Asking Students With Disabilities About Their Epistemic Emotions Reveals Implications for Future Research

• In Event: Learning and Motivation Research Inclusive of Disability

Abstract

Objective
Affect plays an important role in facilitating learning experiences. Epistemic emotions (EE), defined as feelings related to learning and knowledge and which include curiosity, confusion, boredom, etc., are known to be positive and activating, or negative and deactivating, for students (Muis et al., 2015; Pekrun, 2018). Often, researchers exploring EE begin by asking students if, and to what extent, they experience these, but do not always ask students to explain what those emotions are, and how they know they are experiencing a particular emotion instead of another.

Soliciting detailed accounts of emotions from teenagers can be a challenge, as many adolescents can be reluctant to speak at length about their feelings (Zeman et al., 2006). We partnered with students at “Alcott School,” a therapeutic college preparatory high school exclusively serving students with learning, emotional, and/or behavioral disorders. Alcott students are accustomed to and adept at articulating their emotions, because they do so in structured ways with their teachers, peers, and on-site psychologists daily. This group can offer insight into conceptual distinctions between, and applied interventions on, emotions in achievement settings. Using cognitive interviewing techniques, we asked:
1. How do students with disabilities describe curiosity, confusion, surprise, frustration and boredom related to science and math tasks?
2. What do students describe doing during and after experiencing EE?
Given space, we describe demonstrative findings related to curiosity; the final presentation will include four additional EE.


Method and Results
We interviewed students as part of a longitudinal, multiple methods project. The importance of qualitative inquiry became clear, as the semi-structured protocol and ability to rephrase questions enabled the research team and students to achieve shared understandings over time. Once interviews were transcribed, the research team engaged in rounds of open, pattern, and elaborative coding. A final step included looking for contradictions.

We found clear evidence that students could understand the notion of EE, and distinguish between these and other affective experiences. For example, Katherine said about one topic: “I find it so interesting but…I find it boring because of how much work we have to do on it.” She drew a distinction between her emotion related to learning and her emotion related to classroom structures (assigned tasks). A brief review of curiosity findings:

RQ1. Students described curiosity as interest, using these terms interchangeably. This has implications for hypercurrent conversations in the Division C community about the conceptual distinctions between these.

RQ2. All students shared that they initiated a behavior when feeling curious. Most indicated digging into the topic more deeply, via Youtube or Wikipedia. Some indicated a desire to talk about the topic with their teachers or parents. Thus, private vs. social exploration may be an area for future work to understand implications for practice.

Conclusion

One task of research is striking a balance between conceptual precision (e.g., to avoid jingle-jangle fallacies) and ensuring work mirrors the way non-researchers understand their own experiences. Talking with students about their emotions yields important insight into the future of EE research.

Authors

• Rebecca Louick, Eastern Michigan University
  Presenting Author

• Alyssa Emery, Iowa State University
  Non-Presenting Author