CHAPTER 1
ACADEMIC EMOTIONS
Reinhard Pekrun and Elizabeth J. Stephens
Emotions are ubiquitous in academic settings.
Remember the last time you took an important
exam? You may have hoped for success, feared fail-
ure, or felt desperate because you were unprepared,
but you likely did not feel indifferent. Furthermore,
these emotions affected your attention, your motiva-
tion, and the strategies you used for studying, even
if you were unaware of these effects. Similarly, think
of the last time you worked on a project. Depending
on the goals, tasks, and social interactions involved,
you may have felt enjoyment or been bored while
working on it, experienced flow and forgotten time
or been frustrated about never-ending obstacles, felt
proud of the outcome or ashamed of lack of accom-
plishment. Again, these emotions likely had pro-
found effects on your interest in the content, your
motivation to persist, and the strategies you used to
approach the tasks involved.
As shown by these examples, emotions are both
experienced in academic settings and instrumental
for achievement and personal growth (Pekrun,
Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002a). On the one hand,
experiencing positive emotions can help a student
envision goals, promote creative problem solving,
and support self-regulation (Clore & Huntsinger,
2007, 2009; Fredrickson, 2001; Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, &
Perry, 2002b). On the other hand, experiencing
excessive negative emotions about studying and tak-
ing exams can impede academic performance,
prompt school dropout, and negatively influence
one’s health (Zeidner, 1998, 2007). The far-reaching
consequences of emotional experiences are also
likely reflected in the tragic number of suicides
DOI: 10.1037/13274-001
APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol. 2. Individual Differences and Cultural and Contextual Factors, K. R. Harris, S. Graham, and T. Urdan (Editors-in-Chief)
Copyright © 2012 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.
related to school or college each year (Westefeld
et al., 2005).
Despite the clear relevance of emotions for educa-
tion and the dramatic increase of attention to emotion
in other scientific disciplines, such as neuroscience,
anthropology, economics, and the humanities, educa-
tional psychology has neglected emotions (Pekrun &
Frese, 1992; Schutz & Lanehart, 2002; see the litera-
ture search in Pekrun et al., 2002a). The few excep-
tions include research on test anxiety (Zeidner, 1998,
2007; see Chapter 5, this volume) and on causal attri-
butions as antecedents of achievement emotions
(Weiner, 1985). Over the past 10 years, however,
there has been growing recognition that emotions are
central to academic achievement strivings as well as
students’ and teachers’ personality development and
health. Emotions are no longer viewed as incidental
phenomena present in the academic setting but lack-
ing in function or purpose. Rather, in this nascent
research, emotions are recognized as being of critical
importance to both students’ and teachers’ productiv-
ity (Efklides & Volet, 2005; Linnenbrink, 2006;
Schutz & Pekrun, 2007).
In this chapter, we consider such emotions.
Although the principles of emotion discussed in the
chapter pertain to both students and teachers alike,
the focus of the chapter is on students’ emotions (for
teacher emotions, see Schutz & Zembylas, 2009).
To begin, we define emotion and outline concepts of
academic emotions. Next, we discuss ways to assess
these emotions. In the third and fourth sections, we
review research on the functions, origins, and devel-
opment of academic emotions, using Pekrun’s
3
Pekrun and Stephens
(2006; Pekrun, Frenzel, Goetz, & Perry, 2007)
control–value theory of achievement emotions as a
framework. This review highlights the importance
of emotions for students’ learning. Next, we address
emotion regulation, coping, and the role of emo-
tional competencies. We conclude with suggestions
for future research and discuss implications for psy-
chological and educational practice.
CONCEPTS OF ACADEMIC EMOTION
Emotion, Mood, and Affect
There is general consensus that emotions are multi-
faceted phenomena. Emotions involve sets of coor-
dinated psychological processes including affective,
cognitive, physiological, motivational, and expres-
sive components (Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981;
Scherer, 2009). For example, a student’s anxiety
before an exam can consist of nervous, uneasy feel-
ings (affective); worries about failing the exam (cog-
nitive); increased cardiovascular activation
(physiological); impulses to escape the situation
(motivational); and anxious facial expression
(expressive). In comparison with intense emotions,
moods are less intense and lack a specific object of
reference. Some authors have defined emotion and
mood as categorically distinct (see Rosenberg,
1998). Alternatively, because moods show a similar
profile of components and similar qualitative differ-
ences as emotions (as in cheerful, angry, or anxious
mood), they can be regarded as low-intensity emo-
tions (Pekrun, 2006). The term affect encompasses
both emotions and moods but is often used in a
A Three-Dimensional Taxonomy of Academic Achievement Emotions
Positivea
Object Focus Activating
Activity Enjoyment
Outcome Joy
Hope
Pride
Gratitude
a Positive = pleasant emotion. b Negative = unpleasant emotion.
