I feel, therefore I teach? Teachers’ conceptions of the relationships between emotions and teaching/learning processes / ¿Siento, luego enseño? Concepciones docentes sobre las relaciones entre las emociones y los procesos de enseñanza/aprendizaje

Abstract

During recent decades a shift in focus has been occurring that questions the historical cognitive-emotional dualism present in our culture and revalues the role of emotions in education. With this situation in mind, we wanted to discover what conceptions teachers have of the relationships existing between those emotions and the teaching-learning process. Given our cultural tradition, we depart from the assumption that it may be possible to differentiate the conceptions according to more or less integrated perspectives regarding the affective and cognitive functions in educational context. With the aim of identifying conception profiles and describing their specific characteristics, we interviewed 32 teachers whose discourses were categorized and statistically analysed using clustering and X2. The results are interpreted to account for a progression shaped by four types of conceptions ranging from perspectives that are not concerned with emotions, to others believing inseparability exists between affective and cognitive functions. Implications for future studies are then analysed from the obtained results.