Students' Emotions and Their Predictors in the Process of Self-Regulated Learning

Abstract

From Zimmerman’s (2001) perspective, three cyclical phases of self-regulation are differentiated: the forethought phase, the performance control phase and the self-reflective phase. Concerning theoretical importance of emotions in all phases of self-regulated learning, we try to explore whether students’ emotional competency, task value, academic volitional strategy and past and actual academic achievement predict the experience of different emotions (happiness, relief, pride, anger, unhappiness, humiliation and fear/anxiety) in different phases of self-regulated learning. The participants were 65 students who were enrolled in a seventh grade of primary school. The investigation consists of two parts with an intermediate period of seven days during which students take a mathematics test. Generally, the results of our research have shown that students experienced a rich diversity of emotions in different phases of self-regulated learning and that patterns of predictors for the experience of discrete emotions in different phases were different. Task value and volitional control strategy have proven to be significant predictors of experienced emotions in the performance phase, while students’ emotional competency and actual test achievement have turned out to be significant predictors of experienced emotions in the self-reflective phase.