Emotions, values, and engagement: Understanding motivation of first-generation college students.

Abstract

The current study is an initial exploration of the relationship of academic emotions and task values to first-generation college students and to explore the relation of these generational differences to a particular form of deep engagement represented by transformative experience (TE; i.e., transformation of the way students see and experience the world as a consequence of learning school content; Pugh, Educational Psychologist, 2011, 46, 107-121). Positive and negative emotions, along with task values, toward material have been shown to lead to different levels of engagement. Data were collected from undergraduate students in introductory psychology courses (N = 506). The results of this study suggest that intrinsic, utility, and achievement values positively predicted engagement in TE. We also found that first-generation college students experienced significantly more negative emotions than continuing generation students. The theoretical implications of these results and future applications are discussed.

Transforming the Online Learning Experience

“…In alignment with previous research, we found that students with higher levels of self-reported TE also reported higher levels of situational interest and intrinsic value (Goldman et al, 2021). Given that the relationship between TE and interest and intrinsic value has been established in previous research, our findings are not surprising.…”

Emotion, Fact, and Anthropogenic Disturbances: Undergraduate Attitudes Toward Wildfire and Urbanization after a Brief Intervention

“…To the researchers’ knowledge, no studies have been conducted to assess environmental attitudes associated with first-generation status. Though, previous studies have shown that emotional response can affect task engagement in the classroom, thus altering the way students act and experience the world ( Goldman et al. , 2021 ).…”

Fostering Awareness About Academic Success for First-Generation Students Through a Digital Serious Game

“…The academic student success is measured by three important indicators: grade point average (GPA), attained number of credits (ECTS) and intention to persist. Globally, it can be approached in a qualitative dimension such as motivation, engagement, emotions, self-esteem, affective profile, intelligence, learning strategies etc [14,22,6] or quantitative dimension such as gender, age etc. Leach and Zepke [28] emphasis non-institutional factors that influences student engagement.…”