Table 1. Distribution of the Sample Students-Teachers
Managing the young learners at the elementary school level is not an easy task. Learners of the age five and above are very active in nature, show interest in playing and mingle with their peer group. At times they may not show interest in learning and may hate learning activities. Similarly, the teachers at elementary level may have practical problems in their daily school activities and have the responsibility to control their emotions and provide good education to their learners. With this background, the author of this article planned to conduct a research study aimed at finding the emotional status of student- teachers at elementary level. He used the Student- Teachers' Emotional Status Scale (STESS) to collect the required data from 160 samples of elementary level student teachers pursuing Diploma in Elementary Education course in Coimbatore and Tirupur districts of Tamil Nadu. The research method used in the study is 'Survey Method'. The main result of this study reveals that selected student- teachers were emotionally strong. The results may be useful to the authorities of teacher education programs to plan their programs and modify their existing transactional strategies.
Today’s teachers are more responsible persons in the society than any other professionals in the national development. Their contribution to the national development has been initiated through young learners of school education and the adult learners of professional educations. Their role is great, therefore National Policy on Education (NPE, 1986) states that 'The status of the teacher reflects the socio-cultural ethos of a society; it is said that no people can rise above the level of teachers. The government and the community should make an effort to create conditions, which will help motivate and inspire teachers in constructive and creative lines. Teachers should have the freedom to innovate, to devise appropriate methods of communication and activities relevant to the needs and capabilities of and the concerns of the community'.
So, the professional development among teachers should be started right from their pre-service training program. Preservice training teachers must be prepared as worthy persons for future teaching service. They must know the capacities and needs of the learners they will be dealing with and know how to select the right, suitable, worthy teaching learning approaches and materials according to the levels of learners. Also, they must know the importance of creating a positive atmosphere in their classroom in order to encourage development and learning, in addition to their students' well-being. We know that creating the academic excellence and positive attitude towards learning of learners are possible to the teachers who create a friendly atmosphere and positive emotions in the classroom processes. Exploring the emotional status of elementary level teacher trainees can really help the teacher educators and administrators of this line to guide the prospective teachers in a right way, and in this background the investigator feels this research work is such a useful work in this direction.
Teacher emotion is now observed as an important field of research. Emmer (1994) reported that teachers often experience the negative emotions more than positive ones. Moreover, while seeing the outcomes of their own teaching, teachers felt that they had inadequacy and failure, together with anger towards their students (Lortie, 1975).
Laible and Thompson (1998) view that understanding their own emotions helps children to guide their behavior in social situations and feelings. It enables them to control the way they show their feelings and to be sensitive to how others feel (Garner & Power, 1996). Several studies have explained how emotion affects not only the content of thought, but also processes involved in thought (Bless, 2000) and social interactions (Lupton, 1998).
Learning is not only the output in the form of behavioural changes, it is also an emotional process as a cognitive one. Emotions serve as a powerful tool for enhancing learning among the learners (Greenleaf, 2002). Linnenbrink and Pintrich (2002) acknowledged that teacher's negative emotions contribute to negative emotions among the students to learn their lessons.
Pekrun et al. (2002) investigated the impact of emotions on learning, and they concluded in their study that the negative emotions on the part of the teacher take a negative impact in the classroom; positive emotions render a positive effect on student learning.
A study by Trigwell (2012) clearly explained how the teacher-centered approach is directly correlated with negative emotions. It also elaborated that the student - centred approach leads to the good academic motivation, low frustration, and give good learning atmosphere to the student learning engagement.
Morris et al. (2013) concluded in his study that emotions of pre-school teachers influence over the emotional competence of their students, and as a result, in effect, teachers' emotions influence children's emotional understanding.
The main objectives of the study are as follows.
The investigator adopted normative survey as a research method in this study.
The study consisted of 160 elementary level student teachers from Coimbatore and Tirupur districts as the sample. Among them, 80 were Government school student-teachers and the remaining 80 were student teachers from self-finance institutions. They were selected using simple random selection procedure. The selected sample distribution is given in Table 1.
Table 1. Distribution of the Sample Students-Teachers
The investigator developed a research tool which is Student Teachers' Emotional Status Scale (STESS) to assess the elementary education course student teachers' emotional problems and he established reliability and validity. Student Teachers' Emotional Status Scale (STESS) for the study consisted five subscales, namely, Intrapersonal Emotional Problems, Interpersonal Emotional Problems, Emotional Problems in Adaptability, Emotional Problems in Stress Management and General Emotional Problems. Each subscale includes 10 statements with five point responses as mentioned above. Each statement of this Likert scale has been framed with five point responses, such as, strongly agree, agree, no opinion, disagree and strongly disagree. The sum of numerical scores assigned to all the separate items of each subscale gives his/her total score, which can be interpreted as favorable (positive) and unfavorable (negative) emotion. Score was given to each statement on the basis of favorable and unfavorable answer. For favorable statement, the score order was 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. For unfavorable statement, the scoring order was 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. The same procedure was followed for all subscales used in the study. The maximum score of each subscale is 50 (=10 x 5) and the maximum score of total scale is 250 (=50 x 5).
