Feeling and Learning: A Study of Students’ Emotions in the Sonography Classroom

Abstract

Objective:

The aim of this study was to explore the phenomenon of academic emotions experienced by sonography students.

Materials and Methods:

In this hermeneutic phenomenological study, in-depth, semi-structured phenomenological interviews were conducted to learn about participants’ emotional experiences while learning sonography. Thematic analysis was utilized in an effort to understand participants’ experiences with the phenomenon.

Results:

This study yielded the following interpretive themes: (1) the classroom emotional climate impacts students’ thoughts about learning sonography, (2) academic emotions can either boost or detract from students’ interest, motivation, and enthusiasm for the course material, and (3) relationships with their teachers matter to sonography students.

Conclusion:

An increased awareness of the interrelatedness of emotion and cognition in sonography education would benefit not only sonography educators and students but ultimately the patients whom those students will care for by improving the quality of education that students receive.

Keywords

sonography education academic emotions learning environment student-teacher relationship hermeneutic phenomenology

Emotions are ubiquitous in educational settings and are important for understanding instructional interactions.^1,2 Teachers who are more aware of the emotional processes occurring in their classrooms are in a better position to optimize their classrooms and in turn, their students’ learning.³ Emotion and cognition are not independent, separate processes; the brain networks supporting emotion, learning, and memory are intricately linked.⁴ Sonography teachers and students would benefit from a more holistic view of the educational experience, one that takes both emotion and cognition into account. Emotions have the power to change the way that students perceive the educational experience and thus alter their ensuing motivation.⁵ When considering the learning experiences of students, it is critical to consider their emotional experiences because the two always act in tandem.^5,6

The goals of this study were to learn about students’ emotional experiences while learning sonography and to understand how students’ emotional experiences impacted their learning. Phenomenology is a qualitative research approach used to study human experience with phenomena and is deeply rooted in philosophical tradition dating back to the early 20th century.⁷ Phenomenology always means appreciating what a particular phenomenon means to the participant, just as he or she sees and experiences it. By learning about a participant’s experience, researchers can create meaning and develop a deep understanding of the phenomenon.⁷ In this study, the participants were sonography students, and the phenomenon was the emotions that they experienced in the classroom.

Background

Emotions are multifaceted phenomena involving sets of coordinated psychological processes, including affective, cognitive, physiological, motivational, and expressive components.⁸ In addition, emotions have the property of intentionality and are triggered and guided by at least one appraisal.⁹ They are directed at something or someone and occur in response to something or someone, distinguishing them from other affective phenomena such as moods and dispositions.¹⁰

Emotions that occur in academic settings can be referred to as academic emotions. Academic emotions are often intense in learning environments and can have a significant impact on learning and achievement.² However, until the early 21st century, emotions other than test anxiety were underexplored in terms of the learning experiences of students.^2,11 Researchers have traditionally focused on cognition at the expense of emotion, but cognition and emotion should be treated as equal partners in learning.^1,12 More recently, researchers have studied students of various ages to discover how their emotional experiences impact their learning. For example, Trigwell et al¹³ surveyed 384 undergraduate biology students and found that students who more strongly experience positive emotions such as hope, pride, and confidence are more likely to utilize effective cognitive learning strategies than those who more strongly experience negative emotions such as anger, boredom, anxiety, and shame. Similarly, Obergriesser and Stoeger’s¹⁴ study of 338 fourth-grade students showed that students’ intraindividual enjoyment level positively predicted their subsequent use of effective cognitive learning strategies, which are consistently linked to higher learning outcomes.^13,14 Goetz et al¹⁵ conducted a longitudinal study of 535 high school students who had the same teacher in a given subject across two school years and found that positive emotional experiences in grade 10 were associated with higher academic achievement in grade 11.

Moore and Kuol¹¹ asked over 800 college alumni to identify one faculty member who had the most positive effect on their learning while they were in school. Of those respondents who provided a description of their positive teaching and learning experiences, 78% identified emotion-related dimensions, including interest, passion, inspiration, enjoyment, enthusiasm, dedication, compassion, empathy, and care. Only 22% of respondents identified non-emotion-related dimensions including subject knowledge, preparedness, organization, communication skills, and cleverness. These findings show that what students tend to remember and appreciate most is the way that they emotionally related to the teacher in their classes. Even after graduating, they associate positive emotional experiences with effective teaching and learning.