4
broader sense to denote appraisals and cognitive
feelings as well (e.g., self-concepts, task appraisals;
Efklides & Petkaki, 2005; McLeod & Adams, 1989).
Valence and Activation
Emotions can be grouped according to their valence
and their degree of activation (Table 1.1). In terms
of valence, positive emotions can be distinguished
from negative emotions, such as pleasant enjoyment
versus unpleasant anxiety. In terms of activation,
physiologically activating emotions can be distin-
guished from deactivating emotions, such as activat-
ing excitement versus deactivating relaxation. These
two dimensions are used to arrange affective states
in a two-dimensional (Valence × Activation) space
(circumplex models of affect; Feldman Barrett &
Russell, 1998).
Object Focus
As addressed in Pekrun’s (2006; Pekrun et al.,
2002a) three-dimensional taxonomy of achievement
emotions, another important dimension of emotions
is their object focus (Table 1.1). In terms of object
focus, the following groups of academic emotions
can be distinguished.
Achievement emotions. These emotions are tied
to achievement activities (e.g., studying) or achieve-
ment outcomes (success and failure), resulting
in two groups of achievement emotions: activity
emotions and outcome emotions. Activity emotions
include the ongoing emotions students experience
while engaging in an achievement activity such as
TABLE 1.1
Negativeb
Deactivating Activating Deactivating
Relaxation Anger Boredom
Contentment Anxiety Sadness
Relief Shame Hopelessness
Anger Disappointment

studying. Outcome emotions include prospective
emotions related to upcoming success and failure
and retrospective emotions related to past success
and failure (Table 1.1). Most emotions pertaining to
studying, attending class, and taking tests or exams
are considered achievement emotions because they
relate to activities and outcomes that are typically
judged according to competence-based standards of
quality.
Past research on achievement emotions focused
on emotions induced by achievement outcomes,
such as hope and pride related to success or anxiety
and shame related to failure. Two important tradi-
tions of research on outcome emotions are test anxi-
ety studies (Zeidner, 2007) and studies on emotions
after success and failure (e.g. Weiner, 1985). Cer-
tainly, outcome emotions are of critical importance
for achievement strivings; however, emotions
directly pertaining to academic activities are of equal
relevance to learning and performance. For exam-
ple, the excitement arising from the commencement
of a new course; boredom experienced during
monotonous, routine studying; or anger felt when
task demands seem unreasonable are emotions that
are likely of primary importance for students’ aca-
demic agency.
Epistemic emotions. Emotions can emerge as the
result of the cognitive qualities of task information
and the processing of such information. A prototypi-
cal case is tasks producing cognitive incongruity by
contradicting naive theories. Cognitive incongruity
can trigger (a) surprise and curiosity (Kang et al.,
2009), (b) confusion when the incongruity can-
not be dissolved (Craig, D’Mello, Witherspoon, &
Graesser, 2008), (c) anxiety in the case of severe
incongruity and information that deeply disturbs
existing beliefs, (d) enjoyment and delight experi-
enced when recombining information such that the
problem gets solved, or (e) frustration when this
seems not to be possible. We suggest calling these
emotions epistemic emotions because they pertain to
the knowledge-generating aspects of learning and
cognitive activities.
During learning, many emotions can be experi-
enced either as achievement emotions or as
epistemic emotions, depending on the focus of
Academic Emotions
attention. For example, a student’s frustration from
not finding the solution to a math problem can be
regarded as an epistemic emotion if the focus is on
the cognitive incongruity resulting from the
unsolved problem, or as an achievement emotion if
the focus is on personal failure and inability to solve
the problem.
Topic emotions. Emotions can also be triggered
by the contents of learning material. Examples
include the empathetic emotions pertaining to a pro-
tagonist’s fate when reading a novel, the emotions
triggered by political events dealt with in political
lessons, or the emotions related to topics in science
class, such as U.S. children’s frustration on learn-
ing about Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet
(Broughton, Sinatra, & Nussbaum, 2011). In con-
trast to achievement and epistemic emotions, topic
emotions do not directly pertain to learning and
problem solving. However, they can strongly influ-
ence students’ engagement by affecting their inter-
est and motivation in an academic domain (Ainley,
2007).
Social emotions. The interactive nature of most
academic settings implies that social emotions are
aroused as well, such as anger or gratitude directed
toward classmates or teachers. Even when study-
ing alone, students do not act in a social vacuum;
rather, the goals, contents, and outcomes of learn-
ing are socially constructed. By implication, settings
of learning induce a multitude of social emotions.
Clearly, achievement emotions and social emotions
can overlap, as in social achievement emotions
such as empathy, schadenfreude, envy, contempt,
or admiration related to the attainments of others
(Immordino-Yang, McColl, Damasio, & Damasio,
2009; Weiner, 2007).
