Research of the Essence of the Pupils’ Activities Based on the Emotional Level, or, What Does the Pupil Experience during Instruction?

AbstractThe inquiry-based instruction reflects the need of today society for individuals who are able to solve the problematic situations. The present research was focused on finding out which emotions manifest during the process of education in connection to problem solving and acceptance-based learning. This investigative research was oriented on the pupils of the secondary level of the basic school (ISCED 2). On the basis of the investigative research, we can state that the inquiry-based activities are significantly connected to pupils’ emotions and experience. The approach based on the analytical, comparatively-critical and inductively-deductive methods creates a basis for a suggestion and construction of a model of the pupil's emotional character during the problem solving processes. The methods used consist of interviews and direct observation of the individuals while they solve problems. From the executed investigative research emerges the emotional diversity within inquiry-based instruction, i.e. the pupil experiences different emotions during the tuition – calmness, joy, astonishment, tension, sadness, anger. Those emotions seem to be important for the effective learning process. On the other hand, the acceptance-based instruction seems to be not as emotionally rich as needed. The basic finding is that during the inquiry-based instructions the pupils experience emotions that are usually connected to the curriculum. During the acceptance-based instruction the emotions were most of the time related to the circumstances and not to the curriculum/the learning process