This close review of the extant research on students’ emotions in the classroom revealed an absence of studies involving sonography education. Research into sonography students’ emotional experiences is needed, especially when one considers the assertion made by Tyng et al¹⁶ that emotions modulate virtually every aspect of cognition. Researchers have explored the role of students’ emotions in nursing school (e.g., Mikkonen et al¹⁷ and Tharani et al)¹⁸ as well as medical school (e.g., Bynum et al¹⁹ and Tackett et al²⁰), but no studies regarding sonography students’ emotions are known to the author.

“Emotions matter in higher education because education is relational, and emotions are central to those relationships.”^12(p102) Students are more successful academically when teachers are more sensitive and responsive to their academic and emotional needs.²¹ With this in mind, the following research questions were developed:

Research Question 1: What emotions do students experience while learning sonography?

Research Question 2: What connections do students see between their emotional experiences and their learning?

Research Question 3: How do emotions change the way that sonography students perceive the learning experience?

Materials and Methods

Study Design

The aim of this study was to explore the phenomenon of academic emotions experienced by sonography students. The methodology chosen was hermeneutic phenomenology, also known as interpretive phenomenology. Phenomenology is both a philosophy and a methodology which is inextricably linked to the philosophy.⁷ Phenomenology as a methodology is practiced when we want to understand human experience; it allows a researcher to understand things that are typically considered subjective, such as emotions.⁷ Hermeneutics is the art or technique of understanding and interpretation,²² and phenomenology prioritizes how the human being experiences the world.²³ Because hermeneutic phenomenology can help in understanding human experience, its value in educational research is boundless.

Participants

In an effort to identify participants for this study, purposeful sampling was used, that is, selecting participants who are currently engaged in experiences relevant to the study to learn as much as possible about their lived experiences with the phenomenon.²⁴ Six senior students in a baccalaureate sonography program in the southeastern United States agreed to speak to their emotional experiences in the classroom and how those experiences impact their learning. All participants were female and ranged in age from 21 to 29 years (M_age = 23.5 years, SD = 3.27 years). Senior students were invited to participate because they have been in the sonography program for over a year and have a wealth of experiences to draw upon, making them more information-rich candidates than the junior students. The small sample size is appropriate for finding answers to the research questions due to the in-depth phenomenological interviews that were conducted.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the appropriate Institutional Review Board. Prior to obtaining written informed consent from each participant, the author provided information about the study, ensuring that they understood the purpose of the study, what their involvement would entail, and how the interview transcripts and study results would be used. Students were informed that their participation was voluntary and would not affect their progression in the sonography program or lead to preferential treatment in the classroom. Pseudonyms and careful selection of anecdotal examples were used to maintain the confidentiality of participants.

Power Dynamic

The author was very much aware of the power differential between faculty and students. At the time of the study, the participants had completed all courses taught by the author, so the author was no longer responsible for their grade assignments. However, being interviewed by a faculty member who was still in a position of authority could easily have led to socially desirable responses, preventing students from sharing negative thoughts and feelings about the program. Helping participants trust that their responses will be treated confidentially can be an effective way of dealing with the influence of social desirability in self-report measures of emotion.²⁵ The trust and rapport that was developed with these students over the years likely helped them feel comfortable opening up and being candid about their emotional experiences.

Reflexivity

We bring our past experiences with us to every present experience, and these past experiences help shape our present understanding.²² Reflexivity involves researchers reflecting on how their identities, values, and past experiences may influence their understanding of the phenomenon being studied.⁷ The author engaged in a continuous process of reflection on their role in the research process and their positionality as a former instructor of the participants, as a sonographer, and as a current and former student. While it would be impossible to put one’s subjectivities completely aside, a conscious effort was made while developing interview questions, during the interviews, and throughout the analytic and interpretive process to not impute the author’s own motives and experiences to the participants or the data and to let the students’ voices shine through.

