Student teachers’ emotions when watching their own videos and those of their peers

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the emotions reported by a group of student teachers (STs) after viewing their own teaching videos and those of their peers, as well as the reasons for those emotions. It also investigated the perceived influence of the STs’ emotions on their learning from the videos. Design/methodology/approach The case study involved 12 STs, and was situated in the context of a science methods course on a postgraduate teaching diploma program. The emotions associated with watching different types of video materials were investigated using a variety of data-collection methods, including written surveys, student-generated metaphors, and interviews. The emotion labels/words (e.g. horrible, joyful) and metaphors the STs used to describe their video-viewing experience, as well as the reasons for their emotions, were analyzed. The perceived influence of the participants’ emotions on their learning from the different types of video material was also analyzed qualitatively. Findings The findings suggested that most of the STs experienced negative emotions when viewing their own videos, whereas all of them reported positive emotions when viewing their peers’ videos. Distinct groups of STs displaying similar emotions while viewing the different video materials were distinguished. Their characteristics and the reasons for their emotions were identified. Analysis of the perceived influence of emotions suggested that they exert differential influences on learning from video materials, with the negative emotions associated with viewing one’s own videos reported to hinder such learning in most cases. Originality/value This study represents one of the few attempts to investigate the emotions related to STs’ video-viewing experience. The case study problematizes the lack of attention to the emotions associated with ST’s video-viewing experience in existing scholarship and highlights the fact that research findings on in-service teachers’ emotions associated with viewing different types of video material might not be transferable to novice teachers. The identification of distinct groups of STs who experience particular emotions when viewing different types of video material, as well as the differing perceived influence of those emotions on their learning, has implications for the effective use of videos to enhance learning in initial teacher education.