Students’ Emotions in Socio-constructivist Approaches: Comparing Experiences at Different Italian School Levels

Abstract

AbstractEmotions are becoming increasingly central in education research. The research shows a deep gap concerning emotions triggered by socio-constructivist approaches where learning occurs through social interaction, peer-work, group work, and learning activities based on building ideas or concrete objects. The specific emotions emerging in such contexts are still under-researched. To address this gap, this study first reviews how emotions are currently conceptualized and studied. We then present excerpts from several of our studies to analyze the specific emotional processes that emerge in relation to socio-constructivist educational activities. The main objective is to understand what emotions are elicited in students when participating in educational socio-constructivist activities. Several school levels are involved—middle school, high school, and university—to find common emotion. Five “socio-constructivist emotions” were singled out: emotion fluidity, discovering new parts of the self, pleasure of learning, value of the group, and crossing space–time boundaries. The paper discusses each of them with a qualitative analysis of excerpts extracted from the data available. The paper ends by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of this analysis.