Role of emotion to learning

Emotion is fundamental to learning

A good place to start looking for differences between the four case studies is with teachers’ beliefs regarding the role of emotion in the learning process itself. Although a majority of teachers in all four countries agreed that emotion is fundamental to learning (99% in Spain, 97% in the UK, 95% in Greece, and 91% in Sweden) there were statistically significant differences cross-culturally, namely: Spain, with the highest level of agreement that emotion is fundamental to learning, had a highly significant difference to

Sweden (p < 0.001, d = .88 suggested a large practical significance), Greece (p < 0.001, d = .39 suggested a small to moderate practical significance) and the UK (p < 0.05, d = .2 suggested a small practical significance). Conversely responses from Swedish teachers had the lowest relative agreement that emotion is fundamental to learning compared to all three other countries (p < 0.001, with medium to large practical significance). The findings from this item revealed that the majority of teachers from Greece, Spain, Sweden and the UK agreed that emotion is fundamental to learning, but teachers from Spain were highly significantly more likely to strongly agree with the statement compared to Swedish and Greek teachers, and slightly more likely than UK teachers, whereas Swedish teachers were highly significantly less likely to agree that emotion is fundamental to

Table 3.5. Frequency distribution of the statement ‘Emotion is fundamental to learning’

Strongly Agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree NA Greece 60% 35% 0% 3% 0% 3% Spain 85% 14% 0% 1% 0% 1% Sweden 40% 51% 2% 6% 0% 1% UK 72% 25% 0% 0% 1% 1%

Spain UK Greece Sweden

mean 4.8 4.7 4.6 4.3 (s.d.) (0.4) (0.6) (0.5) (0.7) n 250 246 143 101 UK 0.2* - - - Greece 0.39*** 0.18 - - Sweden 0.88*** 0.61*** 0.49*** -

Note: The means of responses are presented in descending order. Higher means represent agreement that emotion is fundamental to learning. The grid is organised to present all pairwise comparisons and indicates the magnitude of Cohen’s effect size (d) where .2 is small, .5 is moderate and .8 is large. * Significant at the (p) < 0.05 level ** Significant at the (p) < 0.01 level *** Significant at (p) < 0.001 level

No statistically significant difference was found between Greek and UK teachers. In terms of demographics, gender influenced the answers in Spain, Sweden and the UK, with female teachers more likely to agree than male teachers; income influenced the responses in Sweden, with teachers on higher salaries more likely to agree; whether respondents were primary or secondary school teachers influenced the responses from Spain and the UK, with primary school teachers more likely to agree; teaching experience influenced the answers in Sweden and the UK, with teachers with more experience being more likely to agree; and finally, SEE training influenced the answers in the UK, with teachers who had received training more likely to agree. The age of participants and whether they held an undergraduate or postgraduate degree did not influence responses to this item in any of the four countries.

Children can be taught social and emotional skills just like any other skill (reading, writing, playing an instrument)

Following on from the importance of emotion to learning, the next Likert item concerned the practicalities: do teachers believe that social and emotional skills can be taught to students, similarly to teaching them to read and write? Again, the majority of teachers from all countries agreed (98% in Spain, 91% in Greece, 88% in Sweden and 84% in the United Kingdom), but it was only Spain that had a highly statistically significant difference to the other countries (P < 0.001), the greatest difference being to Greece (d = 1.1 suggested a large to very large practical significance), UK (d = .85 suggested a large practical significance) and Sweden (d = .72 suggested a moderate to large practical significance). The findings from this item showed that the majority of teachers from Greece, Spain, Sweden and the UK agreed that children can be taught social and emotional skills just like any other skill (reading, writing, playing an instrument etc.), but teachers from Spain were highly more likely to agree with the statement compared to Greek, Swedish and UK teachers.

In terms of demographics, the age of teachers influenced the answers in Sweden and the UK, with teachers in their 30s in Sweden less likely to agree, and teachers in their 50s in the UK more likely to agree; gender influenced the answers in Spain, with female rather than male teachers being more likely to agree; income influenced the responses in Spain and the UK (with inverse effects: Spanish

teachers with lower wages were more likely to agree, and in the UK, teachers with higher wages were more likely to agree); experience influenced the answers in Sweden and the UK with more

experienced teachers more likely to agree; and finally, education influenced teachers in Spain with teachers with undergraduate degrees (rather than postgraduate degrees) more likely to agree. Whether teachers taught in preschool/primary or secondary school,

or whether they received SEE training did not influence responses on this item in any of the four countries.

Table 3.6. Frequency distribution of the statement ‘Children can be taught social and emotional skills just like any other skill (reading, writing, playing an instrument)’

Strongly Agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree NA Greece 27% 64% 6% 3% 0% 1% Spain 79% 19% 2% 1% 0% 0% Sweden 42% 46% 7% 4% 0% 1% UK 40% 44% 7% 7% 2% 1%

Spain Sweden Greece UK Mean 4.76 4.28 4.15 4.14 (s.d.) (0.5) (0.8) (0.6) (0.9) n 251 101 146 247 Sweden 0.72*** - - - Greece 1.1*** 0.15 - - UK 0.85*** 0.16 0.01 -

Note: The means of responses are presented in descending order. Higher means represent agreement that children can be taught social and emotional skills just like any other skill (reading, writing, playing an instrument). The grid is organised to present all pairwise comparisons and indicates the magnitude of Cohen’s effect size (d) where .2 is small, .5 is moderate and .8 is large. * Significant at the (p) < 0.05 level ** Significant at the (p) < 0.01 level *** Significant at the (p) < 0.001 level