Graduate Student Achievement Emotions.pdf

Graduate Student Achievement Emotions.pdf

According to Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory, achievement emotions are emotions that are directly connected to achievement activities or achievement outcomes, and they can be categorized into positive emotions or negative emotions. Positive emotions such as joy and hope are associated with higher motivation, interest, and academic performance, while negative emotions such as anxiety and hopelessness are associated with lower motivation and academic performance. The purpose of this study is to explore graduate students’ achievement emotions, with a focus on whether or not their positive and negative emotions are correlated and how they are correlated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck the U.S. in March 2020. It was hypothesized that positive and negative achievement emotions are negatively correlated.

A total of 62 graduate students who were enrolled in a public southwestern university completed an online survey that included the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ), which measured participants’ positive and negative achievement emotions with regards to their most difficult course during the Spring 2020 semester. This set of data was taken from a three-wave National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID study which examined the experiences of students and instructors during the pandemic. A canonical correlational analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between the sets of positive and negative achievement emotions.

In contrast to past research which found that positive and negative achievement emotions are negatively correlated, the results of this study showed that positive and negative achievement emotions have a statistically significant positive correlation of 0.706, p < .001. Graduate students who tended to have high levels of positive emotions also tended to have high levels of negative emotions. This may be attributed to the stressors of the pandemic, which amplified students’ emotions. Providing students with emotion regulation skills and opportunities for social connection to sustain those skills is recommended for educational practice. Maintaining emotional health is especially crucial for graduate students, who tend to experience emotional exhaustion and burnout.