Trustworthiness

Other attempts at trustworthiness and credibility included using multiple data extracts or quotes from each participant so that all participants were represented. Multiple quotes were used to support each theme in order to demonstrate a variety of views and perspectives on each issue.²⁶ In addition, both positive and negative emotional accounts were included in the write-up. The author did not attempt to use the students’ experiences to portray the program in a positive or perfect light. This would not be believable, since no program or learning experience is perfect, but more importantly, it would not be ethical.

Data Collection

The phenomenological interview focuses on the lived experiences of participants and the meaning they make of their experiences. A participant’s lived experience is what they experience as it happens; researchers attempt to guide their participants, through the use of open-ended questions, to reconstruct these experiences and reflect on their meaning. Through this process, the researcher tries to come as close as possible to understanding the participants’ experiences from their points of view.²⁴ In-depth, semi-structured phenomenological interviews were conducted with participants to learn about their emotional experiences while learning sonography. Participants were asked to describe a time in class or lab when they were aware of how they felt, for example, “excited about learning,” “anxious or overwhelmed,” or “frustrated with yourself or someone else.” Follow-up questions were asked as needed to obtain experiential narrative material. Examples of follow-up questions include, “What was that like for you?” “What led to this feeling of [insert emotion here]?” “What impact, if any, do you think that this feeling had on your learning?” In addition, participants were asked to describe the emotional climate of a class or lab that they experienced a lot of positive emotions in as well as the emotional climate of a class or lab that they experienced a lot of negative emotions in. Interviews were conducted via Zoom videoconferencing, with each interview lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.

Data Analysis

The goal of phenomenological reflection is to grasp the essential meaning of a phenomenon. To get to the meaning of a phenomenon, researchers attempt to understand lived experiences by reflectively analyzing the thematic aspects of those experiences; themes help researchers make meaning of experiential accounts.²⁷ The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, specifically the detailed or line-by-line approach described by van Manen.²⁷ With this approach, the researcher looks at every sentence or sentence cluster and considers what it reveals about the experience or phenomenon being described.²⁷ A holistic reading of the entire text, as described by Vagle,²⁸ was initially performed, followed by a series of line-by-line readings, during which the author made notes and marked portions of the text which seemed significant or especially interesting. The author then labeled potential categories and arranged the marked portions of each transcript into these categories.

Themes in qualitative research are salient patterns identified after looking within and across categories of data.²⁹ They are meant to capture something important about the data in relation to the research questions and represent some level of patterned response or meaning within the data.^29,30 “Themes have phenomenological power when they allow us to proceed with phenomenological descriptions.”^27(p90) Therefore, after the themes were identified, the author proceeded to crafting description in search of meaning, attempting to offer an interpretation of the phenomenon.³¹ These themes along with their analysis and interpretation are presented below.

Results

This inquiry into the phenomenon of academic emotions experienced by sonography students yielded the following interpretive themes: (1) the classroom emotional climate impacts students’ thoughts about learning sonography, (2) academic emotions can either boost or detract from students’ interest, motivation, and enthusiasm for the course material, and (3) relationships with their teachers matter to sonography students.

Classroom Emotional Climate

The classroom and laboratory emotional climate impacts students’ thoughts about learning sonography. A positive climate leads to more positive emotional experiences and enhances the learning experience, whereas a negative climate leads to more negative emotional experiences and hinders the learning experience. Several students’ views about the classroom climate are presented below:

I felt good in that class. I never came in just wanting to go back home. And the class was happy in your classes. I think everybody was more excited to go to lab because we felt like we understood the scanning part of it too. We felt like we could do it. And with that positive feeling, when everybody feels good and everybody’s willing to scan and nobody feels overwhelmed, you’re more excited to do it versus if you’re feeling like you can’t do something. I felt like everybody thought that they could do it, so that just helped keep the climate positive. We were thriving during that time. Now I feel like we’re all frazzled and all over the place.

