Emotions and student achievement: Role of teachers in development of positive emotions among students

Pages: 1646-1649
Poonam Yadav (Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Emotions are considered to be an essential part of a student’s life, part of student’s identity, they affect personality development, psychological and physical health and they may profoundly influence academic motivation and achievement. From an educational perspective emotions are important because of their influence on learning and development, but student’s emotional well- being should also be regarded as an educational goal that is important in itself as it influences achievement and adjustment. Research has shown that students experience many emotions during class lessons, while studying and when taking tests and examinations. These emotions can be positive or negative and they can be intense and frequent. Positive emotions are emotions that are experienced as pleasant as against negative states like anxiety, depression and failure. Positive emotions signal flourishing but they also produce flourishing. Moreover, they do so not simply within the present, pleasant moment but over the long term as well. Positive emotions are worth cultivating, not just as end states in themselves but also as a means to achieving psychological growth and improved well-being over time. This prediction stems from a new perspective on positive emotions offered within Fredrickson’s (1998-2001) Broaden-and-Build theory. This model posits that unlike negative emotions, which narrow peoples thought-action repertoires (e.g., fight or flight), positive emotions broaden people’s thought-action repertoires, encouraging them to discover novel lines of thought or action. An important outcome of these broadened mind-sets is an increase in personal resources. The present paper is an attempt to explain how the insights drawn from Broaden-and build theory can be used in schools by teachers to promote positive emotions among students. As students face challenges on a day to day basis creating a positive environment in schools and promoting positive emotions can go a long way in enhancing student’s health and well-being.