Chinese Teachers’ Emotion Regulation Goals and Strategies

Shaoying Gong, Xiaoyun Chai, Ting Duan, Liu Zhong, Yongqing Jiao

1Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Wuhan, China 2Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology,.
1Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China 2Center for Mental Health Education, Hubei University of Automotive Technology, Shiyan, China.
Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China.

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2013.411125                

Abstract

This study aimed to explore Chinese teachers’ emotion regulation goals and strategies used before, in, and after classroom teaching. Thirty-four teachers from elementary, middle and high schools were interviewed with semi-structure questionnaire. Chinese teachers’ goals for regulating emotions included achieving instructional goals, decreasing the negative impact of emotions on student learning, confirming the professional and ethical norms, maintaining teachers’ and students’ mental health, keeping positive emotional images, and nurturing good teacher-student relationships. Teachers used various antecedent-focused and response-focused strategies to control their emotions before, in, and after class. In general, Chinese teachers used response-modulation most frequently, followed by cognitive changes in and after classroom teaching. These findings have implications for productive delivery of education service, teacher training and policy-making.

Keywords

Emotion; Emotion Regulation; Emotion Expression; Teacher

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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