Development of a Visualization-based System for Analyzing Teachers’ Emotional Experience in Classroom Observation Activities

Abstract

Classroom observation is a powerful tool to understand teaching, diagnose teaching problems and identify development needs of teachers. The existing studies often focus on teachers' behavior, knowledge and skills during classroom observation. However, the emotional state of teachers is neglected, though it has a significant influence on the teaching effects. The purpose of this study is to analyze teachers’ emotional experience in classroom observation through developing a visualization-based system, thereby promoting active participation, and reflection of in-service teachers. This study included 55 in-service Chinese teachers who had totally observed eight classroom activities in three weeks. Eight visual reports about the emotion, the degree of satisfaction and technology acceptability were collected for analysis. The results reveals three findings. Firstly, this system can effectively display teachers’ changes of emotion, teaching concerns and problems. Secondly, it has a higher degree of satisfaction and is useful and easy to use for teachers. Finally, there are significant differences among teachers with different years of teaching experience on the degree of satisfaction and technology acceptability about this system.