ABSTRACT
Of course, there is a great deal of potential in the classroom situation to induce feelings which do not create a learning state. With a colleague I surveyed three groups of learners in higher education with questions about their experience of what we termed ‘classroom climate’ and lecturer qualities. One question we asked of respondents was to name ‘some of the feelings I have come to associate with my favourite session’. Responses to this question included ‘enthusiastic’, ‘fascination’, ‘happy and alive’, ‘enjoyment’, ‘being valued’, ‘confident’, ‘curious’, ‘excited’. With another question we asked for
feelings associated with their least favourite session. The most frequently recurring response here was ‘boredom’, but others included ‘annoyed’, ‘frustration’, ‘impatient’, ‘anger’, ‘excluded’, ‘depressed’, ‘alienation’, ‘resentment’, ‘humiliated’, ‘intimidated’. When feelings such as those in the latter list are dominant, the brain switches into what has been characterized as the ‘fight or flight’ mode and physiological processes are activated which restrict the functions in the brain that assist learning.
