Browsing by Subject "academic emotions"
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(2011)Previous studies indicate that positive learning experiences are related to academic achievement as well as to well-being. On the other hand, emotional and motivational problems in studying may pose a risk for both academic achievement and well-being. Thus, emotions and motivation have an increasing role in explaining university students learning and studying. The relations between emotions, motivation, study success and well-being have been less frequently studied. The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of academic emotions, motivational factors and problems in studying students experienced five days before an exam of an activating lecture course, and the relations among these factors as well as their relation to self-study time and study success. Furthermore, the effect of all these factors on well-being, flow experience and academic achievement was examined. The term academic emotion was defined as emotion experienced in academic settings and related to studying. In the present study the theoretical background to motivational factors was based on thinking strategies and attributions, flow experience and task value. Problems in studying were measured in terms of exhaustion, anxiety, stress, lack of interest, lack of self-regulation and procrastination. The data were collected in December 2009 in an activating educational psychology lecture course by using a questionnaire. The participants (n=107) were class and kindergarten teacher students from the University of Helsinki. Most of them were first year students. The course grades were also gathered. Correlations and stepwise regression analysis were carried out to find out the factors that were related to or explained study success. The clusters that presented students' problems in studying as well as thinking strategies and attributions, were found through hierarchical cluster analysis. K-means cluster analysis was used to form the final groups. One-way analysis of variance, Kruskal-Wallis test and crosstabs were conducted to see whether the students in different clusters varied in terms of study success, academic emotions, task value, flow, and background variables. The results indicated that academic emotions measured five days before the exam explained about 30 % of the variance of the course grade; exhaustion and interest positively, and anxiety negatively. In addition, interest as well as the self-study time best explained study success on the course. The participants were classified into three clusters according to their problems in studying as well as their thinking strategies and attributions: 1) ill-being, 2) carefree, and 3) committed and optimistic students. Ill-being students reported most negative emotions, achieved the worst grades, experienced anxiety rather than flow and were also the youngest. Carefree students, on the other hand, expressed the least negative emotions and spent the least time on self-studying, and like committed students, experienced flow. In addition, committed students reported positive emotions the most often and achieved the best grades on the course. In the future, more in-depth understanding how and why especially young first year students experience their studying hard is needed, because early state of the studies is shown to predict later study success.
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(2015)In Finland, the vast majority of students complete their university degree later than the target times propose. This has been acknowledged to be problematic on a societal level. In previous studies, students' self-regulatory skills have risen as a main factor when the impeding and enhancing factors of studying have been explored. In addition to self-regulatory skills, students' academic emotions have been found to influence study performance. According to earlier studies, it is also relevant how students deal with their emotions. Psychologically flexible students are able to embrace their emotions and they are capable of living their lives according to their values. The aim of this study is to explore the self-regulatory skills, academic emotions and psychological flexibility of students in the Faculty of Humanities in University of Helsinki and the relationships between these concepts. In addition, a point of interest is how these factors are linked to study performance. The research data was collected by a survey. In addition the information of students' average scores and the amount of student credits were collected from the study register. 258 students responded to the questionnaire. Dimensions of self-regulation, academic emotions and psychological flexibility were explored by factor analysis and the links between these dimensions were examined by correlation analysis. In addition students were grouped based on their self-regulatory skills, psychological flexibility and experienced emotions by using two-step cluster analysis. The differences of the groups' study pace and means of grades were examined using one-way analysis of variance. Students felt that they are psychologically quite flexible, and they experienced more positive emotions than negative emotions. They also had rather good self-regulation skills. Psychological flexibility was associated with a feeling of hopefulness, and emotions were found to correlate with each other. However, there was no correlation between psychological flexibility and the regulation of learning. On the basis of cluster analysis, the students were classified into three groups: 1) hopeful, self-regulating and psychologically flexible students 2) students who have a contradictory attitude towards studying and have challenges in the regulation learning, and 3) students who experience feelings of anxiety and shame. There was no difference between the groups in the number of credits and the averages of grades. In the future, more information is needed about why some students experience a lot of negative emotions related to learning, and how important psychological flexibility is to the well-being of students and to study performance.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2