Linking academic emotions and student engagement: mature-aged distance students’ transition to university

Abstract

Research into both student engagement and student emotions is increasing with widespread agreement that both are critical determinants of student success in higher education. Less researched are the complex, reciprocal relationships between these important influences. Two theoretical frameworks inform this paper: Pekrun's (2011) taxonomy of academic emotions and Kahu's (2013) conceptual framework of student engagement. The prospective qualitative design aims to allow a rich understanding of the fluctuating and diverse emotions that students experience during the transition to university and to explore the relationships between academic emotions and student engagement. The study follows 19 mature-aged (aged 24 and over) distance students throughout their first semester at university using video diaries to collect data on their emotional experiences and their engagement with their study. Pre and post semester interviews were also conducted. Findings highlight that different emotions have different links to engagement: as important elements in emotional engagement, as inhibitors of engagement, and as outcomes that reciprocally influence engagement. Two key conclusions can be made. Firstly, student emotions are the point of intersection between the university factors such as course design, and student variables such as motivation and background. Secondly, the flow of influence between emotions, engagement, and learning is reciprocal and complex and can spiral upwards towards ideal engagement or downwards towards disengagement and withdrawal.

‘Now that’s the feedback I want!’ Students’ reactions to feedback on graded work and what they do with it

“…Such findings seem to corroborate with those of Nash et al (2015) and Kahu et al (2015). This may be underpinned by the students' pre-conceived conception of achievement level which then affects their feedback processing capability (Kahu et al, 2015). These findings support the notion that in feedback situations a student can experience positive feelings such as appreciation, gratitude, happiness and even pride; however, equally such situations can produce negative emotional reactions such as anger, frustration and fear (Rowe, 2011).…”

“…What makes a student react in either way is less easy to ascertain from the interview data but there are suggestions from the literature that it may be a combination of factors such as emotional maturity, self-efficacy and motivation interacting in a complex way. Such findings seem to corroborate with those of Nash et al (2015) and Kahu et al (2015). This may be underpinned by the students' pre-conceived conception of achievement level which then affects their feedback processing capability (Kahu et al, 2015).…”

“…Such anxiety can intensify the student's already low self-efficacy resulting in academic paralysis (Nash et al, 2015). Furthermore the impact of grades upon emotions is reflected in the work of Kahu, Stephens, Leach & Zepke (2015) who suggest that student's grade expectations foster outcome emotions of pride or disappointment. Recent considerations of emotions and learning seem to provide one explanation for the common perception of lecturers that students fail to act on feedback or just ignore it.…”

Influence of Gamification Elements on Emotion, Interest and Online Participation

“…Örneğin bireyler öfkeli hissettiklerinde saldırma davranışını ya da tiksinme hissettiklerinde kusma davranışı sergileyebilirler (Fredrickson, 2004). Bir diğer ifadeyle bireyler, duygusal deneyimleri çerçevesinde tepki gösterir, karar alır ve öğrenirler (Shuck, Albornoz ve Winberg, 2007;Tyng, Amin, Saad ve Malik, 2017;Um, Plass, Hayward ve Homer, 2012;Watanabe, Sakagami ve Haruno, 2013). Etkili bir öğrenme ortamının oluşmasında öğrencilerin olumlu duygularının harekete geçirilmesi oldukça önemlidir.…”

Deconstruction of prior knowledge and visual narratives in Computing pedagogy

“…We asked the students questions about their concepts around certain topics, academic interests, and assessment preferences. The importance of addressing these areas of prior knowledge has been discussed in the educational literature including Rodger et al (2015) and Kahu et al (2015).…”