Emotions in the context of learning and achievement

Emotions in the context of learning and achievement have largely been neglected in empirical research. However, in the past 20 years there has been a strongly increasing line of research focusing on those emotions. This increase in studies was initiated by cumulative empirical evidence on the importance of academic emotions with respect to crucial academic outcomes like well-being, learning, achievement and career aspiration.

The focus of our research on academic emotions is on their phenomenology, structure, antecedents, effects, and their regulation. Concerning our methodological approaches, we combine inter- and intraindividual analyses based on experience sampling and longitudinal data as well as data from experimental studies. Further, we assess physiological parameters. Within the group of academic emotions (e.g., enjoyment, pride, hope, anxiety, anger, shame) there is a special focus on boredom in our research group.

 Selected Publications

Frenzel, A. C., Becker-Kurz, B., Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., & Lüdtke, O. (2018). Emotion transmission in the classroom revisited: A reciprocal effects model of teacher and student enjoyment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(5), 628-639.

Goetz, T., Bieg, M., Lüdtke, O., Pekrun, R., & Hall, N. C. (2013). Do girls really experience more anxiety in mathematics? Psychological Science, 24(10), 2079-2087.

Goetz, T., Frenzel, A., C., Hall, N. C., Nett, U., Pekrun, R., & Lipnevich, A. (2014). Types of boredom: An experience sampling approach. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 401-419.

Goetz, T., Keller, M. M., Lüdtke, O., Nett, U. E., & Lipnevich, A. A. (in press). The dynamics of real-time classroom emotions: Appraisals mediate the relation between students’ perceptions of teaching and their emotions. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Mainhard, T., Oudman, S., Hornstra, L, Bosker, R, J. & Goetz, T. (2018). Student emotions in class: The relative importance of teachers and their interpersonal relations with students. Learning and Instruction, 53, 109-119.

Pekrun, R., Muis, K. R., Frenzel, A. C., & Goetz, T. (2018). Emotions at School. New York: Routledge.

Pekrun, R., Murayama, K., Marsh, H. W., Goetz, T., & Frenzel, A. (2019). Happy fish in little ponds: Testing a reference group model of achievement and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(1), 166-185.