behind your decision and action and to link that

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rationale with your goals, interests, or anything that you perceive important. The ideas generated by answering why-questions can help you to experience positive emotions, such as hope for success, pride in embarking on a challenging task, and joy of learning and moving forward to your goals, as well as to perceiver when faced with challenges. During this practice, it is also important to recognize that you have chosen to engage in the task. There are times, particularly with mandatory schoolwork, it is easy to feel that “I have no choice but to do this” or “I have to do this because this is a required assignment,” believing that you have no control over the matter. However, it is not true. Even with the required assignment, you can choose the degree to which you put effort into the work. Recognizing that you are responsible for everything you engage in is a great mindset that empowers you to produce the outcomes that you desire. • Choose, whenever possible, the contents and topics that are interesting, meaningful, relevant, or useful for your goal attainment or future plans. Being creative and playful with your learning can make the learning experience more exciting, enjoyable, and meaningful. In one sense, it might be practical to complete a task in a simplest, easiest way without devoting too much effort or time on being creative. When the process of completing the task and the outcomes is considered, however, exerting such effort is clearly a worthy practice. Let’s say you are assigned with a task to write an essay. Would you choose a topic that is easy to write or a topic that you feel passionate about even though it might require more complex arguments? When you choose the former, you will most likely experience lesser extent of negative physiological states such as frustration and stress (because you can easily complete it), but you will also be likely to experience lesser extent of positive emotions such as enjoyment, joy, pride, and so on. With the latter option, you might experience negative affect because you are performing a complex, challenging task. More importantly, however, you are developing strength and resilience, which is important skill set, as reviewed in Sect. 3.2.4, along with a range of new discoveries, cultivation of knowledge and skills, and enriched learning experience, which all fuel to become a greater lifelong learner. • Recognize the possible value of the tasks that may seem less relevant or useful at hand. As reviewed in Sects. 2.2 and 2.3.5, our perception of something (e.g., a task) greatly influences how we think about and evaluate it and subsequently how we engage with it. It is common that students must take courses that seem to have a weak link to their main study or interest. Whether taking the course becomes a dreadful experience or not-so-bad one depends on how we perceive the whole matter. Here is an example scenario, based on the actual story, to illustrate this

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point. First-year students at this particular university are all required to take onesemester music course in which they must sing as a course assignment (oh boy!). Students who major in science, for example, could negatively appraise attending this mandatory music class, arguing that music has little to do with science or that singing in front of classmates is extremely embarrassing. However negatively, this situation is perceived, the fact is that student must take the course anyway. If that is the case, would you attend the course while holding the negative viewpoint, which could easily trigger negative emotions and escalate the negative thoughts, or would you rather try something to make the experience less painful? If the answer is the latter, one approach is to find and focus on the bright side. In this case, we can focus on the various positive effects of music that ample research has shown, including reduction of anxiety (Nilsson, 2008), increased levels of happiness (Huberman, 2022a), and enhancement of work/task performance (Kim, 2022; Lesiuk, 2005). In other words, although attending a music class might not have a direct link to learning science, it can offer positive effects on different aspects of our life, which in turn help us to learn and pursue our goals. • Set your goals wisely and organize your tasks and other activities accordingly. When we have clear goals that we are determined to achieve, these goals shift us toward certain directions, influencing our appraisals, decision making, and actions. We no longer perceive things without empty mind, but instead evaluate them in reference to our goals. For example, if you set a goal to learn and master a particular topic or content over a semester, you will start to organize your behaviors accordingly, such as going to bed earlier so that you can have a quiet morning time to study before your daily tasks and errands begin. When we make decisions and take actions that are in alignment with our goals, it can generate positive emotions such as hope for success, pride in working hard, and gratitude toward your surroundings. Even at challenging times, which can create negative emotional experiences such as disappointment, anxiety, and anger, we can figure out how to use these emotions as a fuel to help us perceiver because we have goals to achieve. On the contrary, when we do not have goals and engage in tasks without assigning any meaning to them, the chance of experiencing negative emotions might be low—because simply we do not care—but the chance of experiencing something amazing with a range of meaningful positive emotions that enrich our lives and ourselves as human beings is also low.

3.6.2

Control Appraisal

Learners’ control appraisal is another factor suggested to be the proximal antecedent of academic emotions. This involves self-efficacy, i.e., evaluation of competence to perform a task, and mindsets, i.e., beliefs about the malleability of intelligence. In a similar vein, mastery goal orientation focusing on developing competence, self-improvement, and learning is another influential factor as

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reviewed in Sect. 2.3. These appraisals and beliefs can be strengthened through the following strategies: • Use your previous performance as the criteria to evaluate your current state, instead of comparing and/or competing with others. With the tremendous advancement of the Internet, getting information about other people across the world has become so much easier than ever before. A downside of this is that there is always a piece of information about someone that can make us feel incompetent, or not as good, if we use the information as a criterion based on which we evaluate ourselves. Let’s say, you as a PhD student have published a paper on a recognized journal and are feeling quite good about yourself. Then, you see someone tweeting his/her publication on one of the topthree journals. You could feel less proud of your accomplishment if you let the information affect you that way. Using others’ performance and achievement as a benchmark clouds our ability to self-reflect and self-evaluate because such a benchmark does not account for our starting point, our circumstances, the amount of effort we put, and many other factors that are unique to us. Therefore, comparing ourselves to others often makes us fail to acknowledge how far we have achieved. This further relates to the next strategy. • Make it a habit of noting down or verbally acknowledging any successful moments, even small ones. Many of us, particularly those goal-minded, tend to always keep looking at higher goals and evaluating how far we are from them. However, it is important to look back and recognize how far we have come. In doing so, it is highly recommended that you write down your accomplishments or say them out loud instead of thinking them in your head. We see what we write and hear what we speak. This means that we can be the best cheerleader for ourselves. A motivational coach and author, Robbins (2021b) in her recent book introduces the habit of high-fiving ourselves in the mirror as a science-based powerful approach to empower us. Robbins elaborates, “no one knows what it’s like to be in your shoes but you. That’s why you must practice being kind to yourself and giving yourself the love, support, and celebration you need” (p. 30). In addition, if you are the kind of student who likes to create a vision board, dream map, or goals-to-achieve list, it is strongly encouraged to add pieces of information showing your accomplishments or things that you are proud of so that you will be repeatedly reminded of your capabilities. • Break down the goals into small manageable components and celebrate the accomplishments in every step. So far, we have discussed the importance of looking inward and acknowledging our effort and accomplishments. This indicates the importance of goal setting. The positive effects of goal setting have been widely recognized in the literature. At the

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same time, we need to be strategic about how we set our goals. Too ambitious goals cannot only diminish our motivation and self-efficacy, but also lead to a range of negative emotions such as frustration, disappointment, anxiety, and hopelessness. The notion of SMART goals (i.e., goals that are specific, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) is a widely known tip on goal setting. To make things simple and easy to execute, one practical suggestion is to set goals that are as simple and easy to accomplish as you can think of, especially when you are pursuing a challenging goal, when you are feeling demotivated, or when you are in a negative emotional state. This suggestion is based on the science of dopamine, the molecule that puts us a great state of motivation to seek out our goals. Dopamine is released from our brain in relative to our anticipation (Huberman, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2022b). More specifically, it is released in the greatest amount when something positive and unexpected happens (e.g., getting an A on an exam that you thought you had performed poorly). It is also released when we anticipate something positive will happen and then it actually happens as well as during the pursuit of it (e.g., studying hard for an exam and getting a good score as a result of it). Conversely, when we expect something positive to happen, but it does not happen (e.g., studying hard while expecting a good result but receiving a poor evaluation), there’s a drop in dopamine below our initial baseline, which inhibits our ability to pursue goals (For more information about the neuroscience of motivation and goal setting, see, e.g., Huberman, 2021a, 2022b). In other words, breaking goals into smaller tasks and completing them is a great scientific approach to continue to be motivated and complete a series of tasks that help us achieve something greater. • Focus on the learning and improvement, particularly in the event of failing to attain the desired outcomes, by asking questions such as “what did I learn from this experience?” instead of “did I succeed?” Failure can be a powerful antecedent to the experience of negative emotions such as disappointment, anger, sadness, and shame. Such negative emotions can further lead to unhealthy thinking and/or behaviors such as self-criticism, self-doubt, quitting, procrastinating, and blaming the situation or others, which ironically produce more negative emotions (because we feel bad about ourselves for thinking and behaving that way). We can avoid such down spiral by becoming wise and strategic about failure. We typically experience so-called “failure” when we do not get the outcome we desire, such as not passing an exam, not getting the grade we expected, being rejected by a journal, or finding no significant effect of a treatment in our study, and we usually perceive this as a negative event. However, it is this exact time when things did not go the way we had expected that we learn and grow the most. Failure is not at all a negative event. Failure is giving us great pieces of information with which we can evaluate our performance, plan a new—and often better—course of action, and execute it with richer resources. In other words, the experience, knowledge, and skills with which we equip ourselves

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from the event (i.e., failure) cannot only help us get closer to our goals but also become great skill set for many more occasions for us to perform better and more wisely in future. Remember: rejection is re-direction. • Embrace the word yet. The power of “not yet,” which Dweck (2006) introduces with the discussion of mindsets,3 can turn into a simple but extremely powerful strategy to reappraise challenges we encounter and energize us to keep moving forward. The effect of this strategy is best understood when you try it out yourself. Therefore, here’s a suggestion. Next time you encounter a situation where you did not attain the excepted outcome and think to yourself, “Oh I did not…” or “I could not…” add the word “just yet” and smile. See what happens. • Be aware of your critical internal voice. More than a decade ago, a great friend of mine told me about the “internal voice” that he had had for his lifetime. When I first heard it, I thought he was seriously mentally ill. Soon I realized that I had one, too. As I read more about spirituality and psychology, I learned that everyone has one, and it is typically critical. One easy example to illustrate this is when we look ourselves in the mirror. We almost automatically start spotting something we do not like, some fat here and there, spots, winkles, uneven eyebrows, and so on and so forth. In academic situations for example, when we finish giving a presentation, it is typically us, and no one else, who give harsh criticisms about the performance. It is one thing to give ourselves constructive feedback. It is another to let our critical internal voice unfairly drag us down and diminish our self-worth. Related to the topic of critical internal voice, here is an approach to tweak self-affirmations to make them more effective. Positive self-affirmations are widely recommended as effective approaches such as to motivate us, improve our self-efficacy, or help us achieve the person we want to become. At the same time, it can often be the case that as soon as we state a positive self-affirmation such as “I am successful.” the critical internal voice immediately whispers, “no you are not.” If you then listen to this voice, you are not believing that you are successful, which diminishes the positive effect of the affirmation. Instead, we can modify affirmations and change the statement “I am…” to “I’m in the process of…” For this example, the statement becomes “I am in the process of becoming successful.” With this style of affirmation, we will not have to trick ourselves into believing in what we are not entirely sure about and yet we can assure ourselves that we are making progress and are moving forward.

3

Mindsets refer to the beliefs individuals hold about the innateness of intelligence (Dweck, 1999, 2006). Learners with fixed mindsets believe that intelligence is unchangeable and therefore ability will not improve no matter how hard they work. On the other hand, learners with growth mindsets feel a sense of agency in their learning and that effort leads to higher academic performance.

3.6 Pedagogical Implications and Classroom Application

3.6.3

77

Self-conditioning

It is of fundamental importance that students maintain healthy mental and physical states so that they can maximize their focus and productivity. For example, in a study by Nakamura et al. (2021a) lack of sleep was shown to be one of the causes of experiencing boredom during class. While effective self-conditioning is important in all aspects of our lives, students typically do not have opportunities to learn or be reminded of this at school. Some examples of self-conditioning are discussed below. • Ensure quality sleep. The importance of quality sleep cannot be stressed enough. It is the foundation of our mood and performance. Our sleep health is strongly related to our emotional and mental health. It is even said that there is no one major organ within the body or process within the brain that is not enhanced by sleep (Walker, 2018). While 6–8 h is often recommended, there is no fixed duration of sleep hours or the timing of going to bed/getting up that is appropriate universally. It depends on a number of environmental and biological factors such as lifestyles, age, sex, and individual circadian rhythm, an internal body clock that regulates the sleep– wake cycle repeating roughly every 24 h. According to Walker (2018), 40% of the population are morning types, 30% are evening types, and the remaining 30% lie in between. One way to find out your natural sleep cycle to go to bed when you feel sleepy and wake up without an alarm clock for a week or so and get an average (i.e., your bedtime and wake-up time), which indicates your sleep schedule. Adhering to this schedule can enhance your sleep quality. In addition, there are science-based, relatively easily approaches, which include view sunlight outside within 30–60 min of waking to wake up your circadian clock, avoiding caffeine eight to 10 h (12 h if possible) before bedtime, avoiding blue light and artificial light between 10 pm and 4 am (doing so can damage your circadian rhythm). Even when we are conscious about getting quality sleep, there are times when we are deprived of stuffiest sleep. In those situations, doing yoga nidra, non-sleep deep rest, which can be found on YouTube and sleep apps, is helpful to supplement the lack of sleep. (For more detailed discussion of how to improve our sleep quality, see, e.g., Huberman, 2021b, 2021c, 2022c; Walker, 2018, n.d.). • Set up a good morning routine. How we start a day greatly affects the rest of the day. Successful individuals such as entrepreneurs and business owners stress the importance of designing a morning routine to maximize productivity and create positive emotional states (Bilyeu, 2017; Keuilian, 2017; Lakhiani, 2019; Spall & Xander, 2018). Among

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many, there are some activities repeatedly recommended by these people and/ or supported by scientific evidence. They include, sunlight viewing, exercising, dehydrating, meditating, journaling, planning/organizing the activities of the day, staying away from digital devices (for checking emails or social media). Viewing early morning sunlight is shown to have a number of positive effects (Huberman, 2022c, 2022e; Mead, 2008; Yurich, n.d.; van der Rhee et al., 2016), including more positive moods, focused mental outlook, higher alertness, improved sleep quality, and an increase in dopamine, the molecule of motivation (see Sect. 3.6.2 for more information about dopamine). Based on empirical studies, Huberman (2022c) for example recommends viewing early morning sunlight for 10–30 min daily (make sure you go outside and do not wear sunglasses) to have such positive impacts. Exercising is another great tool to enhance mental and physical health (Deslandes et al., 2009; Mikkelsen et al., 2017; Salmon, 2001), which can be incorporated into a morning routine. Even if you have a busy morning time before leaving for school or work, you can be creative to include some types of workouts in the morning. If you are not a physically active person, or a morning person, you might think it is impossible to engage in such an activity in the morning. Tom Bilyeu, a successful entrepreneur, who claims “I’m lazy as hell” (Bilyeu, 2017), talks about exercise as one of his morning routines in the following way: Once I wake up, I use the very act of waking up as the trigger that reminds me to work out. I work out five days a week, but I’m not one of those guys who loves going to the gym. But I get up, roll out of bed and go straight to the gym anyway….Developing discipline is one of the most critical things you need to be successful. Being successful comes with a litany of things that you’re not going to want to do, but you’re going to have to do them anyway.