In general, if the mean score of the sample is greater than 50 percent of the maximum score of scale, then it is assumed that the sample is emotionally strong, otherwise emotionally weak. The component-wise emotional strength of the student-teachers is calculated by seeing at range of deviation of the mean scores of student teachers in each component from the average value/grand mean of these mean scores. For this, first author has found the mean scores of each component and then found the grand mean of these mean scores. Next, the author spotted the mean scores of the components, which are below to the grand mean and that are labelled as emotionally weak. Similarly, the category of emotionally strong was labelled by verifying the components whose mean scores were above to the grand mean.
The reliability of the tool was established by the test and retest method, which was found to be 0.813. The author used face validity, therefore he submitted the tool to five teacher educators and five elementary level school teachers for getting opinion and judgment about the statements presented in this research tool. They ensured that the statements presented in the tool were valid for the research purpose.
Author of this research paper met with selected student teachers at diploma level after getting the permission from the head of the institutions, and requested them to cooperate for collecting the required data for this study by filling up the Student Teachers' Emotional Status Scale (STESS). The author gives a brief introduction about this research to selected samples and also provides an outline to fill up the tool. After completing the tool by the selected student-teachers, the author collected the data carefully. All of these data were subjected to scores based on scoring procedure
The selected null hypothesis of this study are given as follows.
The mean and standard deviation scores of the total samples are 172.02 and 9.84. Since, this score is greater than 50 percent of the maximum score of scale (=250), then it is assumed that the samples are emotionally strong. The component-wise mean scores of the samples are given in Table 2.
Table 2 indicates that the selected student-teachers have the maximum mean score 35.73 in the component - adaptability and the minimum mean score 33.81 in the component – intrapersonal of the Student-Teachers' Emotional Status Scale.
Table 2. Emotional Profile of the Student Teachers: Components-Wise
The average mean scores of the above mentioned components is 34.40.
The results of Table 2 indicate that the selected student teachers were emotionally strong in adaptability and emotionally weak in intraPersonal and interpersonal relationship, stress management and in general emotional status.
The comparison of mean and standard deviation scores of the sample according to the variables; institutional level, gender and locality wise were analysed in Table 3.
Table 3. The Mean and SD of Student-Teachers in STESS
The mean scores of student-teachers studying in government and private institutions are 173.01, and 171.03, respectively. These mean scores indicate that both the student-teachers of government and private institutions are emotionally strong, since their mean scores are greater than the score 125 (50 percent of maximum score of the STESS). These mean scores also indicate that the emotional status of student-teachers of government institutions is better than that of student-teachers of private institutions.
The calculated 't' value (1.28) in institutional-wise comparison is less than the table 't' value at 0.05 level of significance and therefore it is identified that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of studentteachers of government and private institutions in their emotional status. Hence, the null hypothesis;
The mean scores of male and female student-teachers are 171.69 and 172.35, respectively. These mean scores indicate that both male and female student-teachers are emotionally strong, since their mean scores are greater than the score 125 (50 percent of maximum score of the STESS). These mean scores indicate that the emotional status of female student-teachers is better than that of male student-teachers.
The calculated 't' value (0.425) in gender wise comparison is less than the table 't' value at 0.05 level of significance and therefore it is identified that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female student teachers in their emotional status. Hence, the null hypothesis;
The mean scores of rural and urban based studentteachers are 171.54 and 172.50, respectively. These mean scores indicate that both rural and urban based studentteachers are emotionally strong, since their mean scores are greater than the score 125 (50 percent of maximum score of the STESS). But the mean scores indicate that the emotional status of urban based student-teachers is better than that of rural based student-teachers.
The calculated 't' value (0.617) in locality wise comparison is less than the table 't' value at 0.05 level of significance and therefore, it is identified that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of rural and urban based student-teachers in their emotional status. Hence, the null hypothesis;
H03: “There is no significant difference between the emotional status of rural and urban based student teachers at elementary level teacher training institutions” is accepted.
For the betterment of student-teachers' professional development, the author felt that following measures are important and are recommended to carry out in the teacher preparation institutions.
In the modern world, teachers are facing many problems in both inside and outside of the campus. The emotional maturity and stability of the student-teachers definitely contributes not only to their professional development but also to their personality development. Teacher training program will be effective when the student-teachers feel happy. Real training takes place when they are free from emotional disturbance. So, it is important for the teacher educators that they should make them feel happy in both inside and outside the training centres.
In this study, the author has attempted to bring out the emotional status level of the student-teachers at elementary level. From analysing the data collected from the sample, it is concluded that the selected studentteachers at elementary level were emotionally strong in general and in institutional-wise, gender-wise and localitywise. It is found that the selected student teachers were emotionally strong in adaptability and emotionally weak in intrapersonal and interpersonal relationship, stress management and in general emotional status. The findings of the study will help to the administrators of teacher education institutions at various levels to understand the emotions of the student-teachers and will be eye-opener to the authorities in this line to frame the curricular activities in future.