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

The main objective of this study is to increase our knowledge regarding professors' emotions about their teaching, as a component of teacher identity. In the first part, we present a comprehensive review of the literature about the types of teachers' emotions and teaching. In the second part we present the results of a validity study with a semantic differential scale developed to explore the emotions of university professors about their teaching. This scale was fulfilled by a sample of 198 university teachers and comprises a list of pairs of bi-polar adjectives that summarize a broad range of affective classifications about teaching in higher education. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure of emotions about teaching in higher education: Motivation for teaching, Evaluation of oneself as a teacher, and Teaching performance. The cross-referencing of the scale to Trigwell and Prosser's (2004) teachers' approaches to teaching is analysed and discussed. Our results suggest new lines of research about teachers' emotions in higher education, proposing further studies to collect more validity evidences about the affective dimensions of teaching.