Recent research has shown that motivation and emotion vary across situations. For instance, a student who perceives an upcoming exam as difficult may procrastinate on reviewing for the exam (Wieland et al., 2022). Another study has shown that a student who views their teacher as enthusiastic and humorous may be more likely to enjoy the class than to feel bored by it (Bieg et al., 2022). However, given that limited previous studies have investigated motivation and emotion within students across time and contexts, Pekrun and Marsh (2022) called for the need for more research studies on motivation and emotion varying in both time and context.

Pointing out that situations can vary by time and context, Pekrun and Marsh propose a 2-by-2 model to study situated motivation and emotion by time and context. The model consists of  4 categories: “same time, same context”, “different times, same context”, “same time, different contexts”, and “different times, different contexts”. Research studies adopting the “same time, same context” approach are those assessing variables of interest at a single point in time within a specific context (e.g. assessing students’ motivation and emotion related to a math exam by the end of the first marking period). A study with a “different times, same context” approach may look at if students’ motivation and emotions in a math class changed from the beginning of a semester to the end of the semester. An example of a study with “same time, different contexts” will be a cross-cultural study that explores Chinese and American high school students’ emotions toward a math class at the same time of the year. Finally, to fully examine the role of situations in motivation and emotion, They state two research designs to investigate causal relationships between motivation, emotion, and other variables of interest (e.g. academic performance) with variation across time and context: 1) experimental studies that assess motivation and emotion over time across different contexts (experimental conditions) and 2) longitudinal cross-context investigations that examine the development of motivation and emotion across times and contexts. Empirical studies on situated motivation and emotion have increased in the past few years, but the variation in motivation and emotion within students across times and contexts remains unclear and needs to be further investigated. 

Pekrun and Marsh’s article provides researchers an insight into the importance of accounting for situations when conducting studies on motivation and emotions in students. This line of research can help examine the generalizability of the existing literature focusing on differences in motivation and emotion between students at the same time and context. It can also inform educators and teachers about their students’ development of motivation and emotion across times and contexts to provide appropriate help to students in school. This research also relates to EPIC’s research studies given the variety of failure events that a student may encounter and the close relationship between motivation, emotion, and achievement in school. 

For more information about this study, check out the link to retrieve the article by Pekrun and Marsh (2022):

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959475222000858?via%3Dihub

This post was written by Emma Hong and Katelyn Chow.

References:

Bieg, S., Dresel, M., Goetz, T., & Nett, U. (2022). Teachers’ enthusiasm and humor and its’ lagged relationships with students’ enjoyment and boredom - a latent trait-state-approach. Learning and Instruction. 

Pekrun, R., & Marsh, H. W. (2022). Research on situated motivation and emotion: Progress and open problems. Learning and Instruction, 81, 101664.

Wieland, L. M., Hoppe, J. D., Wolgast, A., & Ebner-Priemer, U. W. (2022). Task ambiguity and academic procrastination: An experience sampling approach. Learning and Instruction. Advance online publication.