Examining Emotion Regulation and Physiological Arousal in a Computer-Based Learning Environment for Medical Diagnostic Reasoning

• In Event: Examinations of Emotions in Technology-Based Learning Environments

Abstract

Despite the importance of emotion regulation in education there is a paucity of research examining it in authentic, naturalistic educational contexts and using physiological data. The objectives of this study were to address these gaps by measuring 18 medical students’ emotion regulation strategies as well as their electrodermal activation and self-reported emotional responses during a diagnostic reasoning task in a computer-based learning environment. Our results revealed that (1) medical students who had a higher tendency to use suppression strategies experienced higher levels of arousal; (2) lower levels of physiological activity and higher levels of emotion regulation strategies (especially reappraisal) predicted higher performance scores; and (3) suppression strategy use and higher levels of arousal were related to higher levels of shame.

Authors

• Jason Matthew Harley, University of Alberta

• Amanda Jarrell, McGill University

• Susanne P. Lajoie, McGill University

• Laura Pipe, McGill University