The interplay of emotions and learning in knowledge building

• Main Author: Kee, Selia Si Ming
• Other Authors: Annabel Chen Shen-Hsing
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151055
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Pedagogical approaches are beginning to incorporate more social-emotional components on top of the cognitive component. This means that educators not only have to focus on developing the cognitive elements of teaching methods and learning syllabi, but they also have to be aware of the emotional needs of students. Knowledge Building (KB) is a pedagogical approach that heavily involves collaboration between students. It makes use of an online platform, Knowledge Forum (KF), to facilitate student discourses. The social nature of KB calls for the understanding of students’ emotions and how they relate to their learning. This study aims to investigate the relationship between emotions and learning in KB. 57 students were recruited to participate in a three-day KB event. They completed three design challenges, each representing a learning task of different task complexities. Their emotions and learning were measured via emotion surveys, learning surveys, and their Knowledge Forum (KF) notes. Results found that positive emotions were positively correlated with learning, while negative emotions other than “challenged” were negatively correlated to learning. Additionally, it was found that on the high task complexity design challenge, students had both more positive emotions and better learning outcomes.