Becoming a university student: An emotional rollercoaster

Abstract

Students’ experiences during their first year of higher education affect study pace, retention and graduation. The aim of this study was to examine how students describe and perceive their studying and academic emotions during the first semester of higher education in order to analyse the interplay of different factors affecting student learning. The students participated in a compulsory study skills course, and wrote about their study experiences in reflective journals (N = 190) that were analysed qualitatively. Reflective journals have been rarely used in previous research on first year studies. The journals allow students to write about their experiences as a whole, and provide a broad and in-depth picture of students’ perceptions of their study habits and learning in higher education. Our results revealed that students’ academic emotions were profoundly affected by their self-regulated learning skills. Moreover, the study showed how self-regulated learning and academic emotions were tightly intertwined. In order to enhance student learning both self-regulated learning and academic emotions need to be considered in university teaching, and when universities plan the first year for new students.

Examining the effect of self-regulation failure on academic achievement in emergency remote teaching and learning versus face-to-face

“…Although there are many potential causes for academic procrastination, recent studies have shown that it may be elicited by weaker self-regulated learning strategies, such as lower use of cognitive learning strategies, disorganisation (Howell and Watson, 2007) and low self-efficacy to self-regulate (Wolters, 2003; Klassen et al. , 2008; Perander et al. , 2020).…”

“…Estimates indicate that more than 70% of undergraduate students engage in academic procrastination (Ellis and Knaus, 1977), with 20%-30% viewing it as problematic in terms of study-related actions (Solomon and Rothblum, 1984). Although there are many potential causes for academic procrastination, recent studies have shown that it may be elicited by weaker self-regulated learning strategies, such as lower use of cognitive learning strategies, disorganisation (Howell and Watson, 2007) and low self-efficacy to self-regulate (Wolters, 2003;Klassen et al, 2008;Perander et al, 2020). With students expressing struggles with self-regulated learning in ERT (Ontong and Mbonambi, 2021;Shim and Lee, 2020), the delay in study-related actions noted by Du Toit and Boshoff-Knoetze (2022) may therefore likely be due to self-regulation failure in the form of academic procrastination (Steel, 2007).…”

Receptive academic vocabulary knowledge and extramural English involvement – is there a correlation?

“…Webb, 2015) and extensive reading (for example by allocating time or designing homework accordingly) may be beneficial for acquiring academic vocabulary, which is a crucial vocabulary register for academic achievement. Research reveals that novice university students struggle with understanding academic language (e.g., Leese, 2010), and express negative emotions about the large amount of course literature (e.g., Perander et al, 2020), and even more pertinent for the present study, as many as 10% of Swedish first-year university students report that they give up or stop reading when encountering an unknown word in the English course literature (Eriksson, 2021). However, if there are no curricular guidelines addressing such registers and practices, we most likely have to consider the inequality issues that the findings in this study shows: adolescents' EE behaviors, age and parents' educational level explain most of the differences in the academic vocabulary knowledge.…”

Supporting students' transition to higher education

“…Students in this study described a complex set of challenges that were intertwined: study skills, emotions, motivation and SRL skills. More stringent expectations of good time-management skills can easily lead students offtrack and create a circle of negative academic emotions when they fail to meet new and unfamiliar demands (Perander et al, 2020). The students in this study described how the workshops helped them ease the emotional load by sharing their experiences and hearing that other students experience the same kind of turbulence during their first semester in HE.…”

“…However, challenges with overwhelming emotions were described by the students in their reflective journals. Academic emotions and studying are complexly intertwined (Perander et al, 2020), as this student describes.…”