"I Find This Mind-Boggling!!" How Affect Supports Science Inquiry in an Online Learning Environment

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Affect and Constructing Identity in the Learning Sciences

Abstract

We examined the ways in which affect took shape and functioned in learners’ sense-making around a puzzling phenomenon in a blended-online science course. By analyzing affective expressions in participants’ posts, we found that affect functioned on multiple levels to move learners’ inquiry forward. These functions included, among others, making space for and legitimizing feelings of confusion, inviting new conceptual substance, driving questions, and motivating experimentation. We illustrate these functions with the case of Carlos to show how affect sparked and sustained his inquiry. This work contributes to research on disciplinary engagement by showing how affect can function in learners’ inquiry online and by offering implications for the design of online environments that leverage and cultivate learners’ emotions within epistemic pursuits.

Authors

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• Elizabeth Hufnagel, University of Maine

• Jennifer Radoff, University of Maryland - College Park