Abstract:

We present a quantitative and qualitative research project aimed to study the emotional processes and individual trajectories of the participants in a methodological experiential challenging learning experience that was conducted in the subject of “Social Skills” for students of the degree of Psychopedagogy in the University of Alcalá during the second semester of 2011.
The subject of “Social Skills” took place during a total of 31 sessions, organized in two sessions per week. It was attended by around 50 students between 23 and 53 and coming from various areas such as teacher training, psychology, pedagogy, or social education. The methodology followed by the teacher was an experiential one aimed to promote students´ autonomy.
All along the second semester of 2011, from February to June, and as an optional activity, the students were asked to register what they were feeling throughout the course to facilitate their personal reflection and a final self-assessment task.
On the one hand, they had to track, by means of scale weekly reports, the occurrence and intensity (from 0 to 10) of thirteen different emotional states: joy, sadness, confusion, anger, fear, happiness, overload, interest, anxiety, boredom, hope, concern and challenge.
On the other hand, they were invited to record, by means of narrative weekly reports, the most significant events experienced during the Social Skills class.
Our aims were to analyze emotional processes and individual trajectories during a methodological experiential challenging learning process, detect different patterns in the trajectories of the participants in the course and its relationship with the content of the different sessions and the timing of the course, analyze the qualitative narratives expressed by the participants and its relationship with the quantitative measurements and, finally, determine the intra-individual variability in emotional states.
By the end of the course we had gathered a total of 95 records from 11 students, 9 women and 2 men. We selected four of them, because they had a minimum of ten records each, which would let us to address our analysis. It was based on categorical content analysis of the narratives made with the program Atlas.Ti (Iborra, 2007 b) and on analysis of variability, continuities, discontinuities and changes in trajectories (Kunnen et al., 2011).
This work tries to contribute with some ideas to the reflection about the teaching and learning processes, emphasizing on the individual trajectories of the students. We consider that it is particularly relevant in the case of people who will work as professionals in the field of education.

References:
Iborra, A. (2007b). A content analysis of narratives from a categorical and holistic point of view to study changes after a rite of passage. In M. Watzlawick and A. Born (Eds.). Capturing Identity: Quantitative and qualitative methods. University Press of America, 39-52.
Kunnen, S. et al. (2011) The search for variability and change, in A Dynamic Systems Approach of Adolescent Development. London: Psychology Press.

Keywords:

Undergraduate education, experiential methodology, emotional processes, individual trajectories, qualitative narratives, quantitative measurements, intra-individual variability.