ANALYZING AND ENHANCING STUDENTS EMOTIONS - A NEGLECTED TOPIC OF EDUCATIONAL-RESEARCH

With the exception of research on test anxiety, we lack knowledge abou t students' academic emotions. Results of four studies on students' em otional experiences, their development and their relations to learning , achievement, student personality, and teacher and parent behavior ar e reported. (1) Findings of Study I demonstrate that students experien ce many different positive and negative emotions in situations of clas ses, learning, and exams (exploratory interview study, N = 56 students , grades 11 through 13). (2) In Study II (N = 1.867 students, grades 5 to 13) and Studies III and IV (N = 250/151 university students), lear ning-related emotions (e.g., enjoyment of learning, boredom) correlate d closely with interest, academic effort, task-irrelevant thinking, an d achievement. Correlations for test anxiety and other test emotions w ere weaker. (3) Results of Study II implied that average values for so me emotions (e. g., test-related joy) tended to decline from grade 5 t o 13, whereas others stayed at about the same magnitude (e. g., test a nxiety). (4) In Study II, students' test emotions correlated closely w ith self-concepts and subjective values of academic achievement, and w ith teacher enthusiasm, classroom competition, and teachers' and paren ts' achievement-related pressure, reinforcement and punishment. Implic ations for the enhancement of students' emotions are discussed.