Empirical Evidence
Exploratory research has upheld that many of these
diverse emotions are experienced frequently in aca-
demic settings. In a series of interview and question-
naire studies with high school and university
students, we found that anxiety was the emotion
reported most often, constituting 15% to 27% of all
emotional experiences reported across various aca-
demic situations (attending class, studying, taking
5
Pekrun and Stephens
tests and exams; Pekrun, 1992c; Spangler, Pekrun,
Kramer, & Hofmann, 2002; Titz, 2001). The perva-
siveness of anxiety found in our research confirms
the importance of test anxiety research and under-
scores the high-stakes climate of school settings—
factors that may pose serious threats to students’
well-being and health. At the same time, however, the
findings suggest that the vast majority of emotions
experienced in academic settings pertain to emotions
other than anxiety. Overall, positive emotions (e.g.,
enjoyment, satisfaction, hope, pride, relief) and nega-
tive emotions (e.g., anger, anxiety, shame, boredom)
were reported with equal frequency. Students also
mentioned less frequently experienced emotions such
as hopelessness and social emotions such as grati-
tude, admiration, contempt, and envy.
These findings extend cross-culturally as well.
Specifically, research has shown that the experience
of test anxiety is a universal phenomenon. However,
differences may exist in the prevalence and magni-
tude of the test anxiety experience (Zeidner, 1998).
Test anxiety has been shown to be higher in Islamic
countries such as Egypt and Jordan than in Western
countries, possibly because of the high-stakes testing
environments in schools in these countries. In con-
trast, hypotheses about the prevalence of test anxiety
in East Asian countries, which should presumably be
high because of achievement pressure and shaming
practices in these countries, have only met with par-
tial success. In the 2003 large-scale assessments of
the Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA), East Asian students reported higher levels of
achievement anxiety in mathematics than students
from Western countries (Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2004).
However, the meta-analysis of studies reported by
Seipp and Schwarzer (1996) produced less consistent
results, with mean scores for test anxiety being rela-
tively high for Korea but low for Japan and China.
Achievement emotions other than anxiety are
also experienced by students across cultures. Again,
there may be cross-cultural differences. For exam-
ple, Frenzel, Thrash, Pekrun, and Goetz (2007)
found that Chinese students reported higher levels
of achievement-related enjoyment, pride, anxiety,
and shame but lower levels of anger than German
students, consistent with existing evidence that
6
anger is avoided more in collectivistic than in indi-
vidualistic cultures (e.g., Grimm, Church, Katigbak, &
Reyes, 1999; see also Pekrun, 2009).
Together, the empirical evidence confirms that
academic settings abound with various emotions,
suggesting that research and practice in educational
psychology should move beyond test anxiety and
consider the rich diversity of emotions experienced
in these settings.
ASSESSING ACADEMIC EMOTIONS
The multicomponential nature of emotions implies
that they can be assessed in numerous ways. Possi-
ble measures include self-report questionnaires,
implicit assessment (e.g., projective instruments
such as the Thematic Apperception Test), neuroim-
aging methods (e.g., electroencephalography, func-
tional MRI), analysis of peripheral physiological
processes, and observation of nonverbal behavior
such as facial, gestural, and postural expression or
the prosodic features of verbal speech (Ekman &
Rosenberg, 1997). With the exception of self-report
instruments, all of these methods are still underused
in educational psychology.
Measuring Test Anxiety
Research on the measurement of academic emotions
has focused on the assessment of test anxiety. Signifi-
cant progress has been made in the development of
instruments assessing this emotion over the past seven
decades (Zeidner, 1998). Self-report instruments are
the most frequently used method, including inter-
views, think-aloud protocols, single-item rating scales,
and questionnaire scales asking students to report on
their anxiety. Among these instruments, multi-item
questionnaire scales are highly popular because they
are easy to administer, show good psychometric quali-
ties (Hodapp & Benson, 1997; Pekrun, Goetz, Perry,
Kramer, & Hochstadt, 2004; Zeidner, 1998), and are
temporally adaptable, making it possible to assess
both momentary emotional reactions to exams (state
test anxiety) and habitual emotional reactions to
exams (trait test anxiety).
The sophistication achieved in the measurement
of test anxiety has enabled researchers and practitioners
to successfully assess this emotion. However, problems

still remain to be solved. Specifically, little agree-
ment exists as to the precise nature of the multidi-
mensionality of test anxiety. Whereas all of the
major instruments assess affective, physiological,
and worry components of this emotion, there is
dispute as to which additional components should
be included (e.g., lack of self-confidence, task-
irrelevant thinking, manifest behaviors; Zeidner,
1998). A second problem is that test anxiety
research has disregarded other exam-related emo-
tions and has therefore neglected to distinguish anx-
iety from other emotions. For instance, many items
meant to measure cognitive components of test anx-
iety also pertain to components of hopelessness and
despair (e.g., items such as “Before taking a test, I
worry about failure”; Sarason, 1984). It is therefore
possible that current test anxiety instruments still
measure “more than they denote” (Nicholls, 1976,
p. 976). As such, researchers and practitioners alike
should attend to the specific contents of any given
measure when attempting to assess students’ test
anxiety.
