Teacher emotions are linked with teaching quality: Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from two field studies

Abstract

BackgroundThere is compelling theoretical reasoning that teachers’ emotions and their instructional behaviors are linked. However, previous research on this link has been sparse and burdened with small sample sizes, cross-sectional designs, and dominated by single-source data. AimThe present research examines the relationships between teacher emotions and teaching quality by complementing data across two studies based on different samples, research designs, and education contexts. SamplesParticipants were Croatian secondary school teachers (N = 865) and their students (N = 14,335) across a range of school subjects in Study 1, and German secondary school mathematics teachers (N = 92) and their students (N = 1,443) in Study 2. MethodsStudy 1 was based on a cross-sectional design, whereas Study 2 used longitudinal data across three time points. In both studies, teachers reported on their teaching-related enjoyment, anger, and anxiety, while students rated indicators of their teachers’ teaching quality, namely, cognitive activation, classroom management, and student support. ResultsTeacher emotions and teaching quality were modestly related cross-sectionally and more strongly longitudinally. Specifically, teacher enjoyment was positively related to teaching quality, whereas teacher anger and anxiety were negatively related to teaching quality. Moreover, teacher emotions at the beginning of a schoolyear predicted teaching quality as rated by students at mid-term, while teaching quality predicted end-of-year teacher emotions even after controlling their beginning-of-year baseline levels. ConclusionsThe association between teacher emotions and teaching quality persists and unfolds over time – teacher emotions predict teaching quality which in turn predicts teacher emotions.