Here, Kim felt like she could do it, like she could succeed. She felt good and happy and excited to learn. Positive, pleasant achievement emotions like enjoyment, hope, and pride occur in response to perceived controllability and positive values of activities or outcomes.³² Kim felt like she had control of her learning and like she could accomplish her learning goals. She was interested in the material and valued what she was learning, in part due to the “positive feeling” that she experienced in lab. The learning environment or classroom climate has a direct impact on students’ control and value appraisals, which in turn have a direct impact on their achievement emotions.^2,33 The link between the classroom emotional climate and student learning is further demonstrated by Carly’s experience with a positive classroom climate:

I went into that class thinking, there’s no way that I’m gonna like vascular because there are too many vessels in the body, and I just cannot be bothered to learn that. But I ended up loving it because you were able to dumb it down just enough to where it wasn’t so complicated. And you were patient with me if I didn’t get it. You would be like, okay well you didn’t learn it this way, so let’s try and see if you get it this way. And scanning it was really hard, but once I got it, I loved it. I love vascular! And so the climate in there, you were always like, it’s okay if you mess up. It’s okay if your pressure is too hard. But you have to think through, okay if this isn’t working, what can you do to try to fix it? And if that doesn’t work, try this. And so, you were very encouraging. Like, you may not get this the first or second or even the third time, but you’re going to get it. So the fact that it was good in class and lab even when it wasn’t perfect made it to where I was like, I love this and I can be good at this and I’m gonna be good at this.

Carly mentions her love for vascular sonography four times in this interview excerpt. I think that all sonography educators want our students and future sonographers to love what they do. As she stated, things were not perfect, but they were good. She faced challenges, but she was supported and encouraged along the way. This support and encouragement from her teacher contributed to a positive classroom climate which increased Carly’s self-efficacy and motivation and helped her grow to love the course content. Below, Mia describes how the climate in one of her courses impacted her thoughts about learning:

I feel like Foundations was a pretty fun class because we were told that it’s okay to mess up and to not know things and to not be perfect, and we received a lot of positive encouragement and feedback. I feel like it was an environment that I felt safe in and just encouraged to ask questions.

Mia mentions feeling safe. A safe environment supports learning and growth because students are more likely to take chances and embrace challenges.¹⁶ Encouragement and feedback both contribute to the classroom climate and in turn affect students’ emotions, learning, and achievement. Anna had a different experience in one of her labs. She describes how the climate of that lab impacted her learning experience:

Walking into that lab sometimes was overwhelming because there were days that I had bad days. There were days that I couldn’t let you see me cry, but I would leave lab and cry and think I couldn’t do it. Because if you let on that you don’t think I can do it, then I’m not gonna think I can do it which is gonna make the class a negative experience. I’m gonna dread going to lab, and I’m gonna leave more tired than I came, emotionally drained.

By making Anna think that I did not believe in her, I created a negative emotional climate in which she did not feel supported by her teacher. This caused her to not enjoy her time in lab, which undoubtedly hindered her learning. Sonography educators must provide honest feedback to students in order to maintain high standards, but we must balance that with the encouragement that students need in order to want to improve and think that they can improve. A supportive learning environment enables students to thrive and experience academic success.

The teacher’s role in creating a classroom emotional climate is evident in each of these students’ experiences. By getting students excited about learning, helping them to understand, and making them believe that they can succeed, teachers contribute to a positive classroom emotional climate. These students’ experiences highlight the importance of teachers providing support and encouragement, being sensitive to students’ needs, and taking students’ perspectives into account.

Academic Emotions

Emotions can either boost or detract from students’ interest, motivation, and enthusiasm for the course material. Excitement about the learning process can have positive influences on students’ motivation, and by increasing students’ motivation to learn, it can positively influence their learning and achievement.³² As Lauren stated, “I think it makes learning a lot easier whenever I’m excited about what’s going on.” Something as simple as a class activity can lead to excitement, as described by Mia below:

Making the circle of Willis was fun because it was something different. It wasn’t a video lecture, and it was fun and hands-on and creative. I almost felt like I was back in kindergarten again. It was really fun and exciting, and it made me motivated to learn about transcranial Doppler.

