First Advisor

Andrew Mashburn

Term of Graduation

Spring 2026

Date of Publication

6-4-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Applied Psychology

Department

Psychology

Language

English

Physical Description

1 online resource (ix, 198 pages)

Abstract

Contributing to the literature on supportive mechanisms for children's development of social, emotional, and self-regulatory competencies, the current study examines the contributions of emotion-focused teaching in preschool classrooms. Emotion-focused teaching is a framework used within preschool classrooms that encompasses three domains of teaching that support children's development of emotion skills—how teachers display their own emotions or emotion-related behaviors and actions (modeling), the ways they respond to children's emotional expressions (responding), and how instruction is used to inform children about emotions and related processes (instructing). More frequent emotion-focused teaching has been shown to be a supportive mechanism for children's emerging competencies, helping children to: feel less dysregulated, be more attuned to their own and others' emotions, get along better with others, and be more engaged in the classroom.

Grounded in the emotion-focused teaching framework, this study used a newly developed observational measure to assess these three dimensions of emotion-focused teaching in 26 preschool classrooms located in the Portland, OR metropolitan area (the EMOtion TEaching Rating Scale, or EMOTERS). Specifically, the study 1) examined associations between emotion-focused teaching and children's development of social, emotional, and self-regulatory competencies during preschool; 2) explored whether emotion-focused teaching is more impactful for certain children or under specific classroom conditions; and 3) described variation in emotion-focused teaching within the school day and across the school year. Results indicated that the frequency of instruction in classrooms was positively associated with preschoolers' development of emotion knowledge and behavioral self-regulation. Furthermore, boys and children who entered preschool at older ages benefited relatively more from classrooms with more frequent instruction. Strengths, limitations, suggestions for future directions, and implications of these findings for supporting preschool teachers and young children's development of social, emotional, and self-regulatory competencies are discussed.

Rights

© 2026 Brielle Emily Petit

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/45063

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