“I don’t hide my feelings, even though I try to”: insight into teacher educator emotion display

This article addresses the issue of teacher educators’ emotion display when teaching and interacting with students. Little is known about this phenomenon in higher education generally, and teacher education specifically. An empirical study was conducted to address this gap by investigating teacher educators’ views on appropriate and inappropriate emotion display and its functions in the process of teaching. The study also examined how teachers used emotion regulation strategies to manage the intensity of their experienced emotions. The participants (six male, nine female) were from two public Australian universities and were all teaching first-year students in pre-service education. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Qualitative analyses revealed that these teachers viewed the open expression of positive emotions as an integral aspect of their teaching practice. In terms of negative emotions, they reported the criticality of controlling such experiences, and the occasional need to completely conceal them. Some reflected on the instrumental functions and conscious use of emotion display and emotion suppression. Findings are discussed in light of prior research; limitations of this exploratory study are addressed, and directions for future research are outlined.