Many also suggest conquering and envisioning your day by going inward through activities such as journaling and meditating instead of letting others distract your visions and priorities by checking emails and social media. Ample research has shown positive benefits of various meditation practices, such as reducing anxiety, enhancing attention and focus, improving sleep quality, and increasing perceived happiness (Basso et al., 2019; Goleman & Davidson, 2017; Huberman, 2022d). When a meditation as short as 13 min is shown to have a positive effect (Basso et al., 2019) and a 3-min daily meditation is suggested to be beneficial (Huberman, 2022d), the idea of incorporating a mediation practice into a morning habit might not sound so difficult to those who have tight morning schedules. • Set daily schedules. When we have a lot of obligations and roles that we are expected to play, such tasks can easily overwhelm us or distract us from focusing on the important ones. Therefore, it is crucial to have a list of priorities and schedule our day accordingly. This also means that we sometimes have to say no to the opportunities and

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invitations that look good at hand. Setting your day in this manner in the morning can give you positive emotions and motivations to start your day. Doing so in the previous night can prevent you from waking up feeling anxious and overwhelmed, especially when you tackle and juggle with a great amount of work and responsibilities. • Pay attention to the signals sent from the body and mind. When we are driven to achieve something and focused on performing various tasks, it is easy for us to pay little attention to what is happening inside us, psychically and emotionally. This can be a simple physical fatigue or mental stress, and intentionally or unintentionally we ignore them believing that we have important things to do. However, nothing is more important than our well-being. When we keep ignoring the signals that our body and mind sends us, it can lead to serious consequences such as burnout and physical and mental illnesses. • Have a “me time” once in a while. Somehow related to the point above, it is essential to have a “me time” once in a while. During this time, you are suggested engaging in activities that help you go inward (therefore, scrolling down on Instagram or other social media is not recommended). They can be as simple as enjoying a cup of really nice coffee, sunbathing, taking a walk in the woods, or taking a long bath. You can also journal about how you have been doing lately, things that you are grateful for, and things that you are proud of yourself for. In doing so, one simple tip to remember is to choose activities that make you feel good by engaging in your five senses. They can be to look at something that brings you joy, listen for silence, smell something beautiful, taste something that makes you feel good, or feel your body moving (Robbins, 2021a). • Talk to someone who loves you for who you are and supports you for your growth. On the contrary to the me time discussed above, it is a great practice to talk to someone when you need extra help, want new insights and different perspectives, or simply want to feel loved, supported, and encouraged. The person can be your friend, family member, partner, or anyone you feel comfortable talking with. In doing so, it is important that you first check in with the person to see if she/he has time for you. This is particularly important with close ones, such as partners and family members, who we tend to assume are always ready to listen to us when in fact they are not. It is also helpful for both of you if you are clear about what you need at the beginning, that is, whether you would like the person to simply listen to you or analyze the issue and advise.

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3 Emotion Regulation and Emotion Regulation Strategies

Study Environment

Our surrounding has a large impact on our psychological well-being. For example, Peterson (2021), a professor of Psychology, repeatedly emphasizes the importance of cleaning the room, explaining that our immediate environment is an extension of ourselves. In addition, creating the kind of environment that makes us feel positive, energetic, focused, or calm can increase the likelihood of experiencing emotions productive for learning. Practical ideas are listed below: • Dedicate a space (e.g., desk, room, a corner of a room) only for studying and do not use the space for anything else (e.g., eating, watching TV). “Nerve cells that fire together, wire together” is a well-known principle in neuroscience. According to a neuroscientist, Dispenza (2013) it means that “if we activate the same nerve cells, then each time they turn on, it will be easier for them to fire in unison again” (p. 51). In order to illustrate this point, let’s imagine that you set up a study space with a desk in your house. Every time you enter the space and sit at the desk, you have a focused, positive, productive study time. As you repeat this over and over, the experience becomes embedded in your neural networks, and you learn to associate the study space with this positive study experience. Then the next time you enter the study space, your brain triggers the same neurons that help you to have the same positive study experience. In the same way, different pathways can be created when you repeatedly use your living room to relax and wind down with entertainment, which in turn can make it harder for you to be in a study mode while being in the living room. • Pay attention to the external and internal sensations (e.g., views, smells, ventilation, lighting) involved in the study space. Imagine yourself in a steakhouse, filled with smoky scent and the smell of delicious meat, with constant chatter and clattering dishes, waiters running around. Next, imagine yourself in a quiet coffee shop in a forest, with the sun softly shining through the windows, coffee aroma that is flowery, nutty, smoky, and herbal, and classic music at low volume. It is quite obvious which environment is helpful for studying (unless you have a unique association between steak and studying or hate coffee). When you sit at the desk and study, weather that is in the study space that you have created in your house or a place outside, you want to make sure your senses are not distracted, and if possible, are supported. Is the room bright enough? It is quiet enough? What is the room temperature? What do you see when you sit at the desk? These might seem trivial but can have a significant impact on your focus and productivity. • Be mindful of the quality of the desk and chair to ensure a healthy posture while studying

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In addition to the environment discussed above, it is important to make sure your desk and chair are structured and aligned in way that helps you maintain a healthy posture while studying. With dell-designed sofas and beds, our body is used to lean backward and slouch. Such a posture can not only be harmful to our health but also make us feel too comfortable—or lazy—to study. Whatever the position you are now while reading this book, sit straight with your spine erect and examine the effect. Studying with a good sitting posture is beneficial not only for our physical health but also mental one. • Be creative—without necessarily spending a lot of money—in making the study space beautiful The above discussion of study space with a quality desk and chair, together with visual, auditory, and olfactory senses might be perceived that creating an appropriate study environment requires great financial support. This is not true. You do not need a high-tech chair or desk to support a good posture. You do not need to drive to a forest and buy an expensive coffee to study in a nice atmosphere. What is needed is your creativity. You can, for example, try to find a spot that receives natural sun light. You can try inexpensive incense or oil to stimulate your olfactory sense. Changing the color of your coffee cup might give you a different mood. You can customize your computer wallpaper to energize you to study or remind you of your goals. A range of items are available at one-dollar shops. By changing these items, you can give your study space a new look once in a while, which might give you a refreshing feeling to study harder. The strategies introduced in this section and throughout the chapter are by and large simple but may not be necessarily easy to implement on a regular basis. Furthermore, it can be the case that emotion-oriented strategies do not have direct or obvious links to the lesson/course content and thus you as a teacher might wonder how to incorporate them into your classroom. This is the focus of Chap. 4.

3.7

Summary

By reading this chapter while engaging in the suggested activities and contemplating the reflective questions, you have achieved the followings: • Understood how one regulates emotions • Learned different types of emotion regulation strategies • Gained some ideas about a repertoire of your habitual emotion regulation strategies and their impacts • Gained knowledge and skills to identify emotion regulation strategies • Learned various ways that your students might be able to better regulate their emotions in relation to their learning enhancement

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4

Strategy Instruction

Abstract

This chapter introduces strategy instruction as a venue for teachers/researchers to introduce and for students to practice emotion regulation strategies. It first summarizes four strategy instruction models that are widely acknowledged in the field of language learning and teaching. The description of the models is slightly modified to be applicable across different academic disciplines. It then examines these models for their applicability as models for emotion regulation strategy instruction and suggests ideas for modifications, with a reference to self-regulated learning models established in the fields of education and educational psychology. Two examples of strategy instruction are then provided. The chapter ends with interviews with five researchers who talk about unforeseen challenges involved in their research on emotion regulation and strategy instruction and offer advice for teachers and researchers in conducting their own research in the future.

4.1

Introduction

Chapter 2 reviewed a wide range of strategies for regulating emotions. The review also indicated that some emotion regulation strategies (e.g., adaptive strategies) are not only effective in generating positive emotional states but also they can support learning. As such, the discussion was primary about the what (i.e., means to regulate emotions) and the why (i.e., the mechanisms behind it) of emotion regulation. This chapter shifts its focus to the “how,” namely, how such strategies can be introduced to and practiced by learners. One way is through strategy instruction. To clarify the terminology, strategy instruction, strategy training, and strategy session, which is used interchangeably in this book, all denote a set of sessions in which a teacher offers opportunities for students to learn about and/or practice certain strategies based on established goals. Such goals can be to enhance students’ © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Nakamura, Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning, Springer Texts in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42116-7_4

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capability to handle a specific emotion, widen their strategy repertoires, or improve the performance of a certain task by better regulating emotions. In the literature, various suggestions are made by experts on how to design and implement strategy training that are effective in achieving these objectives. SLA scholars have recommended detailed steps and set of tasks involving specific language learning strategies. Different models of self-regulated learning, which involve effective management of emotions (see Sect. 3.3), have been used as a theoretical framework to build strategy instruction in the fields of education and educational psychology. Studying these works can be a great starting point for designing emotion regulation strategy sessions. At the same time, it is important to remember, when reviewing the literature on strategy instruction, that theoretical models are typically designed for strategies in general; they are not necessarily designed to specifically address emotion regulation strategies. As we will see in the subsequent sections, incorporating strategies targeting emotions, which typically do not have a direct, explicit link to school subjects, into the classroom requires different approaches than teaching strategies targeting specific learning skills (e.g., summarizing) that match the subject (e.g., academic reading and writing). Taking these points into consideration, this chapter is organized in the following manner. First, we will review four strategy instruction models offered by scholars who are widely recognized as experts in this research domain. These models are then analyzed for their applicability in handing emotion regulation strategies with reference to self-regulated learning models. Following a review of factors shown to be a moderator of the effects of strategy instruction, detailed suggestions for emotion regulation strategy instruction are offered. In order to illustrate how these theoretical and empirical discussions can be actualized, two examples of emotion regulation instruction are provided. The chapter ends with interview reports where researchers discuss the challenges that they encountered while conducting their studies on strategy instruction or emotion regulation and the approaches taken to overcome them and then offer advice for those who are interested in conducting a study on the topics.

4.2

Strategy Instruction Models

Research has shown that strategy instruction is an effective means to enhance learners’ strategy use (Bielak, 2018; Cohen, 2010; Plonsky, 2011). In designing and implementing strategy training in the classroom, various models are suggested in the literature. As reviewed Sect. 3.3, language learning strategy has been an extensively researched area in the field of SLA. As such, scholars have proposed models consisting of detailed steps and tasks and offered suggestions for making strategy instruction successful. Among them, below summarizes four models proposed by scholars widely known as experts in this research domain. In doing so, instructions are summarized with slight modifications so that they can be applied in different academic domains—and not just language learning contexts.

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Dörnyei’s (2001) training model for self-motivating strategies As reviewed in Sect. 3.3, Dörnyei (2001) emphasized the importance of managing the affective aspect of learning processes, including motivation and emotions through the use of self-motivating strategies. Correspondingly, he suggested a training model consisting of six phases through which such self-motivating strategies can be taught: 1. Find out which self-motivating strategies students already use and discuss these with them. 2. Suggest and model some new strategies. 3. Provide a rationale for strategy use; students will only take the trouble applying strategies and developing new ones if they become convinced about their usefulness. 4. Provide guided exercises to help students to put the strategies into practice. 5. Encourage students to develop their own strategies. 6. Organize a sharing session in which students share the strategies they have created or found particularly useful. Oxford’s (1990) completely informed training Oxford Rebecca is one of the scholars who are acknowledged for their extensive work on language learning strategies (e.g., Oxford, 1990, 1996, 2001, 2016). In her pioneering work (Oxford, 1990), Oxford suggested the following eight steps for teaching learning strategies in the classroom: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Determine the learners’ needs and the time available. Select strategies well. Consider integration of strategy training. Consider motivational issues. Prepare materials and activities. Conduct completely informed training. Evaluate the strategy training. Revise the strategy training.

