Selma van Aken works as a PhD candidate at the Institute of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University

More information about Selma van Aken

Short CV

Selma van Aken combines her work as a primary school teacher teaching ‘groep 6’ (= grade 4) with her PhD research at the Education department. Her project focuses on appraisals and emotions that play a role during teaching for preservice teachers.

Research

Selma’s PhD project focuses on interactions between preservice teachers and their students, and approaches this subject from various perspectives. Methods such as video observations, in-depth interviews and heart rate measurements are used to identify interactions in the classroom that cause stress.

Selma: “Supplemented with video stimulated recall interviews, we create an image of the appraisals, emotions and internal standards that play a role in specific classroom moments. We want to know which appraisals are helpful in dealing with stressful situations. We can use this information to guide preservice students in teacher education to deal with challenging interactions in the classroom.”

Workdays

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday