A field experience of the application of “MetaEmotions at School” method in lower secondary school.

An adapted form of “MetaEmotions at Schools” (D’Amico, 2018) training program was carried out in 19 classes of lower secondary school in Palermo, during the school year 2020/2021 with the general aim to promote emotional intelligence abilities and emotional awareness, key variables to promote well-being and prevent school dropout, especially in pandemic times. Participants were 187 students and their 16 teachers present (as observers). Four workshops were conducted weekly by psychologists belonging to MetaIntelligenze’s team including e.g.: frontal lesson on emotions; exercises on the recognition and non-verbal expression of emotions. A self-report questionnaire (open and closed questions) was administered to both students and teachers at the end of the program. The quantitative evaluation was performed using a list of positive and negative adjectives (e.g. useful, trivial, etc.) with a 5 points Likert scale each. Quantitative data show that students’ considered the program “very” and “extremely”: useful (85% tot.), innovative (64,7% tot.), and engaging (91,5% tot.); conversely “not at all” and “slightly”: difficult (85% tot.), fatiguing (95,2% tot.), and trivial (89,8% tot.). Qualitative data on participants’ evaluations, analyzed with qualitative content analysis techniques with the support of MAXQDA, were positive and aligned with the aims of the program, such as: “A very nice activity which lead us to realize that every emotion is useful”; “This activity impressed me a lot because it lead me to think and really taught me a lot”; “For the first time I was able to express my emotions calling them by name”. Conclusion: “MetaEmotions at Schools” in this context has been perceived as a useful method to: understand human emotions, improve people’s awareness about their own emotional intelligence, and underline the value of sharing emotion within the group as related to the perception of the class climate.