Students experience various emotions in the classroom. Previous studies have shown that emotions could influence one’s performance and achievement outcome, and performance could also in turn influence students’ emotions. However, few studies have examined the reciprocal relationship between emotions and academic achievement, while even fewer studies have investigated more than one emotion. 

To fill the gap in the literature, Putwain et al. (2022) conducted a longitudinal study with young students to explore the relationship between three common emotions experienced in a classroom setting (e.g. enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety) and students' test performance in mathematics. The researchers also investigated the protecting role of academic buoyancy in moderating the negative relationship between negative emotions and mathematics performance. According to the researchers, academic buoyancy refers to the ability to adaptively respond to minor adversities that students experienced in their academic studies. Some examples include getting negative feedback from an instructor, experiencing a decrease in confidence, and getting a bad grade for an exam. The researchers hypothesized 1) a reciprocal relationship between emotions and test performance, and 2) the protective effect of academic buoyancy on the negative relationship between unpleasant emotions (e.g. boredom and anxiety) and test performance. 

A total of 1242 students from 24 English primary schools participated in the study that involved four waves of data collection. Students reported their enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety experienced in the classroom at the first and third waves of data collection, and engaged in a math test at the second and fourth waves of data collection. Academic buoyancy was measured at the third wave along with self-reported emotions. The results suggested a reciprocal relationship between anxiety and math test performance: higher anxiety levels predicted subsequent lower test scores and lower test scores in turn predicted higher subsequent anxiety. It is worth noticing that enjoyment and boredom were not significantly related to subsequent math test scores, suggesting that anxiety may have a greater influence on test performance than the other two emotions. The analysis also revealed a significant interaction between academic buoyancy and anxiety. When anxiety was low, academic buoyancy was high, and test performance was the highest. However, the benefits of academic buoyancy on test performance declined at higher anxiety levels. 

Putwain et al.’s (2022) study has several practical implications for instructors. Given that anxiety plays a more critical role in influencing students’ test performance than other emotions such as enjoyment and boredom, a major takeaway would be to alleviate students’ anxiety first before putting efforts into enhancing enjoyment or reducing boredom. Emphasizing students’ ability to bounce back from minor academic adversities may also be a good idea for instructors to enhance students’ academic achievement. 

The study also provides insight into EPIC’s research that focuses on students’ responses to their everyday academic challenges. Perhaps emotions that are experienced by students when encountering academic adversities influence their choice of failure-coping strategies, which in turn may have an impact on their subsequent academic performance.     

To read about Putwain et al.'s (2022) study in-depth, please retrieve it at: https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fedu0000637. 

Reference:

Putwain, D. W., Wood, P., & Pekrun, R. (2022). Achievement emotions and academic achievement: Reciprocal relations and the moderating influence of academic buoyancy. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(1), 108–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000637