Exploring Korean and American Teachers' Preferred Emotional Types

Understanding the emotional energy of teachers may provide evidence for the nature of the learning environment. Herein, the concept of overexcitabilities (OEs) was used to explore the ways that teachers of general and gifted classes describe their own intensities or emotional preferences. Q methodology was used with 24 teachers from American and Korean classrooms. The Q sort was constructed of 47 statements based on the five areas associated with overexcitabilities. Results indicated a four-factor solution indicating a common emotion of compassion for students and their learning among all teachers. The differences in the factors were interpreted as work-oriented compassion, thoughtful compassion, undemanding compassion, and sensitive compassion. Implications for further research and potential for classroom climate are discussed.