The complete informed training, listed in step 6, is a type of training in which teachers “inform the learners as completely as possible about why strategies are important and how they can be used in new situations” (Oxford, 1990, p. 207), and it involves the following sequence:

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1. Learners try a task without any training in the target strategy and comment on the strategies they spontaneously used to do the task. 2. The teacher explains and demonstrates the target strategy by building on what the learners said they were doing in the first step and showing how they might either improve the use of their current strategies or employ an entirely new strategy. 3. Learners apply the new strategy to the same task as before or a similar one. Weaver’s and Cohen (1997), (Cohen & Weaver, 2005) styles and strategies-based instruction Andrew D. Cohen is another scholar who has conducted extensive research on language learning strategy instruction and emphasized the difference between learning strategies and learning styles. A learning style can be understood as “an individual’s natural, habitual, and preferred ways of absorbing, processing, and retaining new information and skills which persist regardless of teaching methods or content area” (Kinsella, 1995, p. 171), and it is relatively stable (Cohen 2010; Keefe, 1973; Wong & Nunan, 2011). The styles and strategies-based instruction, initially proposed by Weaver and Cohen in 1997 and revised in 2005 (Cohen & Weaver, 2005), is a learner-focused approach that explicitly combines learning styles and strategy instruction with everyday classroom activities. It suggests the following steps: 1. Find out which strategies students already employ in subject areas other than the target subject. 2. Find out which strategies students have employed in the target subject area, which proved productive and less successful. 3. Suggest and model multiple strategies. 4. Provide a rationale for each strategy presented. 5. Give guided exercises and provide experiences to help students apply strategies to appropriate tasks. 6. Help students monitor the effectiveness of their present strategies, have them try the suggested strategies and alter them to suit their learning styles, and help them develop their own strategies. Cohen’s (2010) instruction This instruction by Cohen (2010) is one of the most holistic models developed through a critical review on the previous research on language learning strategies. The following steps, as Cohen (2010) advises, help teachers create lessons that are not only strategy-based but also consider students’ learning styles while encouraging awareness raising. 1. Raise learners’ awareness about their learning strategies so as to generate motivation to be more conscious and proactive about the use of strategies. 2. Find out the learners’ preferred styles and strategies, as well as which strategies they may wish to add to their repertoire.

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Suggest and model new strategies. Provide a rationale for using the new strategies. Provide guided exercises. Encourage learners to enhance their current strategy repertories. Encourage learners to become willing to use new strategies. Highlight cross-cultural differences in how strategies can be appropriate or inappropriate. 9. Organize sharing sessions.

Although an evaluation for the transferability of these strategy instructions may be best achieved by individual readers who are most familiar with their own teaching contexts, the models and suggestions seem to apply not only to language learning but also other academic subjects. For instance, a set of strategies suggested for effective science learning (Australian Academy of Science, n.d.), summarized below, can probably be taught and practiced using the above reviewed models, such as by replacing “self-meditating strategies” with the following science learning strategies in Dörnyei’s (2001) training model. • • • • •

Using graphing to develop science inquiry skills. Keeping a science journal to record observations, experiences, and reflections. Using glossary for science vocabulary development. Engaging in evidence-based discussions. Writing questions for investigation.

However, the transferability of strategy training models across different academic domains do not indicate the transferability of the models across different strategy types, namely, training models targeting specific academic subject study skills and those for emotion regulation, and this is the focus of the next section.

Food for thought: Think about your classes and/or students. Can any of the reviewed models be used for emotion regulation strategies in your context? Are there any steps that might not work well with certain emotion regulation strategies or your teaching context?

4.3

Analysis of Strategy Instruction Models

While the above-reviewed strategy instruction models can be used as useful resources in designing and implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction, several points need to be noted. The first relates to theoretical foundations. Research on language learning strategies has long been criticized for insufficient theoretical underpinning. As such, language learning strategy instruction models

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are often offered by individual SLA researchers as suggestions, not necessarily grounded in theories. In fact, Plonsky (2011) points out this issue with LLS study design in his meta-analysis and states that “Unfortunately, the lack of theory in this area has left researchers and practitioners to design studies of SI [strategy instruction] based largely on convenience, intuition, and/or some level of idiosyncrasy” (p. 998). The next point concerns the nature of emotions. Strategy training, including the models reviewed in Sect. 4.2, typically starts with strategies, for example, identifying learners’ current strategy knowledge and use (Cohen & Weaver, 2005; Dörnyei, 2001; Weaver & Cohen, 1997), raising awareness of strategies (Cohen, 2010), or suggesting strategies (Oxford, 1990). Such models can work well when the goal of the training is to foster the use of specific strategies suitable for certain types of learning tasks (e.g., skimming for reading) or when the target skills are in line with the course syllabus (e.g., Using graphing to develop science inquiry skills in a science course). However, when the goal is to enhance learners’ capacity to self-regulate their emotions, the training model needs to begin with deepening the understanding of the emotion itself. As Boekaerts (2011) and Boekaerts and Pekrun (2015) posit, successful emotion regulation begins with understanding our own emotions. In other words, learners need to first notice the emotions that they are experiencing and then explore the reasons, their subsequent actions, and the resulting consequences, in order to strategize their emotion regulation. Furthermore, learners need to have the need and willingness to improve their emotion regulation if/when they are given strategy instruction. The importance of understanding does not only apply to the learners; it also applies to the teacher who provides the strategy instruction. As Covey (2004) reminds us: “We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first” (p. 237). In other words, how could teachers help students cope with a particular emotion unless they first understand why the students experience the emotion? Understanding the antecedents of the target emotion is particularly important when working with emotions whose antecedents are shown to be associated with teacher factors, such as boredom. Research has shown a range of teacher variables (e.g., unorganized lessons, boring tasks, lack of engagement) responsible for learner boredom (Kruk, 2016; Nakamura et al., 2021a; Zawodniak et al., 2017). If, for example, the antecedents of learners’ boredom are all teacher-related factors, the applicability of strategy instruction to such a context might be questionable. The last point relates to the post-phase of strategy instruction, namely, what learned can or should be encouraged to do after they have worked with strategies, whether that is to use new strategies or expand their current strategy repertories. Once learners are equipped with new knowledge and/or strategies, it is ideal that they utilize these in a self-regulatory manner. However, the existing models typically end with students working with new strategies, except for engaging in sharing sessions to exchange ideas. One way to overcome this issue is to include

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self-reflection. Self-reflection, involving self-judgment and evaluation, has been shown to enhance self-regulatory behaviors (Panadero, 2017; Schmitz & Wiese, 2006; Zimmerman, 2000) and is recognized as one of the three steps critical for self-regulated learning. The next section will further review self-regulated learning models in relation to strategy instruction.

4.4

Self-regulated Learning Models

In the fields of education and educational psychology, studies involving strategy instruction are by and large built on theories of self-regulated learning. Among them, two of the widely adopted self-regulated learning models are reviewed in this section (For a comprehensive review of more models, see, e.g., Panadero, 2017). Zimmerman’s (2000) cyclical phases model of self-regulated learning Zimmerman’s (2000) cyclical phases model for self-regulated learning is one of the most widely adopted across different disciplines and learning environments, such as sports (Cleary et al., 2006), mathematics (Bol et al., 2015), foreign language learning (Eissa, 2015), computer-assisted learning (Azevedo & Cromley, 2004; Lin et al., 2015) to design strategy-related interventions aimed to enhance self-regulated learning. The model depicts self-regulated learning in three phases: forethought, performance/volitional control, and self-reflection. Forethought is an influential first phase that precedes efforts to act and sets the stage for a performance. Performance or volitional control is the second phase, where learners make motoric efforts, using strategies, self-monitoring, and self-controlling. The third phase is self-reflection, during which learners judge and evaluate their performance and outcomes. This self-reflection, in turn, influences forethought regarding subsequent motoric efforts and thus completes a self-regulatory cycle. Using this model as a theoretical framework, training is typically designed through three stages. For example, Cleary et al. (2006) developed and implemented selfregulation training aimed at fostering novel motoric skills in basketball free throws and self-reflective beliefs among college students in physical education classes. Their training instructed the students to set process goals in a forethought phase, self-record in a performance phase process, and make strategic attributions and adjustments following missed free throws in a self-reflection phase. Pintrich’s (2000) self-regulated learning model Another self-regulated learning model that is widely adopted for strategyinstruction interventions is Pintrich’s model (Pintrich, 2000). One of the distinctive features of this model is that it is composed of four phases and four areas of regulation. According to the model, self-regulated learning progresses through four phases: (1) forethought, planning, and activation; (2) monitoring; (3) control, and (4) reaction and reflection, and in each phase, four areas can be considered for

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Table 4.1 Pintrich’s self-regulated learning phases in the motivation/affect area Phase

Motivation/affect area for regulation

Forethought, planning, and activation

Adoption of goal orientation Evaluation of self-efficacy and perceived task difficulty Activation of task value and interest

Monitoring

Awareness and monitoring of motivation and affect

Control

Selection and adaption of strategies to manage motivation and affect

Reaction and reflection

Reflection of affective reactions attributions

regulation: cognition, motivation/affect, behavior, and context. Table 4.1 illustrates the four phases in the motivation/affect area. Using this model as a theoretical framework, Tzohar-Rozen and Kramarski (2014) for example, developed interventions aimed to foster two areas of selfregulation: metacognitive regulation and motivational-emotional regulation. The intervention in the motivational-emotional area, consisting of two one-hour sessions per week for five weeks, included an analysis and discussion of scenariobased emotions and motivation, building motivational-emotional self-regulated learning strategies, revision of these strategies, and discussion. If emotion regulation instruction is designed based on the above-reviewed models, such instruction can address some of the issues pointed out about the language learning strategy instruction models, such as the lack of theoretical frameworks and enhancement of self-regulatory behaviors. Yet, there is one more important aspect of emotion regulation strategy instruction that teachers/researchers are encouraged to be aware of, that is, a potential mismatch between strategy instruction and the content of the lesson in which the strategy training takes place. Although successful regulation of emotions is argued to be a critical aspect of learning in various educational contexts (Pintrich, 2000; Ramdass & Zimmerman, 2011; Tzohar-Rozen & Karamarski, 2014; Zimmerman, 2000), it is possible that students might see the topic of regulating emotions as irrelevant to the subject that they expect to learn in the class. This raises another issue: to what extent, classroom hours can be spent on emotion regulation strategies that are unrelated to the lesson content? This discussion is further elaborated on in the next section with reference to factors as moderators of the impact of strategy instruction.

4.5

Moderators of the Effects of Strategy Instruction

In the literature on language learning strategy, certain variables are argued to moderate the effects of strategy instruction. This section reviews four of them that are particularly relevant to designing emotion-related strategy instruction. Although the research domain is language learning, the information can be useful point of reference in other domains, particularly in designing stagey interventions. The

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first one is the provider of strategy instruction, namely, whether the teacher or researcher should impart the intervention. While it is worth noting that studies conducted in a laboratory setting have produced much larger effects than in a classroom setting (Plonsky, 2011), it is generally recommended that teachers (or pretensioners) implement the intervention. This is because the efficacy of the strategy instruction can be aided by a rapport between the teacher and students as well as the teacher’s deeper understanding of the students such as their needs and backgrounds (Oxford, 1990; Oxford et al., 1990; Plonsky, 2011). Selecting strategies for instruction is another important component (Oxford, 1990). This concerns not only the types of strategies but also the number of strategies. In the meta-analysis conducted by Plonsky (2011), interventions that focused on a few strategies (≤ 8) were found to produce greater effects. This finding contradicts some researchers’ suggestions that learners should be exposed to a wide range of strategies and encouraged to try out as many strategies as possible (Cotterall & Reinders, 2004). For example, Cotterall and Reinders (2004) argue that learners should be given options and that forcing a particular strategy use upon them is unlikely to be effective. Similarly, Oxford (2003) contends that “It is foolhardy to think that a single L2 methodology could possibly fit an entire class filled with students who have a range of stylistic and strategic preferences” (p. 16). Experts in the field indeed emphasize the need for taking individual differences into account when designing and providing strategy instruction, such as their styles, preferences, goals, and needs (Cohen, 2010; Cohen & Weaver, 2005; Oxford, 1990, 2003; Rubin et al., 2007). What these arguments point to is that teachers/researchers might not have to be too concerned about the exact number of strategies to be covered in their strategy instruction but that they do make sure to never force students to use the introduced strategies. This is a particularly important point when strategy instruction targets emotions, which is a highly personal matter. Another important variable shown to moderate the effect of strategy instruction is its duration. There has been a wide variability in the length of treatment (i.e., the number of sessions and the time spent). For example, among the studies systematically reviewed by Hassan et al. (2005), the shortest one was 90 min-long while the longest one was carried out for 52 weeks, with the rest of the studies implemented for a wide range of periods. Plonsky (2011) reported that approximately half of the studies in his meta-analysis were carried out over a few days while others were carried out over several weeks or months. When these two groups of studies were compared, an advantage for longer interventions was indicated although the difference in the effect sizes was small. Related to this point, whether strategy instruction should be embedded in the lesson/course or implemented as a separate session is another important issue to be considered. Researchers by and large advocate the integration of strategy instruction into classroom activities (Oxford, 1990; Oxford et al., 1990; Rubin et al., 2007; Walters, 2006). Such integration can work well when the target strategy is closely related to the course/lesson content. However, when strategy instruction targets emotions, such instruction might not be well-linked to lesson content, in which case teachers/researchers may need

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to offer a separate session, unrelated to the class content. This implementation involves discussions at the institutional level (e.g., whether or not the institution allows such practice) as well as ethics (e.g., whether it is ethical to ask students to stay outside the class to engage in such sessions) in order to reach an agreement for the rationale and justification.

Food for thought: This section reviewed possible factors that might moderate the effects of strategy instruction. Can you think of other moderating variables? In what way could they influence the effects of strategy instruction? What approaches can you take to mitigate the moderating effects?

4.6

Suggestions for Designing and Implementing Emotion Regulation Strategy Instruction

Based on the analysis of the strategy instruction models and the moderator variables reviewed in Sects. 4.3 and 4.5, together with my experiences with emotion regulation strategy instruction both in research and classroom settings, this section offers suggestions for designing and implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction. The discussions are applicable to strategy instruction for both pedagogical and research purposes.