Measuring Diverse Academic Emotions:
The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire
Measures of students’ emotions other than test anxi-
ety are still largely lacking. Attending to this deficit,
we constructed a multidimensional instrument that
measures a variety of major academic emotions,
including test anxiety and other achievement emo-
tions (Achievement Emotions Questionnaire [AEQ];
Pekrun, Goetz, Frenzel, Barchfeld, & Perry, 2011).
In its original version, the AEQ is a self-report
instrument that assesses college students’ emotions,
including achievement-related enjoyment, hope,
pride, relief, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness,
and boredom. These emotions are assessed with sep-
arate scales for each of the three main categories of
academic situations: attending class, studying, and
taking tests and exams. Designing the AEQ in this
manner reflects that the three types of situations dif-
fer in terms of functions and social structures, imply-
ing that the emotions experienced in these situations
can differ as well. For example, enjoyment of class-
room instruction may be different from enjoying the
challenge of an exam—some students may be excited
when going to class, others when taking exams.
Academic Emotions
Research has documented the measurement quality
of the AEQ, confirming its reliability and its ability
to differentiate between discrete emotions (Pekrun
et al., 2011). The emotions assessed by the AEQ
have been shown to predict students’ academic
achievement, course enrollment, and dropout rates
and to relate to components of students’ learning
such as study interest, achievement goals, motiva-
tion to learn, use of learning strategies, investment
of study effort, and the self-regulation of academic
learning (e.g., Acee et al., 2010; Mouratidis, Van-
steenkiste, Lens, & Auweele, 2009; Pekrun, Elliot,
& Maier, 2006, 2009; Pekrun et al., 2002a, 2011).
Furthermore, culture, gender, social feedback,
teachers’ instructional behavior, and the composi-
tion and social climate of classrooms have proven to
be important correlates of the achievement emotions
assessed by the AEQ (e.g., Frenzel, Goetz, Lüdtke,
Pekrun, & Sutton, 2009; Frenzel, Pekrun, & Goetz,
2007a; Frenzel, Thrash, et al., 2007; Pekrun, Frenzel,
et al., 2007).
Summary
Students’ emotions can be assessed by means of
diverse measures. Standardized self-report scales are
the most widely used instruments to date and have
proven reliable, valid, and cost effective. Tradition-
ally, these measures solely addressed students’ test
anxiety; however, instruments such as the AEQ have
broadened this spectrum to include a variety of
achievement emotions. Future research and practice
will benefit from the development of more scales
assessing emotions other than test anxiety and from
exploring alternative ways of assessing these
emotions.
FUNCTIONS OF EMOTIONS FOR
STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT AND
PERFORMANCE
In experimental research, considerable attention has
been given to the functional importance of emo-
tions. In this research, affective states (e.g., positive
and negative mood) have been found to influence a
wide range of cognitive processes that are relevant
for academic learning, such as attention, memory
storage and retrieval, and cognitive problem solving
7
Pekrun and Stephens
(Clore & Huntsinger, 2007, 2009; Lewis, Haviland-
Jones, & Feldman Barrett, 2008). Much of this
research, however, has focused on the effects of pos-
itive versus negative mood without drawing distinc-
tions between specific, discrete mood states and
emotions (for notable exceptions, see, e.g., Izard &
Ackerman, 2000; Lerner & Keltner, 2000; Zeelen-
berg, Nelissen, & Pieters, 2007).
Experimental research has produced cumulative
findings showing that both positive and negative
emotional states consume attentional resources by
focusing attention on the object of emotion (Ellis &
Ashbrook, 1988). Consumption of attentional
resources for task-irrelevant purposes implies that
fewer resources are available for task completion,
thereby negatively affecting performance (Mein-
hardt & Pekrun, 2003). For example, while prepar-
ing for an exam, a student may fear and worry about
failure, which in turn may distract attention away
from the task at hand. Second, mood can enhance
mood-congruent memory recall (e.g., Levine & Bur-
gess, 1997). In general, positive mood facilitates the
retrieval of positive self- and task-related informa-
tion, and negative mood facilitates the retrieval of
negative information. For example, positive mood
can foster positive self-appraisals and thus promote
motivation to learn and boost performance; in con-
trast, negative mood can foster negative-self apprais-
als and thus hamper motivation and performance
(e.g., Olafson & Ferraro, 2001).
