Using emotional literacy to improve pedagogical confidence: initial findings from a STEM project

This paper reports on the initial research findings from a multi-institutional STEM project (the Project: It’s Part of MY Life) focused on improving the scientific and mathematical thinking of pre-service teachers (PSTs) by enhancing their pedagogical confidence via improved emotional literacy. This report details how the Project trials have utilised enhanced emotional feedback to enable PSTs to analyse, understand and make use of emotional information to improve their teaching confidence and teaching competence. The report discusses emotional literacy and emotional regulation as aspects of self-reflective professional development, how affect measures were constructed for the project, and how these measures are conceptually related to improving competence and confidence for pre-service STEM teachers. An overview of the research methods designed to connect emotional literacy to the Project goals is also provided, and recommendations made for ongoing research within the project parametres.