4.6.1

Suggestion 1: Strengthening Theoretical Foundation and Rationale

It is important, especially when strategy training is conducted as part of a research project, that the training has theoretical foundations, in addition to pedagogical and/or empirical motivation—unless it is conducted as an action research (see Chap. 5 for more description about action research). As reviewed in Sect. 4.4, the models of self-regulated learning can be a good theoretical framework. The detailed instructions offered for language learning strategy sessions can then be used within this framework. More specifically, looking across the language learning strategy training models reviewed in reference to the cyclical model of self-regulation, the suggested first step for strategy training such as identifying learners’ current strategy knowledge and use (Cohen & Weaver, 2005; Dörnyei, 2001; Weaver & Cohen, 1997), raising awareness of strategies (Cohen, 2010) appears to correspond to the forethought phase, as it involves setting up the foundation from which learners can proceed to learn and explore new strategies in the next step. Thus, the actual teaching of strategies and other related activities, such as

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guided exercises and developing own strategy sets, can belong to the performance or volitional control phase. Adding the third phase, where learners self-reflect on their own strategy use, can be a valuable modification to the existing training model so that the strategy training can promote self-regulatory cyclical phases to enhance emotion regulation. Showing theoretical grounds is also an effective way for teachers in suggesting emotion regulation sessions at the institutional level as they add the rationale for and support the argument of why it can be a beneficial innovation.

4.6.2

Suggestion 2: Building a Positive, Trusted Relationship Among Students and Teacher/Researcher

As repeatedly argued throughout this book, emotion regulation strategy instruction requires approaches that are different from teaching strategies related to study skills (e.g., summarizing, graphing). One of the most important approaches is the same one discussed in Chap. 2, that is, cultivating a positive, trusted, open student–teacher/researcher relationship. Even if the primary objective of the strategy instruction is to expand learners’ emotion regulation strategy repertories, the session most likely involves the discussion of students’ emotional experiences. Therefore, it is vital that students feel safe and willing to share their honest experiences and thoughts about their emotions with researchers or teachers. Furthermore, if the strategy sessions include group work involving emotions, students themselves need to feel comfortable with each other. In the case of teachers providing the strategy sessions, they can create opportunities before, during, and after class to cultivate a positive relationship with students, as discussed in Sect. 2.6.1. They can also foster such relationships among students by making regular class activities collaborative and making group work and pair wok with different students. In case of researchers providing strategy sessions to a group of students that they do not teach, hosting a welcoming gathering where they get to know each other in a relaxed manner prior to the sessions, visiting the students’ classes as an observer or assistant teacher (if allowed) can be some of the approaches to communicate with students.

4.6.3

Suggestion 3: Understanding Students’ Emotions First

Related to the above-mentioned point, understanding the nature of students’ emotions is another critical first step toward strategy instruction implementation, even if it requires shortening the duration of the strategy instruction within the available time (e.g., one semester). This is because it is during this understanding phase that teachers/researchers can develop rapport and gain information useful to tailor their strategy instruction to their students. For instance, in my boredom relegation strategy sessions, I was able to introduce reappraisal and boredom-coping strategies in a meaningful way only because I had developed certain levels of understanding

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about my students’ boredom. For example, based on students’ reports about experiencing boredom by perceiving texts with new vocabulary as “something I don’t know” as opposed to “something new to learn,” I was able to illustrate how reappraisal strategies could be used to regulate boredom. Because I found out that lack of sleep increased the likelihood of experiencing boredom among my students, I was able to demonstrate the benefit of proactive approach-oriented strategies to regulate their boredom. In other words, without the investigation into the nature of my students’ boredom, I could have only demonstrated what these strategies can do, but not how my students can use these strategies to regulate their boredom. Another positive aspect of having the understanding phase is that it can enhance collaborative work. During this phase in my study, for example, I learned that some of the reasons for my students’ boredom were related to my pedagogy, and thus I strove to improve it by integrating students’ feedback and ideas into the lessons. Because of this, when I offered strategy instruction, it did not feel onesided. My students had seen what I had worked on to reduce boredom by the time I offered strategy instruction. In the literature on strategy instruction, the importance of understanding the students’ strategy repertories is voiced by researchers (Cohen, 2010; Cohen & Weaver, 2005; Rubin et al., 2007; Oxford, 1990, 2003). For emotion regulation strategy instruction, understanding why and how students experience certain emotions is as important as understanding what students do to cope with it i.e., strategy repertories.

4.6.4

Suggestion 4: Focusing on Certain Emotions Based on a Well-Thought-Through Rationale

Typically, students experience different emotions while attending a class. It is also possible for them to experience both negative and positive emotions (e.g., anxiety and enjoyment) while performing a single task (Nakamura et al., 2020). However, emotion regulation training—whether as an intervention of an empirical study or a classroom activity—that does not specify target emotions or that covers too many emotions can pose a number of difficulties in designing, implementing, and evaluating its efficacy. As shown in Chap. 2, the antecedents of discrete emotions greatly differ (e.g., the reasons for a student to feel anxious are most likely different from the reasons for the student to feel anger). As shown in Chap. 3, the applicability and effectiveness of strategies can also differ depending on what emotions are being handled and whether the purpose is to down-regulate or up-regulate the emotion. What these reviews indicate is that strategy instruction with a broad scope has to include a great number of explanations covering a range of emotions and strategies, which could easily overwhelm participating students. Students are not only required to comprehend and digest the new information but also apply them in different settings (e.g., using certain strategies in a particular situation). When examining the impact of the strategy training, which would most likely involve

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self-report instruments (e.g., questionnaire, interview, diary), the researcher/teacher has to ask the same set of questions, multiplied by the number of emotions covered in the training. For these reasons, it is recommended, especially if you are implementing strategy instruction for the first time, to start with a particular focus. This focus can be an emotion, an emotion regulation strategy, or a classroom where the strategy training takes place (see Sects. 5.1 and 5.2 for detailed ideas regarding this suggestion). Whatever focus is selected, the decision needs to be supported by a well-thought rationale. In doing so, answering questions such as the below can be helpful: • • • •

Why have I chosen this emotion, and not others? What benefits would regulating the emotion have on students? Why have I chosen this emotion regulation strategy, and not others? How can I ensure the applicability and effectiveness of the strategy?

4.6.5

Suggestion 5: Suggesting Rather Than Instructing

Good emotion regulation strategy instruction offers students with opportunities to gain new knowledge about how better to regulate their emotions and in turn consolidate and expand their current strategy repertories. Accordingly, strategies should be introduced as a form of suggestion. This is probably one fundamental characteristic of emotion regulation strategy instruction that differs from learning-related strategy instruction whose goal is typically to instruct students to master certain learning strategies. While certain types of strategies are shown to be useful in regulating particular emotions and/or associated with positive learning outcomes, I advocate the notion that strategies are not fundamentally right or wrong, or good or bad (Cotterall & Reinders, 2004; Rubin et al., 2007) and that learners should be given options (Cotterall & Reinders, 2004). There can be various reasons for students to experience different emotions, and this indicates that they need to be equipped with a range of strategies so that they can make appropriate selections for a particular situation. It is also important to acknowledge that no single instruction fits all students (Oxford, 2003). This further highlights the importance of evaluating the efficacy of strategy instruction by examining whether students have developed a set of strategies that serve to achieve their learning objectives, as opposed to whether students have mastered a particular strategy. One way to examine this aspect is to ask students about the rationale for their newly developed strategy sets and examine them.

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Suggestion 6: Strategy Instruction as an Embedded or Separate Component of the Curriculum

In the literature, it is generally suggested that strategy instruction be integrated into the lessons (see Sect. 4.5). This is probably one of the challenges that teachers and practitioners face in designing and implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction in their classroom. Because classes are typically designed to improve skills that are related to the subject (e.g., being able to solve a particular mathematical problem in a math class), strategy instruction aimed at enhancing emotion regulation could be perceived as irrelevant, raising a question as to whether class time can be used for such strategy instruction, unless it is embedded into a classroom task. Therefore, if emotion regulation projects are longitudinal or larger scale, the project planning involve not only the teachers and students but also the authorities and stakeholders at the institutional level. At the same time, the more fundamental question to be asked at the very beginning of the planning stage is whether or not students would be willing to participate in and benefit from such strategy instruction. In order to examine this point, we need to spend some time cultivating our understanding of our students, as discussed in Sects. 4.6.2 and 4.6.3. The challenging aspect of this is that when we secure this understanding phase, by the time we implement our strategy instruction, there may be little time left for students to fully explore the possibilities of using new strategies or for us to monitor the progress. Taking into consideration these points, organizing strategy instruction outside the class, for example as a series of workshops at a self-access learning center or tutoring service, might be a good option. Another option might be, if possible, to set up an advising room where students can come and receive personalized sessions. This way, we can closely work with individual students and monitor their progress. Lastly, strategy instruction on emotion regulation can be covered in an orientation typically held at the beginning of a semester or course. Studying at university can be stressful as students have to juggle a number of tasks while maintaining a healthy study-life balance. Strategy instruction can be perceived as a suitable topic covered in the orientation, and students can surely benefit from the knowledge that they gain from the instruction over the course of their study. When strategy sessions are implemented in this manner, it is possible that teachers/researchers and students have not yet built a close relationship; therefore, strategy sessions would perhaps better to cover emotions as a general topic, instead of making it personal.

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Food for thought: To what extent, do you agree or disagree with the listed suggestions? For the points with which you disagree, list the reasons for your viewpoint and approaches that you take differently.

4.7

Examples of Strategy Instruction

This section showcases two examples of emotion regulation strategy instruction that can be implemented in the classroom. The first one is a relatively simple set of activities that can be embedded into a classroom task. The second one is a more complex design requiring some degree of investigation, data collection, and analysis. Both are designed by taking into consideration the discussions made in Chaps. 2, 3, and this chapter, such as important characteristics of emotions and issues and suggestions regarding emotion regulation strategy instruction so that they illustrate how to actualize these discussions. While both examples assume teachers and practitioners to be the session provider, they can be implemented by researchers with minor modifications.

4.7.1

Reappraisal Strategy Instruction

Overview: • • • • • •

Target emotion: anxiety Strategy used: reappraisal Session implementation: Three or more sessions linked to a classroom activity Duration of each session: 15–30 min Class/group size: Up to 30 students (smaller sizes are preferable) Material: PowerPoint slides, Google forms (or similar digital tools of your choice)

In this strategy instruction students learn about functional and adaptive roles of physiological responses (e.g., pounding heart, fast breathing) during anxietyinducing learning situations. Students are then encouraged to positively appraise such physiological responses when experiencing anxiety during a classroom task. As such, this strategy instruction is best implemented in relation to an actual classroom task in which students are expected to be anxious (e.g., taking a test, giving a presentation, performing in front of the classmates) so that students can utilize what they have learned in the activity to better cope with their anxiety in performing the task. There are three sessions (or four if sufficient class time cannot be

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allocated) with Session 2 as the main stage where students learn about reappraisal and perform a task. Aim: This strategy instruction is designed to help students develop the knowledge and skills to maximize their performance in anxiety-provoking situations (e.g., classroom presentations) by using reappraisal (see Sects. 3.2.2 and 3.3.1 for the detailed explanation of reappraisal). Theoretical underpinning: This strategy instruction is built upon psychological constructionist theories of emotion (Barrett, 2016; Lindquist, 2013) and emotion regulation (Jacobs & Gross, 2014). More specifically, it is developed based on the notion that individuals experience an emotion (e.g., anxiety) as a result of categorizing internal cues (e.g., pounding heart) and external cues (e.g., giving a presentation in front of large audience) into a discrete emotion category and that emotions can be regulated by changing perceptions through the use of strategies. Session content and procedure: This strategy instruction can be implemented through three to four sessions (i.e., one session per class), depending on how much class time can be allocated for the instruction. Session 1 can be considered as a preparation stage and Session 2 as the main stage where students learn about reappraisal and engage in an actual classroom task that provides an opportunity to use reappraisal strategies. Session 3 functions as a post-action stage, offering opportunities for students to self-reflect and the teacher to evaluate (see Sect. 4.4 for Zimmemers’ cyclical phases model for self-regulated learning). It is recommended that the teacher preselect a classroom task (e.g., presentation, test, singing) in which students will most likely to experience anxiety and host the first session relatively close to the classroom task day so that there will not be a large time gap between the strategy session and the task. Otherwise, students might have a hard time remembering the session when engaging in the task. Session 1. Preparation discussion and pre-survey Session 1 is designed for students to raise awareness of anxiety-provoking learning situations and the impact of anxiety. This session also helps the teacher to learn about students’ anxiety (i.e., the antecedents and effects of anxiety), and in turn, incorporate the findings into designing Session 2 as well as confirm the appropriateness of a classroom task with which Session 2 is to be implemented. This session involves the following activities. First, the teacher introduces the topic of anxiety as a common experience in the classroom. Next students work in a small group and talk to each other while answering the following questions:

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• Think about your previous and current classes. In what situations/activities did/ do you feel anxious? • Why did/do you feel anxious? • What happens/ed when you feel/felt anxious? (e.g., My voice shakes) • Did your anxiety do something good or bad to you? How? Next, each group shares with the whole class what they have discussed while the teacher summarizes their reports on the board. During this discussion, it is likely that the majority would agree that anxiety is a rather uncomfortable feeling and that it diminishes the quality of their performance. It is however also possible that some positive aspects of anxiety are reported. At this stage, it is vital for the teacher to seek to understand students’ anxiety as deeply as possible in order to make the strategy instruction meaningful and relevant to the students. Lastly, the teacher ends the session by telling the students that they will be introduced with some tips and techniques to successfully manage their anxiety. A shorter version of Session 1. Pre-survey and preparation If the available class time is not sufficient for the above activities, the following steps can be taken instead: 1. Introducing the topic of anxiety as a common experience in the classroom, the teacher guides students to respond to a questionnaire containing the above four questions. The teacher makes an announcement of a session to help students better cope with anxiety in the coming class. 2. Once the class is over, the teacher reads through the questionnaire responses to understand students’ anxiety and creates a summary to share with students in Session 2.