Third, mood has been shown to influence cogni-
tive problem solving, with positive mood promoting
flexible and creative ways of solving problems and
negative mood promoting more focused, detail-
oriented, and analytical ways of thinking (Clore &
Huntsinger, 2007, 2009; Fredrickson, 2001). In
mood-as-information approaches (Clore & Hunt-
singer, 2007), this finding is explained by assuming
that positive affective states signal that “all is well,”
implying safety and the discretion to engage in cre-
ative exploration, broaden one’s cognitive horizon,
and build new actions (as addressed by Fredrick-
son’s [2001] “broaden-and-build” metaphor of posi-
tive emotions). In contrast, negative states are
thought to indicate that something is going wrong,
making it necessary to focus on problems in more
cautious, analytical ways. An alternative explanation
8
is that positive affect facilitates spreading activation
in memory networks, thus promoting creative
thinking and top-down information processing
(accommodation), whereas negative affect facilitates
bottom-up processing driven by sensory perception
(assimilation; see Fiedler, Nickel, Asbeck, & Pagel,
2003; Kuhbandner et al., 2009).
However, because experimental mood research
has generally been conducted in laboratory settings,
it has tended to disregard ecological validity for real-
life achievement, making generalization to actual
academic settings difficult. For example, experimen-
tal research has suggested that positive emotions can
be detrimental to task motivation and cognitive per-
formance (Aspinwall, 1998). However, recent
empirical evidence, as well as the layperson’s every-
day experiences, indicate that positive emotions can
exert positive effects on performance in academic
settings, as detailed later.
In contrast, field research in education has
directly analyzed links between emotions and stu-
dents’ academic performance. Although most of this
research has focused on test anxiety, a few studies
have analyzed other emotions as well. We argue that
the valence and activation dimensions of achieve-
ment emotions are most important for explaining the
findings of these studies, implying that four emotion
categories should be distinguished for doing so (posi-
tive activating, positive deactivating, negative activat-
ing, and negative deactivating emotions; Table 1.1).
Emotions from these four categories are posited to
influence a number of mechanisms underlying effects
on performance, as detailed in Pekrun’s (1992b,
2006; Pekrun et al., 2002a) cognitive–motivational
model of emotion and performance.
First, emotions influence the availability of atten-
tional resources, as outlined earlier. Second, emo-
tions are thought to influence students’ motivation
to learn, including their intrinsic motivation to
learn, which is based on interest and curiosity in
learning, and extrinsic motivation to learn, which is
related to the attainment of positive outcomes (e.g.,
good grades) or to the prevention of negative out-
comes (e.g., poor grades). Third, emotions are
expected to facilitate the use of different learning
strategies. These strategies include flexible, creative
strategies such as elaboration of learning material,

organization of material (underlining, extracting
main ideas, etc.), and critical thinking. They also
include more rigid strategies such as simple
rehearsal of material. Finally, emotions are posited
to influence students’ self-regulation of learning as
defined by self-directed goal adoption, monitoring
of learning, deployment of learning strategies, and
evaluation of outcomes.
Positive Emotions: Enjoyment, Hope,
Pride, and Relief
Despite their potential to foster creativity, positive
emotions have traditionally been viewed as mal-
adaptive for achievement because they induce
unrealistic appraisals of the likelihood of desired
outcomes, foster superficial information process-
ing, and reduce motivation to pursue challenging
goals (Aspinwall, 1998; Pekrun et al., 2002b).
Consistent with this view, experimental research
has shown that positive mood can lead to an over-
estimation of the probability of success and an
underestimation of the probability of failure.
Moreover, positive mood can undermine effortful
action by signaling that everything is going well,
making effort expenditure seem unnecessary, and
trigger motivation to maintain a pleasant mood by
avoiding negative thoughts and neglecting cau-
tionary prevention of future adversities (Aspin-
wall, 1998). From this perspective, “our primary
goal is to feel good, and feeling good makes us lazy
thinkers who are oblivious to potentially useful
negative information and unresponsive to mean-
ingful variations in information and situation”
(Aspinwall, 1998, p. 7).
However, positive mood has typically been
regarded as a unitary construct in experimental mood
research. We argue that such a view is inadequate
because it fails to distinguish between activating and
deactivating moods and emotions. As detailed in
Pekrun’s (1992b, 2006) cognitive–motivational
model of emotion and performance, deactivating pos-
itive emotions, such as relief or relaxation, may well
have the negative effects described for positive mood.
Specifically, these emotions can reduce task atten-
tion; can have variable motivational effects by rein-
forcing motivation to reengage with the task but
undermining current motivation; and can lead to
Academic Emotions
superficial information processing, thus likely mak-
ing effects on overall performance variable. In con-
trast, activating positive emotions, such as task
enjoyment or pride, may clearly have positive effects.
Specifically, task enjoyment is posited to (a) preserve
attentional resources and focus attention on the task,
(b) promote the development of interest and intrinsic
motivation, (c) facilitate the use of flexible cognitive
strategies (such as elaboration and organization of
learning material), and (d) promote self-regulation of
learning, thus exerting positive effects on overall per-
formance under most task conditions.
Empirical evidence on the effects of positive
emotions is scarce but has provided preliminary
support for the view that activating positive emo-
tions can enhance academic performance. Specifi-
cally, enjoyment of learning was found to correlate
positively with K–12 and college students’ perfor-
mance (Helmke, 1993; Pekrun et al., 2002a, 2002b).
