Emotional Engagement in Agentive Science Learning Environments

Abstract

As students engage in ambitious intellectual activities, they inevitably manage social interactions and emotional responses in the classroom. In this research, we studied fifth graders' emotional engagement in elementary science classes redesigned to offer more ambitious, agentive learning. We examined student self-reports of affective states to address the following questions: (1) Do students in "Agency" classes report more positive or negative emotional experiences, compared to students in classes that use traditional, kit-based science units? (2) To what extent do students' emotional experiences vary as a function of class? Findings indicate that, after taking classroom differences into account, students in Agency classes generally felt more positive about their experiences in science than students in kit- based classes. Next steps include exploring differences across classrooms and synthesizing research on learning, affect and identity.