Session 2. Introduction to reappraisal Session 2 is designed to show students how changing their perception of anxiety and its physiological responses might alleviate the negative impact on their thoughts and performance. This is achieved through the teacher’s presentation of research findings and students applying what they have learned in performing an actual classroom task. Detailed activities and examples are as follows. When the class is about to begin the selected task, the teacher introduces the session as a means to help students better perform the task and talks about the impact of appraisal and reappraisal in relation to anxiety that students might experience during the task. A script and visuals with PowerPoint slides are provided below as an example. For this example, an individual presentation has been selected as a classroom task with which Session 2 is implemented. In the previous class, students were informed of this presentation task and prepared for it either in class or as homework. The class is now about to begin the presentation (Fig. 4.1).

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Before we begin our presentation task today, I’d like to host a short session to help you maximize your performance. When you give your presentation, you will most likely experience some levels of anxiety. If you remember, many of you said in our previous session that you don’t perform well when you are experiencing a lot of anxiety. I want to introduce some tricks–or strategies–that help you better cope with your anxiety, and the efficacy of thesestrategies is supported by scientific evidence. Let’s first imagine you are at an amusement park with your friends. You then see this. (Display an image on the slide). What’s this? (Elicit students’ answers.) Yes, it’s a haunted house. How do you feel about a haunted house? (Elicit some students’ comments). Some of you might find it scary while some of you might find it exciting. This act of assessing something or someone is called “appraisal” What’s interesting about an appraisal is that it has a significant impact on the way we feel and behave. In this case, if you find it scary, you will feel something uneasy and most likely choose not to go inside. If, on the other hand, you find it thrilling, then you will feel some kind of excitement and most likely choose to go inside. Let’s also look at the way we “feel” about our physical reactions. Whether you find it scary or thrilling, your bodily reactions will be quite similar: your heart beats faster, and palms and armpit sweat. But you will interpret these differently: as a sign of anxiety in the former case and excitement in the latter case. What this means is that if we could interpret a scary situation and our bodily reactions in a somewhat positive way, that reappraisal might do us something good, for example, how you feel and speak during your presentation.”

Next, the teacher talks more about the impact of appraisal and reappraisal as an emotion regulation strategy, based on research findings. In doing so, the teacher

Fig. 4.1 Example visuals on PowerPoint slides

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incorporates discussions from Session 1, for instance, as examples to illustrate certain points. It is also highly recommended that the talk is catered to students’ learning contexts and/or daily lives so that students resonate and make a meaningful connection. Brief summaries of the studies and related resources are provided below. • A study (Keller et al., 2012) that surveyed 30,000 adults in the United States for 8 years indicated an interesting role that beliefs play in the effects of stress. The survey showed that people who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased risk of dying, indicating the detrimental effect of stress on heath. However, the study also showed that this was only true for the people who believed that stress is harmful for their health. It also showed that the people who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful had the lowest risk of dying (i.e., lower than people with little stress). The study then concluded that people died prematurely, not from stress but from the belief that stress is bad for them. • An experimental study (Jamieson et al., 2012) demonstrated physiological and cognitive benefits of reappraising stress-induced arousal (e.g., racing heart), which is frequently construed as anxiety, nervousness, or fear. In the study, participants were assigned into three groups: (1) an experimental group who were explained that the human body’s responses to stressful situations have evolved to help us successfully address the stressors and that increased arousal aids performance, (2) a group who were taught that the most effective way to cope with anxiety is to ignore the source, and (3) a control group who received no instructions. All the participants were then instructed to deliver a speech in front of evaluators. In comparison to Groups 2 and 3, Group 1 exhibited more adaptive cardiovascular stress responses (i.e., increased cardiac efficiency and lower vascular resistance) as well as decreased attentional bias. • Stanford University psychologist, McGonigal (2013), reviewing the relevant research such as above, posits that changing how people interpret stress can make them healthier. She encourages to think positively about bodily responses in a stressful situation. She further supports this notion by explaining that fast breathing means that the body is sending more oxygen to the brain and that a pounding heart is a sign of the body preparing to perform a challenging task. Furthermore, oxytocin, a stress hormone released in the body during stressful situations, can make people become more courageous and empathetic. The teacher ends the session by encouraging students to remember the session contents while performing the task and proceeds to it, for example, with the following closing: When you give your presentation today, you might still feel that your heart is pounding hard, palms sweating, and your legs trembling. But you can remember this; “my whole body is helping me to focus on my presentation and perform at my best. I’m becoming more helpful to my classmates and building a stronger bonding with my friends. I am learning and improving myself at this very moment. Let’s now move on to the presentation.

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Q1. Did you recall anything that you learned in the strategy session before or while performing the task? Yes No Please explain the reasons if your answer is No.

Q2. Did the strategy session have any positive effect on you while performing the task? It had a greatly positive effect. It had a positive effect. It had a slightly positive effect. It had no effect. It had a slightly negative effect. It had a negative effect. It had a greatly negative effect. Q3. Please explain your choice for Q2

Fig. 4.2 Sample self-reflection questionnaire

Then students engage in the selected task. Session 3. Self-Reflection Session 3 is designed to provide students with opportunities to reflect on their use of reappraisal strategies and evaluate the effectiveness as well as the teacher to examine the impact of the sessions. The self-reflection can be done by answering prompts/questions in a Google Form, such as shown in Fig. 4.2. The reflection can be expanded to idea sharing and discussions either in a small group or with the whole class. Once the session finishes, the teacher examines students’ responses to the Google Form in order to evaluate the strategy session. Optional Step. Expanded practice with reappraisal strategies This optional step is designed to offer students scaffolding to use reappraisal strategies. 1. Students are given several anxiety-arousing scenarios with negative appraisals of the situations, presented in PowerPoint slides. 2. Individually, they try to reappraise the negative appraisals based on what they have learned in Step 2 and share the ideas in a group and then with the whole class. 3. The teacher summarizes the session and encourages them to use reappraisal strategies anytime they experience anxiety.

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4.7.2

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Boredom Regulation Strategy Instruction

Overview: • Target emotion: boredom • Strategy used: boredom coping (see Sects. 3.3.1 and 3.4.1) • Session implementation: Approximately 10 sessions embedded in a course throughout • Duration of each session: 10–20 min • Class/group size: Up to 30 students (smaller sizes are preferable) • Material: PowerPoint slides, Google forms, Paper/digital handouts This is a two-phased strategy instruction. In the first phase, the teacher seeks to understand the antecedents of boredom that students experience in class and their habitual ways of coping with boredom, mainly through surveys. Based on the findings from the first phase, the teacher offers three to five sessions in which students examine their habitual boredom regulation strategy repertories, develop a new set of strategies, and reflect on their use of the strategies in regard to their boredom experiences. Aim: This strategy instruction aims to help students to enhance their capacity to self-regulate boredom so that they can continuously engage in learning in the classroom. Theoretical underpinning: This strategy instruction is built upon Gross’ (1998) process model of emotion regulation, the taxonomy of boredom coping strategies (i.e., cognitive approach, behavioral approach, cognitive avoidance, and behavioral avoidance) proposed by Nett et al. (2010), and Dörnyei’s (2001) strategy training model. More specifically, it is expected that students can proactively self-regulate boredom by using strategies that can reduce the likelihood of experiencing boredom and that they can also self-regulate boredom even when or after experiencing it in a way that helps them stay engaged in learning. Session content and procedure: This strategy instruction consists of eight sessions: one session per class, except for Sessions 3 and 8, which need to be repeated several times (See detailed explanations below). Sessions 1 through 3 can be considered as a pre-action stage whose aims is to understand the antecedents of students’ boredom and their habitual ways of regulating it (see Sect. 4.4 for Zimmemers’ cyclical phases model for self-regulated learning). Sessions 4, 5 and 6 can be categorized as an action stage where students learn about different approaches to regulate boredom, create their

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own strategy list, and share their work with peers. Session 7 functions as a postaction stage, offering opportunities for students to self-reflect and the teacher to evaluate the impact of the strategy instruction. Session 1. Preparation workshop Session 1 is a workshop with a dual purpose. The first is for students to become motivated to learn how to effectively self-regulate boredom by understanding its possible negative impacts on learning. The second is for the teacher to create an atmosphere where students feel okay to talk about boredom, which is vital for the success of this strategy instruction. To achieve these, Session 1 involves the following activities: First, the teacher elicits ideas from students, such as typical boring situations in everyday lives, signs that they recognize it as boredom, and their boredom experiences at school. Then, the teacher and students can agree that boredom is a multidimensional emotion involving affective (e.g., feeling something unpleasant), cognitive (e.g., feeling like time passes slowly), motivational (e.g., wanting to do something else, such as checking phones), expressive (e.g., yawing), and physiological (e.g., feeling dull) components. This shared understanding becomes particularly important when the students and teacher have different cultural and/ or linguistic backgrounds (e.g., a student’s understanding of boredom might be different from that of the teacher). Next, the teacher presents empirical findings about boredom as a common emotion experienced by students at school and its negative impacts. This can be done via PowerPoint slides or verbal explanations. Whatever the means to be chosen, the main message that the teacher is encouraged to convey through this presentation is below: It is ok to feel bored. It is a natural human experience. Telling someone, for example, your teacher, that you felt bored in class does not have to be taken negatively. At the same time, we might want to be alert and wise about it so that it will not unnecessarily intervene with our learning, growth, or accomplishment of our goals.

Lastly, the teacher closes the session by highlighting the benefits about working on the improvement of their boredom regulation and invites students to participate in the strategy instruction program. One of the benefits is that it can be good for the class as the likelihood of students experiencing boredom may decrease. It can also be beneficial to students in as they can develop knowledge and skills to better cope with boredom, which can be useful in various situations. Lastly, it is good for the teacher in that she can improve her pedagogy. Session 2. Survey on habitual boredom regulation strategy repertoire Session 2 is a survey designed for the teacher to understand how students typically deal with boredom in class. This information is crucial in designing and providing Session 4. The survey can be done through a simple questionnaire such as one in Fig. 4.3.

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1. Do you use any strategies (thoughts and actions) to avoid or minimize experiencing boredom in class? If your answer is yes, please list the strategies. If your answer is no, please write the reasons. In order to avoid feeling bored in class, I…

2. Do you use any strategies (thoughts and actions) when you experience boredom in class? If your answer is yes, please list the strategies. If your answer is no, please write the reasons. When I feel bored in class, I…

3. Please look at all the strategies you have listed here. Which of these strategies do you use more often? Please write percentages next to each strategy to indicate the frequency of its use.

Fig. 4.3 A sample questionnaire to investigate students’ habitual boredom regulation strategy repertoire

The rationale for considering the frequency is to differentiate the strategies between those that are frequently used and those that are infrequently used within individual students. When individual student’s strategy repertoire is examined holistically, those frequently used should apparently be considered with more significance than those infrequently used. The teacher examines the collected data to see in what areas students can benefit from strategy instruction. This can be done by analyzing the listed strategies based on the taxonomy of boredom coping strategies (i.e., cognitive approach, behavioral approach, cognitive avoidance, and behavioral avoidance) proposed by Nett et al. (2010). For instance, students who often check their phones (i.e., behavioral avoidance) as a result of feeling boredom during a lecture can improve their strategy repertoires by incorporating approach-oriented strategies such as reminding themselves of their goals or finding values in the lecture. Session 3. Survey on the antecedents of and responses to boredom in class Session 3, which should be repeated three to four times, is another survey designed for the teacher to examine the pedagogical areas that need to be improved and the

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Please choose one situation where you felt bored in today’s class and complete the sentences: In today’s class, I felt bored when _____________ because _________________________________ . As a result I _______________________________ .

Fig. 4.4 A sample questionnaire to investigate the antecedents of and responses to boredom in class

applicability of the strategy instruction. The survey can be done through a simple questionnaire presented in Fig. 4.4. Students’ responses to this questionnaire offers ideas for the subsequent appropriate approaches to cope with boredom. For example, if students report that they have felt bored because of repeated drill-type exercises that the teacher told them to do and that as a result they stopped the exercises and started checking their phone, approaches can be taken either mainly by the teacher, collaboratively by the teacher and students, or mainly by the students. Such approaches include the following: • the teacher improves his/her classroom practice by incorporating wider variety of tasks, • the teacher explains the rationale behind such exercises so that students understand the value of them, • the teacher organizes class activities in a way that the exercises serve an important stepping stone for the subsequent task that students are motivated to perform well, • students are encouraged to share their ideas and evaluations about classroom activities and make requests to the teacher, and • students become strategic about coping with boredom so that they can stay engaged in the exercises. During this data collection period, it is crucial that the teacher stays curious about students’ boredom experiences and appreciative of their reports (see Sects. 2.6.1 and 2.6.2 for suggestions). Session 4. Strategy instruction Session 4 provides students with opportunities to become more strategic about their boredom regulation by learning different dimensions of boredom regulation and examining their current strategy repertoires. First, the teacher talks about different approaches to coping with boredom by using the actual strategies that students have reported in previous sessions as examples to illustrate this point. An example is provided in Fig. 4.5. By looking at the strategies, the teacher explains that

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Fig. 4.5 A sample PowerPoint side to illustrate different categories of boredom regulation strategies

approaches can be taken proactively so that they prevent the likelihood of experiencing boredom as well as reactively in that they can be taken after experiencing boredom. Some approaches can involve more cognitive work while others involve more behavioral work. The effectiveness of these different types can vary depending on the situation, the reasons for boredom, and students’ personal preferences. For example, if the reason for feeling bored in class is due to lack of sleep, it is wise to better schedule daily activities in a way that allows students to get enough sleep the previous night. For some students light refreshment might help feel refreshed and refocus on studying while motivational self-talk might work well with students who have clearer goals. In other words, it cannot be said that one way is always better than the other. However, the last dimension, i.e., approach/ avoidance, categorizes strategies into two groups: those that help students stay engaged in learning opportunities and those that take the opportunities away from students. While clear definitions of approach- and avoidance-oriented strategies are offered in the literature (see Sects. 3.3.1 and 3.4.1), it is important that the teacher and students examine strategies within their unique context and agree with each other regarding why certain strategies are better than others and why certain strategies are better to be avoided. For example, playing a video game as a short break might not necessarily be a bad approach (although it will be labeled as avoidanceoriented based on the literature) if the student is studying with a recorded lecture at home for a long period of time. However, such an approach can have a negative consequence in the classroom where the student cannot pause the lecture, take a break, and resume it.

