Emotions and learning: cognitive theoretical and methodological approaches to studying the influence of emotions on learning

This chapter uses research within cognitive psychology to highlight some of the theoretical approaches used to explain how emotions modulate learning. It also describes several methodologies that can be used to elicit and assess emotions in various educational environments. The chapter identifies outstanding research questions regarding the impact of emotions on the training of healthcare professionals. It also serves as a reference guide for healthcare professional education researchers embarking on emotion research. The chapter distinguishes between non‐verbal measures and self‐report measures of emotion. The variability of individuals' emotional response patterns, across both emotional dimensions and discrete states, is likely due, in part, to the variability in emotion induction procedures across experiments. Medical school is saturated with emotional experiences, and as such, understanding the role emotions play in learning and performance has important implications for medical educators.