Teachers displaying enthusiasm during instruction to foster student enjoyment¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 4 claims (4 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article suggests that expressing enthusiasm—gestures, varied intonation, eye contact, humor, and lively examples—may foster students' enjoyment of class. The authors state that teachers report showing enthusiasm when the topic is dry or with a challenging group, and conclude "Our data suggest that this may indeed be a useful strategy because enthusiasm seems to have positive effects on students' enjoyment." This applies even when teachers must up-regulate expressiveness without fully experiencing enjoyment, though the emotional labor literature warns this may take effort and lead to stress and burnout.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Enthusiasm must be expressed as observable teaching behavior that students can perceive

Constraints¶

• The emotional labor approach holds that up-regulating pleasant emotions without experiencing them can take effort and lead to stress and burnout; the article notes the costs and benefits are debated

Target Learners¶

• secondary school students

Target Learning Goals¶

• student enjoyment of class and motivation

Affordances¶

• Value Induction Emotional Transmission

Claims¶

• Only the current teacher's enthusiasm relates to students' enjoyment; prior-year teacher enthusiasm is unrelated to next-year enjoyment [+W]
• Perceived teacher enthusiasm positively predicts student enjoyment at the within-class (individual student) level [+W]
• Teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment in mathematics classrooms are positively related even after controlling for students' prior-year enjoyment [+W]
• Student-perceived teacher enthusiasm mediates the relationship between teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Keep Your Love of Teaching
• Teachers up-regulating positive facial expressivity during teaching, now supported by evidence that teachers emotionally benefit from student reciprocation of joy expressions

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Frenzel, A. C., Goetz, T., Lüdtke, O., Pekrun, R., & Sutton, R. E. (2009). Emotional Transmission in the Classroom: Exploring the Relationship Between Teacher and Student Enjoyment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(3), 705–716. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014695