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Session 5. Creating a strategy toolkit In Session 5, students create their own strategy toolkit to list boredom regulation strategies that they would like to use. In doing so, students are encouraged to reflect on their habitual boredom regulation strategy repertoires that they reported in Session 2 and the different types of approaches to regulating boredom covered in Session 4. Figure 4.6 displays a sample toolkit handout. As shown, the first section, titled , concerns proactive strategies whereas the second section, titled , concerns reactive strategies. This toolkit can be created as a paper-based handout or any online document, such as a Google Doc and a Word document in Microsoft Teams. Whichever means are selected, it is recommended that the teacher can access students’ toolkits so that their work can be monitored and examined. Session 6. Sharing ideas with peers Session 6 is a sharing session in which students are encouraged to talk about their strategy toolkits with their peers in a group. This session is designed to achieve dual purposes, one of which is for the students to share and exchange their ideas, as suggested in the literature (e.g., Cohen, 2010; Dörnyei, 2001). The other is to provide opportunities for students to learn good examples from their peers and revise and/or improve their strategy toolkits. For example, it is possible for students to realize that their toolkits contain a lot of avoidance-oriented strategies by comparing them with those of others or to gain more creative ideas. Session 7. Self-reflection Session 7 encourages students to self-reflect on their boredom regulation and strategy use through prompting questions. They can be listed at the back of the strategy

My boredom regulation strategy toolkit

In order for me NOT to feel bored in class, I’ll do the following:

When/if I feel bored during the class, I’ll do the following:

Fig. 4.6 A sample strategy toolkit

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toolkit, as shown in Fig. 4.7. This self-reflection can remind students of the strategies that they have not actively used (possibly because they are still new to them) and/or revise and improve the list, based on their actual usage of the toolkit. As such, it is best that this session be repeated several times. If the teacher has the access to students’ self-reflection, the information can be used to monitor the progress and evaluate the effects of this strategy instruction. Session 8. Closing The strategy instruction can end with a summary of positive outcomes and encouragement for the continuous enhancement of boredom regulation. Some of the possible positive outcomes are: • The teacher has understood more about the students and incorporated their ideas into the improvement of the classes (e.g., less boring lessons). • The students have learned about different approaches to self-regulating their boredom. • The students have developed knowledge and skills to cope with boredom that can help them study efficiently and effectively.

Self-reflection 1 1. Did you use your boredom regulation strategies in class today? (please circle) Yes

/

No

2. If you chose ‘no’ please explain why.

3. If you chose ‘yes’ please describe more (which strategies did you use? When and why did you use them?)

4. Were your strategies useful? Yes

/

No

5. Why or how? Please explain.

Fig. 4.7 A sample self-reflection handout

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Suggested activities: Now you are equipped with knowledge and sample ideas for designing and implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction. Imagine some of your classes/students and brainstorm possible activities, tasks, strategy sessions that you can do in your classrooms. Write them down as many ideas as possible.

4.8

Behind the Scenes: Interview with Researchers and Teachers

This section showcases “behind the scenes” of strategy instruction by interviewing three researchers/teachers who conducted strategy instruction studies in their own classrooms and a researcher/teacher who investigated emotion regulation strategies, all of which have been published in highly respected journals. It depends on the scope and style of each journal, but it is typically the case that in published articles, studies are neatly reported, omitting information irrelevant to the aim of the studies, such as the challenges that researcher faced and the adjustments that they made in order to overcome them. For this reason, young researchers, having read these well-written studies, may go on with their “perfectly” designed studies with positively expected outcomes and be shocked by the messiness of the real world. Thus, the aim of this section is to showcase these unreported challenges to equip readers with as much information and preparation as possible before embarking on their own projects. The advice and ideas from the interviewed teachers/researchers based on these challenges will also help readers prepare to tackle any challenges that might arise along the way. In each interview, teachers/researchers are asked a set of questions. 1. Can you give us a short summary of your study? 2. What motivated you to conduct the study? 3. Did you encounter any (unanticipated) challenges? If so, what were they? How did you tackle them? 4. What would you do differently, if any, for your next strategy instruction? 5. What advice would you give to (1) teachers who are interested in giving strategy sessions to their students and (2) practitioners and/or researchers who are interested in conducting a study on strategy instruction? The first report is an interview with Sachiko Nakamura (Yes, I asked my questions to myself) based on her classroom-based study (Nakamura, 2021) on boredom regulation strategy instruction. The next is an interview with Brett Milliner and Blagoja Dimoski based on their study on the effects communication strategy

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(Milliner & Dimoski, 2022), which offers different insights from those of emotion regulation. The last is an interview with Adam Littleton on his study examining emotion regulation strategies used by kindergarten teachers (Littleton, 2018). For this interview, the wording of the 5 questions are slightly modified.

4.8.1

An Interview with Nakamura et al. (2021b)

Q1. Can you give us a short summary of your study? This was a classroom-based study investigating the impact of boredom regulation strategy instruction by designing, implementing, and evaluating a Boredom Regulation project. The project was undertaken with 25 Thai university students enrolled in my English course for 15 weeks. The project first explored how and why my students experienced boredom and epistemic curiosity in my classroom and their habitual boredom regulation strategy repertories. Concurrently, I examined and modified the initial design of my strategy instruction. Between weeks 8 and 12, I implemented five boredom regulation strategy sessions by using reappraisal (Gross & Jacobs, 2014) and boredom coping (Nett et al., 2010) as the key components. Students engaged in guided practice, developed their own boredom regulation strategy toolkit, shared their ideas with peers, and reflected on their strategy use. Adopting a triangulated mixed-method approach, I evaluated the impact of the strategy instruction by examining emic perspectives (i.e., students’ perceived value of and engagement with the strategy instruction) and three dependent variables: (1) boredom levels over the course of the project, (2) the ways students coped with their boredom in the class, and (3) students’ habitual boredom regulation strategy repertoires. The results showed the complex nature of boredom regulation while indicating a positive impact of the project. Q2. What motivated you to conduct the study? The motivation was both personal and theoretical/empirical. On the personal side, I had always been interested in supporting my students with the emotional aspects of language learning. On the theoretical/empirical side, I knew that the field of language learning and teaching would need more insights into language learning boredom. At the time when I started to design my PhD research, there were only a few studies on boredom. I also chose to make this study as classroombased because, based on the preliminary investigations and deep contemplations, I wanted to be the insider open-heartedly talking about our boredom experiences with students, rather than being the investigator to whom students would need to talk about their boredom experiences involving their teacher and their classroom. Q3. Did you encounter any (unanticipated) challenges? If so, what were they? How did you tackle them? Yes, MANY, largely due to the fact that the study involved boredom, which could be a sensitive topic to discuss, that the project was implemented in regular English

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classes, and that I did not share the same cultural background or language with my students. One of the unforeseen challenges I faced was students’ motivation and interest in engaging in boredom regulation and my feeling of guilt in involving them in the project. These students enrolled in the English oral communication course as an elective course and were eager to improve their English skills. Although they were so supportive that they agreed to participate in and help me with the research and we acknowledged the importance of emotions in language learning processes, I often felt hesitant about bringing the topics of emotion regulation or boredom to the class whose content had little to do with them. I was often worried that my students were becoming tired of repeatedly being asked to write about their boredom experiences (as part of the data collection). In fact, toward the end of the project, a student wrote in a questionnaire “no more” instead of answering the questions. I felt that I was asking too much from the students. How did I tackle these? It was by showing my work and gratitude with honesty. I actively incorporated students’ opinions and ideas about lessons, which were expressed as part of their questionnaire responses about boredom, into my lessons. I thanked them for telling me about their boredom experiences and helping me improve my teaching practice. I also expressed my deep gratitude to them for continuously participating in the research project and apologies for the repeated data collection. Q4. What would you do differently, if any, for your next strategy instruction? I would choose participants differently. I would first ask for students who are interested in and/or want to improve their boredom regulation capacity and offer strategy sessions tailored to individual students. Q5. What advice would you give to (1) teachers who are interested in giving strategy sessions to their students and (2) practitioners and/or researchers who are interested in conducting a study on strategy instruction? For #1, I would suggest marinating the strategy session into the lesson/course well by linking it to, for example, a particular classroom activity, homework, assignment, or project. This will make the implementation smoother, and it is easier for students to see the rationale and utility of the strategy session. For #2, my suggestion is to spend a great amount of time and energy making decisions about methodology. For researchers interested in implementing strategy instruction, it is always tempting to gather large data so that the impact of the instruction can be analyzed statistically and the findings can be—to some extent—generalizable. However, as we have seen in Chaps. 2 and 4, there are great individual differences in terms of the way certain emotions are experienced and perceived, and there is no “one-fits-all” emotion regulation strategy. Moreover, students’ interests and motivation to improve their capacity to regulate their emotions vary greatly. It is not my intension to recommend qualitative approaches with a small sample size, but I would like to emphasize the value of insights that such design can offer.

4.8 Behind the Scenes: Interview with Researchers and Teachers

4.8.2

119

An Interview with Milliner and Dimoski (2022)

Q1. Can you give us a short summary of your study? We wanted to answer the question of whether communication strategies (CS) could be explicitly taught, and whether learners would be able to deploy those strategies during a classroom speaking task. We found that our CS intervention group was able to perform the preceding information-gap task more accurately and efficiently than the control group. Also the CS group was able to deploy the CS that we taught frequently throughout the speaking task. Q2. What motivated you to conduct the study? We learned that learners didn’t really respond to our metacognitive listening strategies training in 2021 (see Milliner & Dimoski, 2021). So, we were wondering whether we would have a better response to a CS intervention. Also, this study was a kind of pilot study for a larger study we’re working on about incidental vocabulary learning from an information-gap speaking task. This RELC study represented a formal opportunity to use the information-gap materials that we created, and a chance to test out data collection approaches for the larger study. Q3. Did you encounter any (unanticipated) challenges? If so, what were they? How did you tackle them? Not all students recorded their conversations, and the sound quality for many of the conversations was poor. So, for the intervention group, we only had students’ self-reports of CS use to go by. Although this data was better than nothing, and the self-reports helped students to re-evaluate their CS use, I don’t think students’ self-reporting data is very reliable. Another problem was Covid. I had to recreate the activity in separate Google docs so two students could participate via Zoom. It ended up being a good thing as it showed we could collect data for this project via Zoom. Also, we learned that this group had to work so much harder than the other teams to finish (their speaking time was almost double—20 min), and we theorized that students were checking their partner’s worksheet a little too frequently during the task. In our upcoming paper we will reflect on this point, and maybe advise teachers to erect barriers in the classroom, so students cannot see their partner’s print during a similar information-gap task. Q4. What would you do differently, if any, for your next strategy instruction? In terms of strategy instruction, I wouldn’t do too much differently. I think the (1) awareness activity, (2) model conversation viewing, (3) information-gap task, and (4) self-reporting of strategy use approach is a pretty efficient use of class time. However, in a practical seense, I’m not going to have a model conversation video to share for every class. Therefore, I’m currently exploring how I can work with students in the class to provide a useable example of how the different CS can be deployed in a classroom task.

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Secondly, I want to focus on supervising the speaking task a little more carefully. As I mentioned in #3 (above), we suspect students frequently checked their partners’ worksheet, which potentially limited the opportunities for CS use. I also want to make sure that my learners DO NOT resort to using their L1 (Japanese) to solve communication problems. Q5. What advice would you give to (1) teachers who are interested in giving strategy sessions to their students and (2) practitioners and/or researchers who are interested in conducting a study on strategy instruction? For teachers, similar to our study, consider using a short awareness-raising and modeling (video or in-class demonstration) to train your learners in CS use. Use information-gap style speaking tasks to train your learners to use CS. Also, teachers need to understand that their learners already use a variety of CS as mature L1 learners, hence they need to be encouraged to use the same CS in their L2. Try not to focus on too many CS at one time. I would recommend planning backwards from your information-gap task. This means, if strategies x, y, and z would be useful in a specific task, teach those strategies only. Lastly, I would recommend manipulating your task materials to increase the likelihood of communication breakdowns. We used similar sounding numbers in this study (e.g., $33.30; $14.40; $16.60) to good effect. Using minimal pairs or polysemous words would be other suggestions for creating little “speed bumps” for your learners to navigate over. For research, my most important piece of advice is to video record the students’ conversations. I’m sure we missed a wealth of informative data by focusing on audio recordings (e.g., non-verbal CS, gesture use, and whether learners looked at their partner’s answer sheet). I recognize that we cannot video record all conversations in a classroom setting, but having at least some video recordings would have been helpful. As I mentioned in #3 (above), we didn’t have a lot of success getting learners to record their conversations on their personal smartphones. I’m certain we could have collected higher quality recordings had we given learners the opportunity to test their phone’s voice recorders, in earlier class meetings. In our study our focus was not on CS necessarily, but rather whether our learners could be more efficient and accurate as a result of the CS training. Our measure of efficiency (task duration) worked in this study but I don’t think it will be useful in many other CS interventions. This is because we designed the information-gap task with a goal to create moments of communication breakdown (i.e., creating some difficulty within the task materials, so learners would have to use CS). Use of control-groups in a CS experimental study may be tricky because (as we will report in a future study) learners can draw upon a range of CS which they have developed as mature L1 users. Therefore, in a CS intervention study, it might be difficult to isolate whether the intervention had a clear effect.

