Indices of Favourable and Unfavourable Emotions in the Inter-Actional Context of the Classroom: Constructions from the Chilean Case

The system for measuring the quality of education (SIMCE) is a standardised evaluation that provides results on the academic achievement of Chilean students, while also including indicators of personal and social development. Through a mixed analysis of variables extracted from these indicators, the purpose of this research study is to build a measurement system to assess the favourable and unfavourable emotions of students who took the test in 2018. To contextualise this work, a systematic literature review was carried out synthetising scientific evidence concerning emotions and the interactional context of the classroom. Through a methodological transposition, a qualitative theoretical model epistemologically grounded on radical constructivism was validated quantitatively. This transposition resulted in the construction of three indices of favourable and unfavourable emotions: motivation arising from interaction, exclusionary interaction and interactional context. The results show favourable and unfavourable emotions for learning are a variable in the SIMCE indicators that can be used to understand student academic achievement, confirming existing empirical evidence regarding the explanatory and predictive value of emotions in students’ performance. These results highlight the potential benefits of expanding on this type of research to improve the quality of Chilean education based on the resources already available in the current evaluation system.