Emotional Literacy and Pedagogical Confidence in Pre-Service Science and Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

This report details the findings from initial research seeking to improve the pedagogical confidence of pre-service STEM teachers by encouraging emotional literacy in the form of affect awareness. The report discusses how affect was measured for the study, what the affect outcomes were and how these measures are conceptually related to improving confidence for the pre-service teachers (PSTs). Findings indicate enhanced emotional feedback enabled the PSTs to analyse, understand and make use of affect information to reflect on their teaching confidence overall. Ongoing research will need to address the issue of negative affect awareness in teacher training, and strategies for approaching this issue are provided.