4.8 Behind the Scenes: Interview with Researchers and Teachers

4.8.3

121

An Interview with Littleton (2018)

Q1. Can you give us a short summary of your study? I interviewed four colleagues about the emotion regulation strategies that they used in their work as kindgergarten English teachers in Japan. Emotion regulation is a theory proposed by J. J. Gross which describes the ways in which employees in certain fields control their emotions in the workplace. I was interested in the cognitive process of emotion regulation: what goes through teachers’ heads when, for example, a student misbehaves, or some other stressor arises? Then, how is this cognitive process translated into action? Q2. What motivated you to conduct the study? My interest was not merely academic. I was teaching kindergarten as I did my master’s degree, and so I was experiencing all the joys and all the stress that kindergarten teachers experience. I wondered whether colleagues were experiencing these things in the same ways I was. I was also hoping to unearth good, practical strategies that I might be able to steal! Q3. Did you encounter any (unanticipated) challenges? If so, what were they? How did you tackle them? Some of the challenges were anticipated. I was anxious about finding enough respondents. Some colleagues had to be pursued pretty proactively with follow-up emails and in-person requests, and I was conscious of making myself a nuisance. Scheduling the interviews also presented small challenges, though Skype helped (this was before Zoom’s preeminence). Other problems I had not anticipated. Some teachers had difficulty articulating their emotions, and teachers conceived of emotions in different ways, or had very different ideas about basic things like what an emotion is or what constitutes “thinking.” From a research standpoint, this is all extremely interesting, but it also presents an epistemological challenge: how can we rigorously research something when we and our subjects have trouble even defining it? Q4. What would you do differently (if any) if you were to conduct another interview-based study on emotion regulation strategies? I am conducting further studies, and plan to conduct more in the future. In a study like the one above, I would probably try to define emotion (and perhaps cognition and/or thinking) to respondents ahead of time, formulating a definition rooted in the literature but simple enough to understand clearly (not easy, particularly given the conceptual differences I noted above, which exist among scholars, too). As for recruiting interviewees, that remains a challenge for me! I hate to be a nuisance, but asking people to give you some of their time is the only way to get the job done. Q5. What advice would you give to (1) teachers who are interested in investigating their students’ emotion regulation strategies and (2) practitioners and/

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or researchers who are interested in conducting a study on emotion regulation strategies? For teachers, I would say that a little action research could be quite constructive and educational for all involved, students included. Emotional awareness can help a lot in the learning process, so making some of these emotions explicit can be enlightening. It could then lead to questions of “why do I feel this way?” or “what can I do about it when, for example, I feel bored or stressed?” Then students and teachers can take active steps to increase the positive emotions experienced in class and curtail some of the negative ones, leading to a better classroom experience and better learning outcomes. For researchers, I would recommend letting the interviewees tell their own stories. Ask simple, open-ended questions that will prompt narrative from your interviewees. They often give a surprising amount of information, and it’s always fascinating to look back over the transcript. We, as researchers, need to basically get out of the way. For more reticent interviewees, or those who may not have fully answered a question, gently nudging them back on the path will sometimes be necessary. As mentioned above, clarification of just what is meant by certain terms may also be helpful. But for the most part, step aside and let the interviewee surprise you.

Food for thought: In the interview reports, did anything surprise you? For example, when interviewees talked about their challenges, did you find them reasonable or predicable? The interviewees also talked about various approaches they took to overcome the challenges. If you were the researcher, how would you tackle them? Would you do anything different?

4.9

Summary

By reading this chapter while engaging in the suggested activities and contemplating the reflective questions, you have achieved the followings: • Learned different models of strategy instruction • Analyzed models for their applicability in designing and implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction • Gained some ideas about implementing emotion regulation strategy instruction in the classroom setting • Gained insights from researchers/teachers who have conducted a study on emotion regulation or strategy instruction • Brainstormed some possible ideas for your own emotion regulation strategy project • Got ready to read the final chapter to design their own strategy instruction.

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Oxford, R. L. (2016). Teaching and researching language learning strategies: Self-regulation in context (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315719146 Panadero, E. (2017). A review of self-regulated learning: Six models and four directions for research. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00422 Pintrich, P. R. (2000). The role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Research and application (pp. 451– 502). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012109890-2/50043-3 Plonsky, L. (2011). The effectiveness of second language strategy instruction: A meta-analysis. Language Learning, 61(4), 993–1038. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00663.x Ramdass, D., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2011). Developing self-regulation skills: The important role of homework. Journal of Advanced Academics, 22(2), 194–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/193 2202x1102200202 Rubin, J., Chamot, A. U., Harris, V., & Anderson, N. J. (2007). Intervening in the use of strategies. In Language learner strategies: 30 years of research and practice (pp. 141–160). Oxford University Press. Schmitz, B., & Wiese, B. S. (2006). New perspectives for the evaluation of training sessions in selfregulated learning: Time-series analyses of diary data. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 31(1), 64–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2005.02.002 Topornycky, J., & Golparian, S. (2016). Balancing openness and interpretation in active listening. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 9, 175–184. https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v9i0. 4430 Tseng, W. T., Dörnyei, Z., & Schmitt, N. (2006). A new approach to assessing strategic learning: The case of Self-Regulation in vocabulary acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 78–102. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami046 Tzohar-Rozen, M., & Kramarski, B. (2014). Metacognition, motivation and emotions: Contribution of self-regulated learning to solving mathematical problems. Global Education Review, 1(4), 76–95. Walters, J. (2006). Methods of teaching inferring meaning from context. RELC Journal, 37(2), 176–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688206067427 Weaver, S. J., & Cohen, A. D. (1997). Strategies-based instruction: A teacher-training manual. Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. Wong, L. L., & Nunan, D. (2011). The learning styles and strategies of effective language learners. System, 39(2), 144–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.05.004 Zawodniak, J., Kruk, M., & Chumas, J. (2017). Towards conceptualizing boredom as an emotion in the EFL academic context. Konin Language Studies, 5(4), 425–441. Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social cognitive perspective. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13–39). Academic. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012109890-2/50031-7

5

Innovating Your Own Strategy Instruction

Abstract

This chapter provides readers with a step-by-step guide to innovate their own strategy instruction. This guide is applicable to teachers who want to try out strategy instruction with their students in class, as well as practitioners who are interested in making the project into a small-scale study. A range of selfreflective questions are provided to help readers narrow down specific emotions to target and develop a rationale for the instruction. Suggestions are given for how to design the strategy instruction in such a way as to overcome possible challenges. Examples will illustrate how the effectiveness of the strategy instruction can be evaluated.

5.1

Introduction

This final chapter is the most exciting one in that it guides you toward implementing your own strategy instruction (hereafter, project). As such, the chapter contains various questions, suggestions, and instructions. In order for them to be relevant to your context and useful for your interests and needs, some of the questions are asked in a flowchart manner, and you will be led to read certain sections based on your answers. Questions are designed to tap into your interests, particularly at earlier stages, and into values throughout. This is because interests and values will be crucial elements that help you persevere and succeed. As indicated in the interviews in Sect. 2.6.2, implementing strategy instruction can pose various challenges, which can tempt you into postponing and even quitting. When the goal you are moving toward excites you and you know that you will make a valuable contribution by achieving the goal, engaging in challenging tasks and overcoming difficulties during the process will become joyful and rewarding.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Nakamura, Emotion Regulation and Strategy Instruction in Learning, Springer Texts in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42116-7_5

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Step 1: Getting Started

The first and fundamental question in getting started is this: Are you interested in doing strategy instruction (a) as one of your classroom activities or (b) as a study? Although many components between the two types of projects overlap, the primary objectives and the depth of planning and evaluation involved in each type greatly differ. If your answer is (a), please proceed to Sect. 5.2.1. If your answer is (b), please proceed to Sect. 5.2.2. In both sections, you will be asked a series of questions, answering which will help you shape your project design.

5.2.1

Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity

One relatively simple and enjoyable way to incorporate the notion of emotion regulation into the classroom is to start with classroom activities. You may have observed that particular tasks, assignments, or tests tend to evoke negative emotional reactions among students. Prior to these events, you could for example introduce a set of strategies shown to be effective in down-regulating these negative emotions. A benefit of this design is that students can see the relevancy and applicability of the strategies because they are directly linked to the tasks that they are about to perform. Alternatively, a starting point can be to select particular emotions or emotion regulation strategies with which you would like to work with your students. Now, select one or more approaches that interest you and answer the questions listed under each approach. Task-based approach • What tasks do you think can be a good place to incorporate emotion regulation strategy instruction? • What emotions do you see your students experience during each task? Make sure to list both positive and negative ones. • What impacts do you see the above-listed emotions have on students? Are they positive, negative, or both? • How can you expect up-regulating and/or down-regulating the above-listed emotions will enhance the positive impact and alleviate the negative impact that you listed? Emotion-based approach • Would you be interested more in the idea of up-regulating certain emotions or down-regulating them? • Are there any emotions that you are particularly interested in working with? • If so, why are you interested in working with these emotions? • How can working with these emotions be beneficial for your students?

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Strategy-based approach • Are there any emotion regulation strategies that you are particularly interested in? • If so, why are you interested in these emotion regulation strategies? • How can these emotion regulation strategies be beneficial for your students? • In what way can you find out whether students have been already using these emotion regulation strategies? (What is the point of introducing a strategy if students have already been using it regularly?) By answering these questions, you have brainstormed great ideas based on which you can further design your project. Now let’s proceed to Step 2.

5.2.2

Undertaking Your Project as a Study

One good first step toward undertaking your project as a study is to start with a literature review. This gives you two benefits. Firstly, studying how researchers have investigated emotion regulation will give you a range of ideas for you to design your project. You can search relevant articles with online tools such as Google Scholar, which is a web search engine that specifically searches scholarly literature and academic resources, ERIC, which is an internet-based bibliographic database of education research, and ProQuest which contains a collection of databases that provide access to academic journals, dissertations, and other publications. The second benefit is to find a gap in the literature to motivate your study. This gap can be understood as something that is worth knowing but we do not yet know much about. For example, research in clinical phycology indicates a positive effect of mindfulness practice on people’s productivity, but we do not know if mindfulness practice can have such a benefit among students in learning contexts. Then your research aim can be to fill this gap by investigating the effect of your strategy instruction involving mindfulness on your students’ productivity in your teaching context. Another starting point can be your teaching context, making your project action research. Action research, typically conducted by teachers, is a type of study that investigates research questions relevant to their particular context. As such, action research often involves the examination of practical problems or issues in the classroom or local educational contexts and seeks to bring about change in the context (Loewen & Plonsky, 2020; Tavakoli, 2016). For example, let’s say you have observed that students in your classes or in your institution are often hopeless of passing an important exam. You may conduct action research by designing, implementing, and evaluating an emotion regulation strategy instruction project that aims to help the students overcome their hopelessness. Now, spend some time brainstorming your answers to the following questions. They are designed to help you narrow down the topics for your research as well as shape your research design by choosing the first approach (i.e., conducting a study that is theoretically/

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empirically motivated) or the second approach (i.e., conducting a study that is contextually motivated). Please write down your answers and ideas instead of thinking them in your head. • Are there any emotions that you are interested in working with? • If so, why are you interested in working with these emotions? • Are there any emotion regulation strategies that you are interested in working with? • If so, why are you interested in working with these emotion regulation strategies? Now, look at what you have written. If your writing contains a lot of factors associated with your context (e.g., “My students are…,” “My school is…”), it might be a good idea to embark on action research. If you have talked a lot about research and theories, it might make more sense to turn your ideas into a theoretically/empirically motivated study. These suggestions do not mean that you should choose one way or the other, or your study should be motivated only by theory/ research or context. However, it is important to be aware that the two types of above-mentioned study types have different primary objectives: offering a piece of empirical evidence that help further understand the topic in your field or improving or solving the issue observed in your context. It should also be noted that there are a number of other types of studies (e.g., exploratory, ethnographical) as possible options for you to shape your project accordingly. However, given the fact that strategy instruction most likely involves making changes in certain variables (see Sect. 2.4 for the related discussion of variables) and evaluating its effect, considering these two types of research is expected to be a relevant, suitable approach for many of the readers of this book. Now you have narrowed down some topics and directions, and let’s shape your project even further by completing the preparatory tasks, listed under each approach: Preparatory tasks for conducting a study that is theoretically/empirically motivated • Use the topics you have brainstormed as keywords and search articles. You can use the search engines introduced at the beginning of this section. • Read the articles and get an overview of how the topics have been investigated. • Make a list of findings. • Make a list of potential areas to be investigated. This can help you to formulate your research question(s). Preparatory tasks for conducting a study that is contextually motivated • With the topics you have brainstormed in mind, think of your students, classes, colleagues, and institution and ask yourself the following questions: – Are there any issues that you might be able to contribute to solving?

5.3 Step 2: Designing Your Project

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– Are there any topics or projects that you think might be able to help improve or advance? Once you have completed the preparatory tasks, let’s proceed to Step 2.

5.3

Step 2: Designing Your Project

If you are planning your project as a classroom activity, please read Sect. 5.3.1. If you are planning your project as a study, please read Sect. 5.3.2.

