Research on undergraduate students’ academic achievement emotions have primarily relied on self-reports in laboratory settings. Studies rarely include bio-physiological measures to these self-reports. This protocol will describe a methodology that integrates self-reports with and bio-physiological measures to assess student response and performance during a laboratory examination activity.
Typically, self-reports are used in educational research to assess student response and performance to a classroom activity. Yet, addition of biological and physiological measures such as salivary biomarkers and galvanic skin responses are rarely included, limiting the wealth of information that can be obtained to better understand student performance. A laboratory protocol to study undergraduate students' responses to classroom events (e.g., exams) is presented. Participants were asked to complete a representative exam for their degree. Before and after the laboratory exam session, students completed an academic achievement emotions self-report and an interview that paralleled these questions when participants wore a galvanic skin sensor and salivary biomarkers were collected. Data collected from the three methods resulted in greater depth of information about students' performance when compared to the self-report. The work can expand educational research capabilities through more comprehensive methods for obtaining nearer to real-time student responses to an examination activity.
In the area of academic achievement emotions, studies indicate that understanding of students' motivations could predict students' performance, achievement, and career plans1. Students' abilities to 'emotionally respond' to challenging course tasks2 are pivotal to students' professional development. Yet, nearer to real-time responses related to academic achievement emotions are under-explored3-6. This paper presents a protocol to study ways to explore nearer real-time responses from students (e.g., physiological responses) when presented with representative classroom situations (e.g., test taking) using salivary biomarkers, galvanic skin responses, and self-reported surveys and interviews. While the work will not seek to establish connections between these salivary biomarkers, galvanic skin responses and self-reports, future work will aim to further explore the underlying mechanisms that associate each response.
Self-reporting of academic achievement emotions in the classroom can be used to assess affective, cognitive, motivational, physiological, and behavioral components that represent the human mind. Due to its cheap cost, easy dissemination and traceability, self-report surveys are highly used in classroom settings7. However, these have some disadvantages. For example, self-reports are limited to the representations of the conscious mind8, which can change the manner that individuals represent themselves. Also, language and semantics in self-reports may be understood differently between cultures and individuals7; its meanings can change over time or represent something different in light of the situation that the participant is involved in8. Moreover, self-reporting in academic settings can be multifaceted, idiosyncratic and dependent on memory, social desirability, and individual beliefs7, 9-11. For example, participants' beliefs about professors' expectations and motives can affect how students respond and perform during classroom activities7, 9-11. As such, complementary methods based on nearer to real-time responses are needed to reduce sampling biases and subjectivity when using self-reports. This work will supplement self-reports with salivary biomarkers and galvanic skin responses to better understand the nearer real-time responses of students to classroom activities.
Sampling of salivary biomarkers has become popular in understanding physiological foundations of individuals' responses to various stressors that can impact cognitive abilities9. Psychological development of cognition is affected by hormones in many species, including human beings7,12. During sensitive periods of development, hormones are capable of making changes in the organization of the brain, which can have long-lasting effects on behavior8. Different aspects of cognition, for example, can be affected by hormones during different times of an individual's development. Spatial ability, which studies have shown can include gender differences13-17, is moderately enhanced by androgens (e.g., dehydroepiandrosterone-DHEA, testosterone) in prenatal development and then again throughout adulthood18. On the contrary, verbal abilities have been linked to enhancement of oestrogens (e.g., estradiol) and progesterones18. Physiological biomarkers of stress such as cortisol, are found in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in humans12-16, 19-21. When a situation is perceived as uncontrollable, cortisol levels elevate19 and can result in differential responses in individuals. Recent work has begun to use hormones to study academic achievement emotions, although to this point it is very limited20,22.
Research in understanding psychophysiological responses that measure emotion via physiological arousal in education has used galvanic skin responses (GSR). GSR is a measure of microscopic amounts of sweat secreted from the skin and is related to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). When a person becomes nervous or anxious about a task, palms become sweaty. Therefore, emotional regulation and cognitive processes, among other brain functions, can influence the control of sweating. More activation of the system (i.e., high stress, cognitive load or strong emotional responses) results in more sweat secretion than low activation states (i.e., boredom, low cognitive load). As sweat secretion fluctuates, the electrical conductivity of the skin changes. Thus, GSR is widely considered as a proxy for quantifying stress level or cognitive load. GSR is typically measured by bands containing electrodes that come into contact with hands, wrist, or feet and is recently being used in classroom settings22,23 due to its low cost and feasibility compared to available neuroimaging techniques7. The combination of galvanic skin responses with salivary biomarkers will allow for a more comprehensive assessment of student responses to classroom activities nearer to real-time.