Furthermore, students’ enjoyment, hope, and pride
correlated positively with study interest, effort
invested in studying, elaboration of learning mate-
rial, and self-regulation of learning, in line with the
view that these activating positive emotions can be
beneficial for students’ academic agency (Pekrun et
al., 2002a, 2002b). Consistent with the evidence on
discrete emotions, general positive affect has also
been found to correlate positively with students’
engagement (Linnenbrink, 2007). However, a few
studies have found null relations between activating
positive emotions (or affect) and individual engage-
ment and performance (Linnenbrink, 2007; Pekrun,
Elliot, et al., 2009). Also, caution should be exer-
cised when interpreting the reported correlations.
Linkages between emotions and performance likely
are due not only to effects of emotions on perfor-
mance but also to effects of performance attainment
on emotions, with success promoting enjoyment
and failure reducing enjoyment. As such, this
implies reciprocal rather than unidirectional causa-
tion in the link between enjoyment and
performance.
Negative Activating Emotions: Anxiety,
Shame, Anger, Frustration, and Confusion
Research on the performance effects of negative acti-
vating emotions has focused mainly on achievement
9
Pekrun and Stephens
anxiety. Negative activating emotions other than
anxiety, such as students’ shame and anger,
have been neglected. From the perspective of the
cognitive–motivational model of emotion and per-
formance (Pekrun, 1992b, 2006), negative activat-
ing emotions are expected to produce task-irrelevant
thinking (e.g., worries about failure in test anxiety),
thus reducing attentional resources available for task
purposes, and to undermine interest and intrinsic
motivation. However, these emotions can induce
strong motivation to avoid failure and are posited to
facilitate the use of rigid strategies such as simple
rehearsal. These propositions imply that the overall
effects on resulting performance depend on task
conditions and may well be variable, similar to the
effects of positive deactivating emotions. The avail-
able evidence supports this position.
Anxiety. The relationships between achieve-
ment anxiety and performance have been analyzed
in hundreds of studies (Zeidner, 1998, 2007; for
meta-analyses, see Hembree, 1988; Seipp, 1991).
Experimental studies have shown that anxiety
impairs performance on complex or difficult tasks
that demand attentional resources, such as difficult
intelligence test items, whereas performance on easy,
less complex, and repetitive tasks may not suffer or
is even enhanced (Hembree, 1988; Zeidner, 1998,
2007). Theories explaining this finding have focused
on the effects of anxiety on task-irrelevant thinking.
In interference and attentional deficit models (e.g.,
Wine, 1971), anxiety is assumed to produce task-
irrelevant thinking that interferes with performance
on tasks requiring attentional resources (i.e., work-
ing memory capacity). These models are in line with
assumptions from the resource allocation model
cited earlier (Ellis & Ashbrook, 1988; Meinhardt &
Pekrun, 2003). An extension of interference models
is Eysenck’s (1997) processing efficiency model,
which assumes that anxiety can reduce the effi-
ciency of cognitive processing because of its impact
on working memory load.
In line with experimental findings, field studies
have shown that achievement anxiety correlates
moderately negatively with students’ academic per-
formance (Hembree, 1988; Zeidner, 1998). Again, in
explaining the correlational evidence, reciprocal
10
effects have to be considered; that is, relationships
between anxiety and performance may reflect the
effects of success and failure on the development of
anxiety, in addition to effects of anxiety on perfor-
mance. The available longitudinal evidence from
studies across multiple school years is in line with
this view (Meece, Wigfield, & Eccles, 1990; Pekrun,
1992a). Moreover, correlations with performance
variables have not been uniformly negative across
studies. Zero and positive correlations have some-
times been found, in line with the view that anxiety
can exert variable effects. In general, anxiety likely
has deleterious effects on many students, but it may
induce motivation to study harder, and thus facili-
tate overall performance in individuals who are
more resilient to the devastating aspects of this
emotion.
Shame, anger, confusion, and frustration. Few
studies have addressed the effects of negative acti-
vating emotions other than anxiety. Shame is at
the core of negative feelings of self-worth, often
implying devastating, pervasive feelings of self-
debasement (Covington & Beery, 1976). In tra-
ditional achievement motivation theories, shame
was regarded as central to the fear-of-failure motive
(Atkinson, 1964; Heckhausen, 1991). Similar to
anxiety, shame related to failure shows negative
overall correlations with students’ effort and aca-
demic achievement (Pekrun et al., 2004; Titz, 2001)
and negatively predicts exam performance (Pekrun,
Elliot, et al., 2009). However, as with anxiety, shame
likely exerts variable motivational effects. J. E.
Turner and Schallert (2001) showed that students
who experienced shame after negative exam feed-
back increased their motivation when they contin-
ued to be committed to future academic goals and
believed these goals were attainable.
