Depicting the landscape of research on teacher emotion in early childhood education: A systematic review

Abstract

Early childhood teachers' emotions have increasingly received the attention of researchers in the past decades. The present study conducted a systematic review of the research on early childhood teachers' emotions published in English up to 2022. Based on evidence from 103 empirical studies, the results presented the significant roles of early childhood teachers' emotions in teaching and learning in early childhood education. A conceptual model was developed to illustrate how early childhood teachers' emotions are viewed at the intrapersonal, interpersonal and sociocultural levels. Most of existing studies adopted quantitative methods to explore early childhood teachers' emotions at the intrapersonal level, and a strong link between research methods and research themes was revealed. Implications for future research are discussed.