The emotional learning journey: Cognitive appraisals and information-seeking achievement emotions of Swedish primary teacher students

The aim of this article-based thesis is to increase the understanding of the complex and dynamic interplay between cognitive behaviours and emotions in learning and information-seeking processes. This thesis specifically sheds light on the process of learning and achieving information-seeking skills by studying primary teacher students in relation to a research assignment. It is particularly important to understand how primary student teachers learn and achieve information-seeking skills in a research context. In their future role as educators of pupils during their formative years in school, it is essential to have such skills and other information literacies, not only for a future practice based on research, but also for the instruction of information-seeking skills and other literacies that await them. In addition, this thesis aims to gain a deeper understanding of the impact the support from instruction librarians has on this process and how this support can be designed in ways beneficial for students’ learning and achievement of information-seeking skills.
This thesis consists of a systematic literature review and an empirical study. The systematic literature review on teacher students’ information-seeking behaviours examined affective behaviour studies in particular as well as studies in research assignment contexts. The results revealed a research gap regarding studies of non-normative and qualitative features of teacher students’ information-seeking behaviours, especially affective behaviours and in relation to research assignments.
In the empirical study, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with six Swedish primary teacher students over a period of 10 weeks in relation to an independent research assignment. The analysis of the qualitative data was deductive and theory driven, guided by Kuhlthau’s information search process model, Scherer's semantic space of emotions and Pekrun’s control-value theory of achievement emotions. The Geneva Affect Label Coder was used to map and categorise cognitive behaviours, in the shape of cognitive appraisals, and emotions.
In the information-seeking achievement process, anger/frustration, enjoyment, and boredom were identified as activity emotions. The appraisals eliciting the activity achievement emotions were the control appraisals uncertainty/certainty and the value appraisals negative/positive intrinsic motivation. Anxiety, hopelessness, and hope were the prospective outcome emotions, which were elicited by the control appraisals uncertainty/certainty and the value appraisals failure/success. The retrospective outcome emotions were pride, joy, gratitude, surprise, and relief. The value appraisal success and the control appraisals oneself/other/irrelevant resulted in the retrospective outcome emotions. The interplay between appraisals and emotions was complex and dynamic. They were individually unique, non-linear, and iterative, and the appraisals did not always elicit emotions. The interplay between appraisals and emotions was complex, involving feedback loops, reciprocal causations, and double functions.
The achievement emotions found in relation to the students’ experienced cognitive quality of task instructions were anger/frustration, anxiety, and hopelessness. The emotions experienced relative to the perceived motivational quality of the task instructions were enjoyment and boredom. Uncertainty and negative intrinsic motivation/failure elicited emotions related to cognitive quality, and negative/positive intrinsic motivation and certainty determined emotions related to the motivational quality. The support the students experienced from instruction librarians was related to the students’ ability to master the instructions and their perceived cognitive qualities.
This thesis has made a substantial theoretical contribution to library and information science and information-seeking behaviour research. It has contributed to the literature on teacher students’ information-seeking behaviours by explaining these behaviours from a constructivist meta-theoretical lens, that is, behaviours as constructed in a meaning-making, seeking, and learning process. As such, this thesis partially fills a critical gap, especially because no previous studies reflect a constructivist meta-theoretical viewpoint in a research assignment context.
The specific theoretical contribution is the application of Pekrun’s control-value theory of achievement emotions and Scherer’s semantic space of emotions. These have not been used previously in library and information science and information-seeking behaviour research and, therefore, this thesis provides unique and valuable theoretical insights. Conceptualising and theorising cognitive behaviours and emotions as cognitive appraisals and information-seeking achievement emotions and their interplay with the help of these theories has revealed the complexity of the interplay between appraisals and emotions in the information-seeking achievement processes.
This thesis has also provided academic librarians with an understanding of how students experience support and the relations to the quality of task instructions. As such, support can be designed in ways that promote students’ sense of control over task instructions and motivation to perform them enhances and by implication foster positive appraisals and achievement emotions beneficial for learning and achievement. In addition, suggestions on how the achievement context in general can be designed by constructively aligning the support from instructions librarians with the achievement goal and assessment task are offered.