Investigating the Emotion Patterns of Students’ Abnormal Interactions in Primary Class Teaching Contexts

Students’ abnormal interactions pertain to the types of interactive behaviors that deviate from the prescribed learning contents and contravene the established learning objectives during classroom teaching. According to the emotion motivation theory, emotions experienced by students, which serve as a critical indicator of these abnormal interactions, assume a pivotal role in shaping the dynamics of learning activities. In primary school classrooms where frequent abnormal interactions occur, emotional exhaustion is highly prone to emergence and can further exacerbate students’ abnormal interactions, thereby significantly affecting the overall quality of classroom teaching. However, the relationship between emotions and students’ abnormal interactions remains limited and lacks a comprehensive understanding along with practical solutions. Hence, this study aims to investigate the emotion patterns of students’ abnormal interactions in primary class teaching contexts. By collecting video data from a sixth-grade classroom, we employ a combination of modified Flanders Interaction Analysis and intelligent technologies to explore students’ abnormal interactions and recognize emotion patterns of abnormal interactions. The findings of our study reveal that the classroom learning process engenders multiple types of students’ abnormal interactions, and different categories of students’ abnormal interactions were significantly different from their experienced emotions. In general, the sequence of chatting without permission followed by expressions of happiness and surprise emotions, and no response to the teacher’s questions followed by neutral and fearful expressions was remarkable during the classroom learning process. Building upon these findings, our study puts forth targeted recommendations for classroom teaching and management, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the quality of teaching and fostering the individual sustainable development of students.