Academic Emotions in Students' Self-Regulated Learning and Achievement : A Program of Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Abstract

Our program of research is part of the collective effort to give emotions the place they deserve in education. In order to explore individual, social and cultural antecedents of teachers and students emotions, as well as their effects on learning, teaching, and achievement, we developed a transactional control-value theory of academic emotions (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz & Perry, 2002). Taking the perspective of appraisal and social-cognitive theories, this model attempts to integrate assumptions from attributional (Weiner, 1985) and expectancy-value (Pekrun, 1992; Turner & Schallert, 2001) theories of achievement emotions. Basic assumptions of the model are the following: (1) teachers and students control and value appraisals function as primary antecedents of their emotions, (2) the impact of classroom instruction and social environments on emotions is mediated by these appraisals, (3) emotions affect teachers and students motivation, cognitive resources, strategies of learning and teaching, self vs. external regulation of teaching and learning, and academic achievement, and (4) achievement acts back on appraisals of control and values, implying that social environments, appraisals, emotions, and achievement are linked by reciprocal causation. Using a multi-strategy, combined quantitative-qualitative approach to the assessment and analysis of emotions, we conduct laboratory experiments as well as quantitative and qualitative field studies testing assumptions of the model. Our results imply that emotions are of essential importance for learning, teaching, achievement, and teachers and students career (e.g., in teachers burnout), and are shaped by cognitive appraisals and the social context. Consequently, classroom instruction should take teachers and students emotions into account.