The proposed protocol discussed here will serve to combine educational and physiological techniques to establish a methodology to help educational researchers understand student performance and response to classroom activities (e.g., exams). While the work will not focus on understanding fundamental connections between emotions and physiological and biological constructs, this protocol is a starting point to help researchers move in that direction. This protocol will cover methods to measure salivary biomarkers and galvanic skin responses during an exam activity and compare it against the information obtained from self-reports and interviews. For this work, an engineering exam and students were selected due to the difficult and complex nature of the discipline1,6 and concepts, which may ignite both cognitive and emotional responses in the participants.
Procedures have been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Utah State University for studies on human subjects. Care should be taken that IRB procedures are approved by the host institution and considerations regarding the protection of human subjects should take place prior, during, and after performance of any aspect of this protocol. As per IRB regulations, involvement of external parties or companies in the data collection and analysis processes must follow proper protocols to de-identify participant information and protect the confidential nature of the data.
1. Selection of Participants and Activities to Test
2. Prior to the Laboratory Session
3. Day of Laboratory Session
NOTE: The following procedures are presented in recommended order of data collection under the assumption that 1 – 2 researchers are involved. However, some of these procedures could be run in parallel if more than 2 researchers are collaborating in the study.
This section illustrates representative examples of results that can be obtained from each measure, including the self-report. The intent of the figures is to present the utility of adding measures such as salivary biomarkers (Figure 1) and galvanic skin responses (Figure 2) to self-reports (Figure 3) in order to gain a greater spectrum of information from a classroom event (e.g., exams). For triangulation of self-reports with a specified measure (e.g., galvanic skin response), additional techniques such as interviews can provide a useful comparison method (Figure 3). The results in Figure 1 show that participants' biological responses differed by gender when comparing hormonal levels between the beginning and end of the exam. Hormones such as estradiol levels increased in males while progesterone levels increased in females (p <0.05). High estradiol levels has been tied to brain activation of verbal performance tasks32 while progesterone is related to spatial abilities such as mental rotation of an object12-16,.Spatial activities were upregulated in females through increased testosterone (p <0.05) whereas DHEA showed no significant differences due to gender (p = 0.39). DHEA and testosterone has been linked to increased visual-spatial performance in adults12-16, 34. Cortisol levels for females and males did not change pre- and post- the laboratory session (p = 0.41) possibly due to exceeding short half-life of cortisol (~45 min) during the second salivary collection19,20,32.These results show that student performance is differential, in this case by gender, and that hormonal biomarkers can be a useful tool in identifying these differences.
Measurement of emotion via physiological arousal using galvanic skin response, demonstrated differential responses unrelated to the type of exam (p >0.05) but showed instances of cognitive engagement (sustained tonic levels) during the test-taking experience for all participants as seen by the GSR tonic peaks compared to the baseline (initial rest phase). A representative GSR data set is included in Figure 2. A sustained physiological arousal was found during the final data collection session where self-report and interview responses were collected. Self-report responses completed by the participants as they wore the galvanic skin sensor (Figure 3A)31,36 suggests no perceived differences in emotions by the participant to the exam (p = 0.055). However, when students were ask to response to the interview questions that paralleled the self-report, physiological arousals were found as seen by the increased tonic responses (Figure 3B). This result suggest that emotional activation may require cognitive and verbalized recollection of events.
The data demonstrates that verbal and spatial activation is differential in participants despite obtaining equal scores in their exams (data not shown). Physiological arousals were dependent on the mental recollection by the participants when performing a sequentially harder exam problem (progression from MCT to PSVT-R). Furthermore, use of written self-reports did not demonstrate a significant physiological response or a self-reported emotionally significant difference by the participants. When asked to verbalize the self-reported items, emotional arousals were found in the participants. Together, the data points to the different mental resources used by students when performing an exam. It highlights the importance of allowing students to cognitively recollect their thoughts as they sequentially perform increasingly difficult problems in and exam. Finally, the study results highlight how self-report alone are not sufficient to fully represent the spectrum of responses from students. Thus, inclusion of biological and physiological measures to self-reports and interviews can assist educational researchers to acquire a more robust data set that can help explain the complex performance of students in an educational setting.