Similarly, students’ anger has been shown to cor-
relate positively with task-irrelevant thinking (Pekrun
et al., 2004) and negatively with academic interest,
motivation, and self-regulation of learning (Assor,
Kaplan, Kanat-Maymon, & Roth, 2005; Pekrun
et al., 2002a, 2004, 2011). The overall correlations
with academic performance were zero to moderately
negative (Boekaerts, 1993; Pekrun et al., 2004,
2011). However, as with anxiety, the underlying

pattern of functional mechanisms may be complex
and imply more than just negative effects. In a study
by Lane, Whyte, Terry, and Nevill (2005), depressed
mood was found to interact with anger experienced
before an academic exam, such that anger was
related to improved performance in students who
reported no depressive mood symptoms, presumably
because they were able to maintain motivation and
invest necessary effort. Anger is likely detrimental to
motivation and performance under many conditions
but can translate into increased task motivation
when expectancies for success are favorable.
Finally, research on learning in technology-
enhanced environments has begun to analyze the
link between negative activating epistemic emotions,
such as confusion and frustration during cognitive
problem solving, and students’ performance. Frus-
tration during learning was found to correlate nega-
tively with students’ learning gains. However,
confusion was found to correlate positively with
learning (e.g., Craig et al., 2008), presumably
because it can instigate motivation to think and
reflect on existing cognitive schemas.
Negative Deactivating Emotions:
Boredom and Hopelessness
In contrast to activating negative emotions such as
anxiety or confusion, deactivating negative emotions
are posited to uniformly impair performance by
reducing attentional resources, undermining both
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and promoting
superficial information processing (Pekrun, 1992b,
2006). However, in spite of the frequency of boredom
experienced by many students at school today, this
emotion has received scant attention, as has the less
frequent but devastating emotion of achievement-
related hopelessness.
In experimental research, boredom was analyzed
as being induced by very simple, repetitive tasks,
such as assembly-line, vigilance, or data-entry tasks.
Boredom was found to reduce performance on these
tasks (Fisher, 1993; Kass, Vodanovich, Stanny, &
Taylor, 2001). In a few empirical studies targeting
students’ boredom, this emotion was also negatively
related to motivation and performance. Specifically,
boredom was associated with students’ reduced
intrinsic motivation, attention, use of flexible learning
Academic Emotions
strategies such as elaboration of learning material,
and self-regulation of learning (Pekrun, Goetz, Dan-
iels, Stupnisky, & Perry, 2010; Watt & Vodanovich,
1999). Likely because of these negative links with
learning, boredom was found to be a negative predic-
tor of students’ achievement (Pekrun, Elliot, et al.,
2009; Pekrun, Goetz, Daniels, Stupinsky, & Perry,
2010). Similarly, students’ hopelessness related uni-
formly negatively to measures of students’ motivation
and study behavior (Pekrun et al., 2002a, 2004; Titz,
2001). Moreover, hopelessness was also shown to be
a negative predictor of students’ academic perfor-
mance (Pekrun, Elliot, et al., 2009), pointing to the
potentially devastating influence of this emotion.
Summary
The available evidence suggests that activating posi-
tive emotions, such as enjoyment of learning, can
have beneficial effects on students’ learning and per-
formance. However, the evidence on positive emo-
tions is currently too scant to warrant firm
conclusions. Deactivating negative emotions, such
as hopelessness and boredom, show the opposite
pattern of associations, relating uniformly negatively
to measures of learning and performance. In con-
trast, activating negative emotions, such as anxiety,
shame, and anger, appears to exert more complex
effects. These emotions promote task-irrelevant
thinking and reduce interest and flexible thinking,
but can at the same time strengthen effort invested
to avoid failure and facilitate the use of more rigid
rehearsal strategies. From an educator’s perspective,
however, any immediate benefits of emotions such
as anxiety or shame are certainly outweighed by
their overall negative effects on performance and
interest for the vast majority of students. Also,
beyond effects on academic performance, negative
emotions can have severe consequences for students’
long-term well-being, social adaptation, and health
(Zeidner, 1998), thus indicating an urgent need to
ameliorate excessive negative achievement emotions
in students’ academic careers.
ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT
Given the relevance of academic emotions for stu-
dents’ learning, researchers and practitioners alike
11
Pekrun and Stephens
would be well advised to attend to their origins,
making it possible to obtain evidence-based recom-
mendations to foster these emotions. Generally,
emotions can be caused and modulated by numer-
ous individual factors, including cognitive apprais-
als; neurohormonal processes; sensory feedback
from facial, gestural, and postural expression; and
genetic dispositions (Davidson, Scherer, & Gold-
smith, 2003; Lewis et al., 2008; Scherer, Schorr, &
Johnstone, 2001). Among these factors, cognitive
appraisals of task demands and personal competen-
cies likely play a major role in the arousal of aca-
demic emotions. Therefore, most theories on the
determinants and development of academic emo-
tions focus on the emotional relevance of self-related
and task-related appraisals, such as perceived per-
sonal control and task value, and on the importance
of individual and situational factors that shape stu-
dents’ emotional development by influencing their
appraisals. In this section, we address students’
appraisals, gender, and achievement goals, as well as
academic tasks and environments, as antecedents of
academic emotions and summarize evidence on the
development of these emotions over the school years.
