Abstract:

This study investigated the emotional patterns in the self-regulatory narratives of educators at different career stages, specifically comparing graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and faculty (professors) at a Research 1 (R1) University, a classification denoting the highest level of research activity among doctoral universities in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Despite the recognized importance of self-regulation, a significant gap exists in understanding how educators at different career stages experience and articulate their self-regulatory practices, particularly the emotional patterns in their narratives. Text analysis was used to compare emotional sentiment patterns in the self-regulatory narratives of graduate teaching assistants (n =2) and faculty (n = 2 Professors) at the Research 1 (R1) University. A focus group generated narratives, which were analysed using the AFINN and NRC sentiment lexicons, along with linear regression. Findings indicated that while both groups framed their experiences in more positive terms, faculty demonstrated a statistically significant (p < .01) higher positive emotional tone (M = 1.49) than graduate assistants (M = 1.01). Graduate teaching assistants also used a higher proportion of negative sentiment-bearing words (8.20% vs. 5.06%). This study offers a data-driven analysis of self-regulatory narratives that advances understanding of educator development across career stages.

Keywords:

Self-regulation, Educator development, Sentiment analysis, Higher education, Bioecological framework