Figure 1. Hormonal Activities for Female and Male Engineering Student Participants Before and After a Laboratory Study Session. Percent change of hormone levels before and after the laboratory session36 indicates that females increased in both progesterone and testosterone and decreased in estradiol levels when compared to males before and after the exam (paired T-test p <0.05 for estradiol; paired T-test p <0.05 for progesterone; paired T-test p <0.05 for testosterone). Cortisol and DHEA, measures of stress19,20 and spatial ability12-16,33, did not show significant changes (p = 0.39 and p = 0.42, respectively), despite obtaining equal scores in their exams (data not shown). Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2. Galvanic Skin Response of an Engineering Student Performance during a Laboratory Study Session. Galvanic skin tonic response in µS collected for an engineering student undergoing a series of representative activities in a laboratory study session. The initial time represents a resting phase to establish a baseline. Following this, the student completed representative engineering problems for the exam. Physiological arousals were dependent on the mental recollection by the participants when performing a sequentially harder exam problem (progression from MCT to PSVT-R). Afterwards, the student completed a written self-reflective 10-item survey, which showed no effect followed by an interview (containing parallel questions to the self-report) where an emotional arousal was seen. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3. Representative Side-by-side Comparison of Self-reported Responses from Emotion Survey and Interview. Comparison of galvanic skin response of engineering student self-reported responses (A) and interview (B). Panel A shows descriptive statistics (n = 7) in which a paired sample T-test analysis showed no statistically significant differences (p = 0.055) between the pre- and post- self-report surveys. Panel B demonstrates GSR increase in arousal during the second self-report (step 13 – 14) as well as during the interviews (15a – 16). Arousal fluctuations were greater during the interview, compared to the surveys. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
This protocol describes the integration of self-report surveys and inquiries, salivary biomarkers, and galvanic skin responses to study individual differences in classroom activities during a laboratory session. This protocol has many advantages for researchers seeking to identify academic achievement emotions, emotional regulation, and affective responses to different activities in an instructional setting, especially during assessment periods (e.g., exams). Whereas traditionally, self-reports and academic grades have been used to understand how students develop competencies in the classroom and/or engagement to a course, our methods can more comprehensively represent nearer to real-time responses of students during academic activities.
For success of this protocol, it is crucial that salivary biomarkers and galvanic skin responses are collected diurnally, that the participants are aware of the behavioral and biological restrictions of this study (e.g., health conditions), and that continual follow-up with the participants is conducted. Also, care should be taken in the handling of the samples as this should be done in aseptic conditions. Some limitations of the study include the allowable time frame (e.g., 10 – 12 days after the menstrual period) for salivary data collection for females as well as difficulty in precisely timing the events with the real-time galvanic skin response collection (e.g., salivary cortisol may require a 20 min collection time while galvanic skin sensor calibration requires 5 min). As such, data collection procedures should consider proper time stamping of sections and problems that participants complete during the laboratory session to ensure proper statistical data analysis and triangulation. Finally, due to the delicate nature of the self-reported emotions, emotional responses, and biological and physiological data is attained and assessed, protocols should follow the Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects policies and procedures.
With technological developments in non-intrusive wearable technologies and biological markers, methodologies can be combined to triangulate complex undergraduate students' experiences and performance to academic tasks. This method expands the potential of self-reported surveys and physiological information that has normally not been combined to understand nearer to real-time emotion and cognitive responses to different classroom activities.
One direction for this protocol is to incorporate the methods in a larger setting (e.g., classroom) in real-life contexts. For this, additional considerations on time, coordination on the use of resources and software, management of hormone kit and GSR wrist sensors usage will need to be considered as well as important mechanisms between the constructs.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
Maria Manuela Valladares is supported by a Utah State University Research Catalyst SEED Grant attained from Idalis Villanueva.
Salivary Kit | ZRT Laboratories | Female/Male Saliva Profile I | An account needs to be created with the company before sending samples; diurnal samples are recommended for this protocol |
Galvanic Skin Response Wrist Sensor and Band | Empatica, Inc. | E3P.v4 | M/L fits for the majority of the population although you may need to purchase a smaller size for thin wrists |
E-Prime Software | Psychology Software Tools | E-Prime 2.0 Professional | Consider time stamping separately from software |