Emotions, creativity in learning and creative ways of studying learning

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

While traditionally considered as a strictly cognitive matter, learning has been shown to be embedded with strong emotional features (e.g. Capron Puozzo, 2013; Dirkx, 2001; Frentzel et al., 2016). Pupils and students, just as their teachers, may be enthusiastic, feel proud, being doubtful, feel ashamed, confused or worried. These emotions, which may be related to the context or to the subject, have strong impact on learning (Pekrun et al., 2017). Achievement emotions are related to the context and refer to emotions felt in schools, when a student is passing a test for example (Pekrun & Perry, 2014). On the other hand, epistemic emotions are directly related to the cognitive aspect of learning. For example, a student may feel epistemically frustrated when facing a very complex and unsolvable problem.







Only few studies have focused on the impact of epistemic emotions on creativity (e.g. Audrin and Capron Puozzo, 2019). However, creativity is an important feature today, as children will be evolving in a changing society, they will need to be creative to adapt to this society. As such, teachers should be sensitized to creativity in order to encourage creative behaviors in their students. I will present results of mixed-method studies (both qualitative and quantitative) investigating the importance of emotions in the context of creativity in future teachers. I will then discuss a potential application of such research in the language learning context.







In the last part of this talk, I will discuss creative ways of studying learning by presenting neuroscientific tools such as eye-tracking device and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Results and their potential applications in the classroom will be presented and discussed.