Appraisals as Proximal Individual
Antecedents of Emotions
Test anxiety. In research on test anxiety, appraisals
concerning threat of failure have been addressed as
causing anxiety. Using R. S. Lazarus’s transactional
stress model (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, 1987) for
explaining test anxiety, threat in a given achieve-
ment setting is evaluated in a primary appraisal
related to the likelihood and subjective importance
of failure. If failure is appraised as possible and sub-
jectively important, ways to cope with the situation
are evaluated in a secondary appraisal. A student
may experience anxiety when his or her primary
appraisal indicates that failure on an important test
is likely and when his or her secondary appraisal
indicates that this threat is not sufficiently control-
lable. Empirical research has confirmed that test
anxiety is closely related to perceived lack of control
over performance. Specifically, numerous studies
have shown that K–12 and postsecondary students’
self-concept of ability, self-efficacy expectations, and
academic control beliefs correlate negatively with
12
their test anxiety (Hembree, 1988; Pekrun et al.,
2004; Zeidner, 1998).
Attributional theory. Extending the perspective
beyond test anxiety, B. Weiner (1985; see Volume
1, Chapter 13, this handbook) proposed an attri-
butional approach to the appraisal antecedents of
emotions related to success and failure (for alter-
native attributional models, see, e.g., Metalsky,
Halberstadt, & Abramson, 1987). In Weiner’s theory,
causal achievement attributions—explanations of
the causes of success and failure (e.g., ability, effort,
task difficulty, luck)—are considered primary deter-
minants of these emotions. More specifically, it is
assumed that achievement outcomes are first subjec-
tively evaluated as success or failure. This outcome
appraisal immediately leads to cognitively less elab-
orated, attribution-independent emotions, namely,
happiness after success and frustration and sad-
ness after failure. After the outcome appraisal and
immediate emotional reaction, causal ascriptions
are sought that lead to differentiated, attribution-
dependent emotions.
Three dimensions of causal attributions are
assumed to play key roles in determining attribu-
tion-dependent emotions: the perceived locus of
causality differentiating internal and external causes
of achievement (e.g., ability and effort vs. environ-
mental circumstances); the perceived controllability
of causes (e.g., subjectively controllable effort vs.
uncontrollable ability); and the perceived stability of
causes (e.g., stable ability vs. unstable chance).
Weiner (1985) posited that pride should be experi-
enced when success is attributed to internal causes
such as effort or ability; that shame should be expe-
rienced when failure is attributed to uncontrollable,
internal causes such as lack of ability; and that grati-
tude and anger should be experienced when success
or failure, respectively, are attributed to external,
other-controlled causes.
Consistent with the retrospective nature of
causal attributions for success and failure, Weiner’s
(1985) theory focuses primarily on retrospective
emotions after success and failure. However, some
predictions for prospective, future-related emotions
are also put forward. Specifically, hopefulness and
hopelessness are expected to be experienced when

past success and failure are attributed to stable
causes (e.g., stable ability). Furthermore, Weiner
(2007) recently extended his theory by also specu-
lating about the attributional antecedents of “moral”
emotions such as envy, scorn, sympathy, admira-
tion, regret, and schadenfreude.
Toward an integrative approach: The control–
value theory of achievement emotions. Test
anxiety theories and attributional theories have
addressed outcome emotions pertaining to suc-
cess and failure, but they have neglected activity-
related achievement emotions. In Pekrun’s (2006;
Pekrun, Frenzel, et al., 2007) control–value theory,
core propositions of the transactional stress model
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, 1987), expectancy–
value approaches (Pekrun, 1992c; J. E. Turner &
Schallert, 2001), and attributional theories (Weiner,
1985) are revised and expanded to explain a
broader variety of achievement emotions, includ-
ing both outcome emotions and activity emotions.
The theory posits that achievement emotions are
induced when an individual feels in control of, or
out of control of, activities and outcomes that are
subjectively important, implying that appraisals of
control and value are the proximal determinants of
these emotions. Control appraisals pertain to the
perceived controllability of achievement-related
actions and outcomes (for relevant types of control
appraisals, see Pekrun, 2006). Value appraisals per-
tain to the subjective importance of these activities
and outcomes. These appraisals can relate to the
intrinsic value of an achievement activity itself or to
the extrinsic, instrumental values of the activity for
obtaining outcomes.
Different kinds of control and value appraisals
are posited to instigate different kinds of achieve-
ment emotions, including both outcome emotions
and activity emotions (Table 1.1). