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Emotional experiences of preservice science teachers in online learning: the formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds

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Abstract

The enactment of learning to become a science teacher in online mode is an emotionally charged experience. We attend to the formation, maintenance and disruption of social bonds experienced by online preservice science teachers as they shared their emotional online learning experiences through blogs, or e-motion diaries, in reaction to videos of face-to-face lessons. A multi-theoretic framework drawing on microsociological perspectives of emotion informed our hermeneutic interpretations of students’ first-person accounts reported through an e-motion diary. These accounts were analyzed through our own database of emotion labels constructed from the synthesis of existing literature on emotion across a range of fields of inquiry. Preservice science teachers felt included in the face-to-face group as they watched videos of classroom transactions. The strength of these feelings of social solidarity were dependent on the quality of the video recording. E-motion diaries provided a resource for interactions focused on shared emotional experiences leading to formation of social bonds and the alleviation of feelings of fear, trepidation and anxiety about becoming science teachers. We offer implications to inform practitioners who wish to improve feelings of inclusion amongst their online learners in science education.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Maryam Sandhu who worked tirelessly as a research assistant in this study by assisting with data analysis and the generation of our emotion label database. We are indebted to her contributions. The Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, contract Grant Number: DP120100369, partly supported this research. A Queensland University of Technology Teaching and Learning Grant awarded to Kathy Mills, Alberto Bellocchi, and Stephen Ritchie also supported the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, School of Curriculum, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, QLD, 4059, Australia

    Alberto Bellocchi & Kathy A. Mills

  2. School of Education, Murdoch University, South Street, Murdoch, WA, 6150, Australia

    Stephen M. Ritchie

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  1. Alberto Bellocchi
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  2. Kathy A. Mills
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  3. Stephen M. Ritchie
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Correspondence to Alberto Bellocchi.

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Lead Editor: K. Tobin

This article is published as part of a Special Issue on: Research on Emotion in Science Education.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Research Council or the Queensland University of Technology.

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Bellocchi, A., Mills, K.A. & Ritchie, S.M. Emotional experiences of preservice science teachers in online learning: the formation, disruption and maintenance of social bonds. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 11, 629–652 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-015-9673-9

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