We can see that Mia’s excitement increased her motivation to learn. For the activity that she mentioned, we used pipe cleaners to create a three-dimensional model of the Circle of Willis. The mention of feeling like she was back in kindergarten again conjures thoughts of carefree times when learning was fun. Learning should be fun for older students and adults too. Fun and excitement do not have to detract from the seriousness of a topic or the ability of an activity to promote learning. As described above, this activity that Mia enjoyed helped her to learn the anatomy of a complex group of intracranial vessels. Excitement in learning contexts, similar to enjoyment, is a positive activating emotion.³² Students who are excited about what they are learning are interested in the content and will be motivated to continue learning more about that content. Lauren describes the excitement that she felt in one of her courses and the impact that this excitement had on her learning:

Once I got into vascular and we started learning about the waveforms and stuff and I could actually understand what was going on, that was really exciting. Because when I understand something, it motivates me to keep going over the material and keep diving deeper into the whole course itself. It almost like boosts my confidence and makes me feel like I can actually do this, and whenever it’s just me by myself with a patient, I’m actually gonna be able to know what’s going on with them.

Students have a desire to understand. I believe that this desire is particularly strong in sonography students because they understand the importance of what they are learning; they see the value of the course content for the profession they have chosen. Lauren expressed feeling confident and motivated when she understands what she is learning about, and these feelings are supported by her excitement. On the other hand, students often experience frustration when they do not understand, as demonstrated by Kim’s statements below:

I just felt like I couldn’t do it. The tests weren’t making sense. And when I would read the material, I just didn’t understand it. And then when I got to lab, that really impacted me and made me feel anxious because I was like, oh my gosh, I only have a certain amount of time to learn this, and I just felt like I couldn’t do it. And so when I went to look at the material, I would get more easily frustrated because I already had that sense of defeat. I already had that feeling in my head that I couldn’t get it after scanning in lab, so by reading it off the paper, I’m not gonna get it either.

Kim’s account shows a connection between her emotional experiences in the didactic and laboratory components of a course. At first, she was discouraged because she was not understanding the didactic content. That impacted her in lab and made her anxious. When she was not understanding it in lab either, this made her feel even more discouraged and frustrated and made her less inclined to want to study the didactic content.

Frustration is a frequently experienced and complex emotion in educational settings. It can be either outcome-related (e.g., frustrated when efforts fail) or activity-related (e.g., frustrated about task demands).³² In addition, it can be directed inward, at oneself, or outward, at other persons or situational factors. Students experience frustration for a variety of reasons and in a variety of situations. Carly expressed the frustration that she felt in one of her courses:

I felt like that first echo class was all over the place. It frustrated me so bad because I felt like no matter how hard I studied or how hard I tried, I was just not going to do well. It wasn’t cohesive. It wasn’t orderly. So that was really frustrating, and it was hard to keep up and want to do well. Because I was like even if I put my best foot forward, I’m not gonna do well. I didn’t care to do exceedingly well. I was like, okay whatever happens happens. No matter what, I’m just not gonna get this.

Carly’s frustration negatively impacted her motivation to learn about the heart. She did not think that she would be successful regardless of how hard she tried and therefore experienced low action-control and action-outcome expectancies. Action-control expectancy is a belief that an achievement activity can be successfully performed, and action-outcome expectancy is a belief that one’s achievement activity will lead to the desired outcome.³² Carly’s low action-control and action-outcome expectancies led to feelings of hopelessness and frustration, which led to decreased motivation in the course. However, not all frustration discourages sonography students from learning. Anna also experienced frustration, but hers motivated her to do well and achieve her goal:

I can remember being really frustrated with you because I didn’t feel like you believed in me. I remember getting to that very last test, and I can remember you pulling me aside and being like, do you know what you have to make to pass this class? Do you know that you are on the verge of failing? And I was like, I’m fully aware that I have to make an 86 to pass your class, and I was so frustrated because here was this person who I wanted to believe in me so bad—we had made it a whole semester—and I didn’t feel like she believed in me. And I had tried so hard to prove myself. So, I was frustrated with myself, and I was questioning myself because I had made it so far and needed an 86 to pass your class. But I was also frustrated because I was like, nobody believes in me. Even my parents at that point were like, if you don’t pass, it’s okay. You can just retake it next year. And I was like, if I don’t pass, I’m not coming back to a professor who doesn’t believe in me. I’m done. So, it wasn’t just proving to you that I could do it, it was proving to myself that I could do it. I remember strutting to your desk and being like, I made that 86! I really think I slammed it on your desk!

