Blinded by Science?: Exploring Affective Meaning in Students' Own Words

This work addresses students' open responses on causal attributions of their self-reported affective states. We use qualitative thematic data analysis techniques to develop a coding scheme by identifying common themes in students' self-reported attributions. We then applied this scheme to a larger set of student reports. Analysis shows that students' reasons for reporting a certain affect do not always align with researchers' expectations. In particular, we discovered that a sizable group of students externalize their affect, attributing perceived difficulty of the problem and their own negativity as lying outside of themselves.