Affective dimension of university professors about their teaching: An exploration through the semantic differential technique

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to increase our knowledge of teacher feelings about teaching, as a component of teacher identity. In the first part, we present a comprehensive review of the literature about teachers’ feelings, especially in the area of types of teacher feelings and teaching. In the second part, we present the results of a semantic differential scale developed to identify a typology of teaching feelings in higher education. This comprises a list of pairs of bipolar adjectives that summarize a broad range of feelings that teachers may feel. This semantic differential was presented to a sample of 198 university teachers, and an exploratory factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure of feelings about teaching in higher education: Feelings related the motivation for teaching, feelings related the evaluation of oneself as a teacher, and feelings related the performance of teaching. Our results suggest a new line of research about teacher feelings and teacher identity in higher education.