This was clearly a frustrating situation, likely the result of complex circumstances including her prior academic experiences and her relationship with her teacher. Anna was frustrated with me, her teacher, because she did not feel like I believed in her. She was frustrated with herself for being in a situation where she might not pass the course. And she was frustrated with her parents because she did not feel like they believed in her either. In this case, the student was able to channel her frustration in an attempt to prove to herself and others that she could be successful. She prepared well for the test and knew when she finished taking it that she made the grade that she needed to pass. While Anna’s frustration was not a positive or welcome emotion, it did lead to a positive outcome. Students who frequently experience academic difficulties likely experience frustration on a regular basis and therefore may become more adept at using effective coping strategies to handle their frustration.

It became evident in the interviews that sonography students also experience a lot of self-doubt and insecurity. Furthermore, they must possess resilience and perseverance to overcome these feelings and improve their performance. The interview excerpt below shows Tara’s emotional experience after doing poorly on a scan assessment in lab:

That LEV scan assessment was a mess. It gave me another one of those I don’t know what I’m doing, am I worth it type of moments. So that brought me down a little bit. I went home and cried. I actually don’t even think I waited until I got home; I think I cried on the way home. It was bad, but it made me better though because I went to clinic and scanned every LEV that came through. I was like, I’m not about to let that beat me. So I guess depending on what it is, my attitude changes sometimes. Like, in that instance, yeah it made me feel less than. But I was like, nope, I’m gonna use that and go get my hands on every LEV I can to get better.

After this setback, Tara questioned her abilities. She felt bad and even cried, but she overcame the setback by doing what she had to do to get better. In this case, it involved scanning as many lower extremity venous examinations as she could in order to improve her skills. Although the experience made her “feel less than” in the moment, she did not let it define her and took control of her learning by actively seeking out scanning opportunities. Self-doubt and insecurity are likely experienced so frequently in sonography education for several reasons. For one, it is hard. As anyone who has picked up a transducer knows, scanning is not easy, and there is a lot of content to learn. In addition, students recognize the seriousness of what they are learning and the impact that it has on patient care. Our direct impact on patients’ lives may bring added stress and pressure to the learning experience, as suggested by this excerpt from Anna’s interview:

I feel like every time I struggled with something, with the liver or the ovaries or the abdominal vasculature, it was like, can I really do this? Am I really cut out for this? Or when I’d get a bad test grade, I was like, can I really do this? I obviously don’t understand something, so do I really want a patient’s life in my hands?

Sonography students are expected to learn a lot in a relatively short amount of time, and they must apply all that they are learning in the clinical setting while caring for patients. While certain things come more easily to some students than others, everyone will struggle with something at some point in the curriculum and experience negative emotions; it is what students do during those challenging times that determines how they will move forward and ultimately the type of sonographer they will become. The interview excerpts presented above provide a glimpse into the variety and complexity of academic emotions experienced by sonography students as well as the role these emotions play in their interest, motivation, and enthusiasm for what they are learning.

Student-Teacher Relationship

Sonography students care about their relationships with their teachers. Relationships matter, as Carly described:

I never felt stupid in your classes. I felt like, okay, this is hard. But I have somebody who’s willing to sit down if I need it and go through it ten different ways until I get it. It made me want to do well. It made me want to know all that I could and know how to do well. Because how I learn, if I don’t like my teacher and I don’t care about what my teacher thinks about me, then I’m less likely to succeed.

Carly pointed out how her learning is affected by her thoughts about her teacher and whether she cares what her teacher thinks about her. Because Carly felt like her teacher was willing to help her, she was motivated to learn and succeed. Her words suggest that a teacher’s caring attention to sonography students’ work is often enough of an incentive to make them put in the extra effort to excel in the course. Tara shared how her interaction and relationship with a teacher impacted her:

It really just helps to have people in your corner. Do you remember that day you and I talked in the gym? I don’t think I would have kept going. That day, I was going to go withdraw. I never told you that, but I was going to go withdraw. Because I was like, I can’t do this. There was so much stuff going on outside of school, and I just did not think I could handle it. But because you know enough about me to say you can do this, you’ve just got something you’re going through and it’s gonna pass, you just gotta push through it, I did. And now I’m about to graduate.

