The emotional experiences of university students: exploring the role of achievement emotions in self-regulated learning
Date
2010-09-01T18:04:50Z
Authors
Webster, Elizabeth
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of achievement emotions in self-regulated learning (SRL). Participants included 111 university students enrolled in a first-year course designed to teach and improve SRL. Students reported their emotional experiences while working on self-set studying goals at three times during the semester. Measures included self-reported goal attainment, intensity ratings for nine emotions, and open-ended descriptions of emotion regulation strategies. Students reported enacting a variety of strategies to regulate their emotions, often in response to boredom and anxiety. Goal attainment positively correlated with positive emotions and negatively correlated with negative emotions other than boredom. Follow-up regressions revealed that positive emotions explained more unique variance than negative emotions in goal attainment. Over time, goal attainment and emotions did not change; however, correlations between times indicated that students were reporting situation-specific emotions. Contributions of this exploratory study to theory, research, and practice are discussed.
Description
Keywords
achievement emotions, self-regulated learning, university students, college students