5.3.1

Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity

Based on the ideas you brainstormed by answering the questions in Step 1, let’s design your project by filling in the columns under “Your selection” of the table below. This task should be applicable to your project regardless of the approaches (i.e., task-based, emotion-based, and emotion regulation-based) that you have opted for. Now, next to each box write the rationales for your selection. Asking yourself why-questions (e.g., why did you choose the context?) and listing expected positive outcomes (e.g., by learning how to better cope with this selected emotion with this selected strategy, students can…) can help you to generate some good ideas for articulating rationales. Your selection

Rationale for your selection

Context (task, students, etc.) Emotion(s) Emotion regulation strategy(ies)

Now you have gotten a good overview of your project with strong rationales, and let’s make the aim of your project clear. That is, what outcome(s) do you want your project to produce? Now write own your project aim below: Your project aim: Now you have been equipped with the what and the why, and let’s work on the how, that is, how you are going to implement your project. Before moving on to Step 3 and describing your project implementation, ask yourself the following questions to uncover some assumptions that you may have: • How do you know that students will experience the selected emotion while performing the task?

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• How do you know that students will use the strategy(ies) while performing the task? • How do you know that students will be comfortable and are willing to work with the emotion or emotion regulation strategy(ies)? Now you are ready to implement your project. Let’s move to Step 3.

5.3.2

Undertaking Your Project as a Study

Based on the ideas you generated by answering the questions and performing the preparatory tasks, let’s design your project by filling in the columns under “Your selection” in the table below. This task should be applicable to your project regardless of the approaches (i.e., theoretically/empirically motivated study or contextually motivated study) that you have opted for. Now next to each box, write the rationales for your selection. If you are planning a study that is theoretically/ empirically motivated, it is vital that your project is grounded in solid rationales based on the literature. Answering the questions below can help you articulate such rationales. • Why is this sample (e.g., a group of students that you have selected to conduct your study with) and not others? • Why is/are the selected emotion(s) need to be regulated? What are the benefits of regulating them? (Link your answers to the literature). • How can you ensure that the emotion regulation strategies you selected are effective and appropriate in regulating the emotions? • In what way, can the outcome of your project benefit your field?

Your selection

Rationale for your selection

Context (task, students, etc.) Emotion(s) Emotion regulation strategy(ies)

Now you have gotten a good overview of your research with strong rationales, and let’s formulate your research aim and question(s). In this case, you can think of your research aim in terms of the expected positive outcomes of your project and research questions in terms of what needs to be investigated in order to evaluate the fulfillment of the aim. Your research aim: Your research questions:

5.4 Step 3: Implementing Your Project

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Now the blueprint of your project is ready. Before moving on to Step 3 and describing your project implementation, ask yourself the following questions to uncover some assumptions that you may have: • How do you know that students will experience the selected emotion(s) in the selected context? • How do you know that the emotion(s) play a significant role in the context? • How do you know that your strategy instruction contains something new for students to learn? • How do you know that students will be comfortable and are willing to work with the emotion or emotion regulation strategy(ies) that you introduce? Now you are ready to implement your project. Let’s move to Step 3.

5.4

Step 3: Implementing Your Project

If you are planning your project as a classroom activity, please read Sect. 5.4.1. If you are planning your project as a study, please read Sect. 5.4.2.

5.4.1

Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity

You have well laid out the overall project design with strong rationales by working through the previous steps. Using the space below, describe your project implementation in detail. For example, how are you going to introduce and/or talk about emotion regulation? What activities are your students going to engage in? How long are they going to take? In your project description, you can also include approaches such as how to ensure that students feel ok (and hopefully willing) to engage in emotion regulation strategy instruction and how to motivate students to engage in your activities.

Description of your project Some suggested questions: • How are you going to introduce and/or talk about emotion regulation to your students? • What activities are your students going to engage in? • How long are they going to take? Now you have detailed ideas about how to implement your project, and let’s proceed to Step 4 to think about how to evaluate your project.

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5.4.2

Undertaking Your Project as a Study

One critical element involved in project implementation, which distinguishes strategy instruction conducted as a study from one tried out as a classroom activity, is quality control. In order for an empirical study to make a meaningful contribution to the field, it is vital that researchers take all the possible means to ensure sound methodology. If a study expects its intervention to produce certain outcomes, the intervention must be composed of variables that support the assumption methodologically. Such variables include the time set aside for the strategy instruction (is it reasonable to assume one time 15 min strategy instruction to produce intended outcomes?), inclusion of a control group (would a comparison of preand post-tests within one group of students sufficient to show the effect of the treatment?), and participants’ engagement (what if some participants do not fully engage in the strategy instruction, resulting in not gaining the full benefits of the treatment, which in turn skews the overall findings?). While teachers/researchers need to be aware that with classroom-based studies they most likely encounter unforeseen challenges and unexpected incidences, as illustrated in Sect. 4.8, for which they have to make necessary modification to the initial design, thorough and detailed preparation and planning can certainly be of great help and become useful resources. Reflecting on the above points, together with the overall research design, together with the research aim and questions you formulated in Step 2, describe your project implementation in detail in the space below. In the space, some questions are listed to help you with this task. An example is provided in Fig. 5.1.

Description of your project Some suggested questions: • When and how are you going to invite your students to your project? • Are you going to use a control group? If so, how are you going to select experimental and control groups? • How many strategy sessions are you going to host? • What are the contents of each session? • How long does each session take? • Are you going to do any pre-survey (see Sect. 4.7)? If so, what are they and when are you going to do it? Now you have detailed ideas about how to implement your project, and let’s proceed to Step 4 to think about how to evaluate your project.

5.5 Step 4: Evaluating Your Project

Phase 1

2

Class 2-7

8-12

Objectives To understand learners’ boredom, its antecedents, and coping styles To examine the applicability of the preliminary design of strategy instruction sessions and make modifications To provide learners with opportunities to become more strategic about their boredom regulation through strategy instruction To encourage learners to become more conscious and systematic about the strategies that they had already been using to regulate boredom

13-15

To encourage learners to selfreflect on their boredom regulation strategy use

135

Tasks/activities A workshop to conceptualize boredom Survey on boredom experiences

Timeframe 10-15 minutes each week for six weeks

Survey on habitual boredom regulation strategies Strategy instruction sessions 1: Learning about appraisal and reappraisal strategies 2: Exploring reappraisal strategies through guided practice 3: Learning about boredom-coping strategies 4: Developing own strategy toolkit 5: Sharing and revising the toolkit Self-reflection

10-20 minutes for each session for five weeks

10 minutes each for three weeks

Fig. 5.1 Overview of a boredom regulation project adapted from Nakamura (2021)

5.5

Step 4: Evaluating Your Project

If you are planning your project as a classroom activity, please read Sect. 5.5.1. If you are planning your project as a study, please read Sect. 5.5.2.

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5.5.1

Undertaking Your Project as a Classroom Activity

A form of evaluating your project can be as simple as an informal chat after class with some students to ask about their opinions about the strategy instruction or as detailed as questionnaires or interviews. How you evaluate your project largely depends on how you define the success of your project. For example, is the goal students’ improved performance of a classroom task, or is it reduced levels of the target emotions? Alternatively, the goal might be focused more on the learning process, such as students learning something new about emotion regulation, rather than mastering the skills to regulate emotions. Going back to the project aim that you wrote in Step 1, you can define the success of your project. Based on that, list the means to evaluate your project in the space below.

Description of the means to evaluate my project My project aim is: In order to evaluate the extent to which my project has achieved the aim, the following evaluation will be taken: In eliciting feedback from students, it is useful to be aware of the potential for a prestige bias in their comments. It is possible that students may overly emphasize the positive aspects of your strategy instruction and are hesitant to speak anything negative about it. In order to gain as honest views from the students as possible, teachers can take active approaches to minimizing such biases, which includes teaching the notion of constructive feedback or making feedback anonymous. Now please proceed to Sect. 5.6.

5.5.2

Undertaking Your Project as a Study

Evaluating the project as a study most likely involves measuring the changes in your dependent variables as a result of your independent variables having an effect on them. Another way to evaluate your project, which is often overlooked but important, is through students’ points of view. Let’s suppose, your project is shown to have produced a positive change in the dependent variable, but students felt uncomfortable during the project. Would you call such a project a success? Another scenario would be that your quantitative analysis did not show any statistically significant effect of your strategy instruction, but your qualitative analysis indicated that students found it useful and enjoyable and that they learned new ways to better handle negative emotions. Could this project be a successful one? Because your project involves emotions, it is a valuable practice to gain emic perspectives (e.g., perceived value, enjoyment, novelty, motivation to improve

5.6 Final Suggestions and Concluding Remarks

137

emotion regulation) from participants. They can be elicited through anonymous questionnaires or focus group interviews. Another important aspect in evaluating the project is to be aware of and take approaches for potential prestige biases in the data. Such biases include participants emphasizing positive elements of the projects and overly being generous or not reporting negative elements, which could skew the findings. Another bias comes from the teachers/researchers. It is natural for teachers/researchers to accumulate perceived values in and favor toward their project after investing so much effort, time, and work. It is also natural for teachers to have positive bias toward their students. Such teacher/researcher biases can make them less critical and analytical when examining data obtained for the project evaluation. Useful practices to handle these biases include being constantly reminded of them throughout the project, taking active approaches to minimizing potential biases (see e.g., Sect. 4.5 and 4.6), and yet acknowledging the possibility of potential biases in reporting the project. Reflecting on the above points, go back to your research questions (and make modifications if needed) and list all the variables involved in the research questions, instruments to measure them, and the methods of analyses in the space below. In doing so, you can create a table, an example of which is provided in Fig. 5.2. For those whose instruments involve interviews, it is important that you listen to and try to understand what your participants express without evaluating it. Table 5.1 lists some techniques useful for achieving this. Now please proceed to Sect. 5.6.

5.6

Final Suggestions and Concluding Remarks

By engaging in the tasks offered in this chapter, you have designed an emotion regulation strategy project with clear aims, which are supported by solid rationales. You have also created detailed implementation plans and means to evaluate your project. In embarking on your project there are several points useful to be kept in mind. First is that, as illustrated in the interviews in Chap. 3, implementation of a project almost always involves unforeseen events or challenges that require you to creatively adapt your initial plans and handle the issues. You are capable of tackling any obstacles because you have gained much knowledge and skills by reading this book, reflecting your own teaching and research practice through the listed questions, and engaging in the suggested activities. A comparison between how you were when you first opened this book and how you are now should clearly reveal your accumulated confidence and the richness of your knowledge and resources. The second point is the importance of authenticity and curiosity, discussed in Chap. 2. Your goal is not to have your project implemented as precisely and suc-

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Research question

Variable

Instrument

Analysis

How do Self-reported students’ levels of boredom levels boredom change over the course of the project?

Likert-scale questionnaire

Friedman test, followed by Conover's Post Hoc Comparisons

What are students’ perceived value of the strategy instruction?

Questionnaire on strategy instruction Focus group interview

Descriptive analysis of the evaluation scores Inductive identification of silent factors in the evaluation

Evaluation scores Self-reported perceived value

Description of the means to answer my research questions Note: Think what variables are involved in your research questions, how to measure the variables, and how to analyze them.

Fig. 5.2 Sample chart to organize research questions, variables, instruments, and analyses

cessfully as initially planned; your goal is what is expressed as the project aims that you articulated in Sect. 5.3, which most likely involve helping your students with their emotion regulation. However far away your project deviates from the initial plan, the most important thing is your sincere desire for your students’ emotional well-being. In case your students do not respond to your strategy instruction as you have expected, instead of being disappointed or frustrated, be curious about why that is the case. Then you will learn more about your students. In case your project does not produce the outcome you expected, be curious about how and why your empirical evidence is not in line with the literature instead of being upset or disappointed. These pieces of empirical insights often make a greater contribution to the field. The last suggestion is to focus on the learning, rather than the success. Even if your project does not produce the outcome that you anticipated, everything you

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Table 5.1 Techniques of active listening Techniques

Examples

Paying attention

Maintaining eye contact Putting aside distracting thoughts Avoiding formulating responses while listening

Showing that you are listening

Nodding Smiling Backchanneling Keeping an open inviting posture

Providing reflection, clarification, or confirmation feedback

Asking clarification questions Paraphrasing Summarizing what was said

Deferring judgment

Allowing the speaker to communicate without interruption Letting the speaker finish each point before asking questions

Responding appropriately

Responding openly and honestly Treating the speaker with respect

Adapted from Topornycky and Golparian (2016)

experience during the process becomes great lessons that help you learn and grow as a teacher/researcher. Any unforeseen events help you to prepare better next time. Any challenges you encounter help you expand your perspectives and gain more skills. In order to perceive and examine situations from this point of view, one of the emotion regulation strategies, reappraisal, introduced in Chap. 3, becomes a useful tool with which you can appraise situations positively and productively. This implies an important point that although you have learned about learner emotions and emotion regulation, you have most likely learned about your emotions and emotion regulation. By engaging in this book, you have been equipped with profound wisdom and resources, and this has certainly enriched you as a teacher and researcher. Your journey will be filled with the enjoyment of learning, excitement of discoveries, and joy of making unique contributions to the society. This chapter concludes with my deepest gratitude to you for choosing to read this book.

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References Loewen, S., & Plonsky, L. (2020). An A-Z of applied linguistics research methods. Bloomsbury Publishing. Nakamura, S. (2021). The antidotes to boredom: A classroom-based study on strategy instruction to enhance boredom regulation for L2 learning [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand. Nakamura, S., Darasawang, P., & Reinders, H. (2021). A practitioner study on the implementation of strategy instruction for boredom regulation. Language Teaching Research, 136216882110102. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688211010272 Tavakoli, H. (2016). A dictionary of research methodology and statistics in applied linguistics. Rahnama Press. Topornycky, J., & Golparian, S. (2016). Balancing openness and interpretation in active listening. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 9, 175–184. https://doi.org/10.22329/celt.v9i0. 4430