Here, we can see how one conversation can have such a drastic impact on a student’s future. Presence in teaching means being aware, receptive, and connected to the mental, emotional, and physical workings of students and responding to their needs in a compassionate manner; teachers who are present attend to and are tuned in to their students.³⁴ Sometimes students reach out to their teachers for help. Other times, teachers may notice that something seems a little off with their students, as Lauren experienced:

You could tell whenever we would walk in halfway through the semester or just after a really tough week and we were just spent. And you’d crack a joke or something, and that really helped. Or whenever you would see one of us struggling, you’d check on us. That one time you reached out to me because I made a bad grade that was out of character, that meant a lot. So just knowing your students and getting to know them helps a lot. We’re with each other so much during the week and for so long throughout the program that we do get to know each other and come to depend on each other. Because we all struggle, but at least we’re struggling together!

Students want to connect with their teachers on a personal level.³⁵ When teachers know their students, meaning they really get to know their students, they are better positioned to provide them with the cognitive and emotional support that they need. Interestingly, each of these students mentioned having somebody, either somebody who was willing to sit down with her, somebody in her corner, or somebody she could depend on. Having somebody implies having a relationship with that person. Students want to have good relationships with their teachers, and teachers want to have good relationships with their students. Both parties benefit from a more enjoyable and effective learning experience that comes with positive student-teacher relationships.

Discussion

Emotions emerge through person-environment interactions that change over time and situations.^1,36 Classrooms are social environments, with students and teachers navigating many complex interactions and relationships daily. In sonography programs, students and teachers typically spend a lot of time together, creating many opportunities for these interactions to occur and relationships to develop. Goetz et al¹⁵ identify student-teacher relationships as a crucial aspect of the learning environment. Furthermore, the learning environment is considered a core antecedent of students’ emotions in Pekrun’s^2,33 control-value theory, which is a social cognitive approach to studying achievement emotions.³ It stands to reason then that an exploration of sonography students’ emotions in the classroom would reveal interesting information about their relationships with their teachers and the learning environment, or classroom climate, in light of and in addition to their emotional experiences.

The purpose of phenomenological research is to gain meaningful insight into a particular phenomenon by understanding participants’ experiences with the phenomenon. The insight gained into these sonography students’ experiences with academic emotions will be useful to other sonography students, sonography educators, and even sonographers who work with students in the clinical setting. Students will perhaps be able to relate to the participants’ experiences and gain a new perspective on their own emotional experiences in the classroom. Educators might also be able to relate to the participants’ experiences and consider how their interactions and relationships with students might influence their students’ emotional experiences. In addition, sonographers who serve as clinical instructors might gain an enhanced perspective of the emotions experienced by sonography students, which may help them as they support the learning of students who are training alongside them in the clinical setting.

Several areas of future research could complement the findings from this study. Researchers could explore students’ emotions while learning sonography in an online environment and perhaps discover ways to humanize online teaching and learning. With the recent transition of many sonography programs to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this is a promising area of study. A diary study would also be useful for continued exploration of this phenomenon; students could write about their emotional experiences in class and/or lab each week while the experiences are fresh. Last, research could be conducted with sonography educators to understand their emotional experiences in the classroom and how their emotions might affect and be affected by their students’ emotions (i.e., emotional transmission).

Conclusion

This phenomenological study of students’ emotions while learning sonography revealed several interesting findings. Some emotions support learning whereas others detract from it. Negative emotions cannot be completely avoided in the classroom, but teachers should attempt to elicit students’ positive emotions as often as possible. Educators have a major influence on students’ emotions and, through their interactions and relationships with students, can foster the development of adaptive emotions in their classes.^2,3 Students’ emotional experiences, both positive and negative, do impact their learning, for better and worse. An increased awareness of the interrelatedness of emotion and cognition in sonography education would benefit not only sonography educators and students but ultimately the patients whom those students will care for by improving the quality of education that students receive.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Abby Kurtz

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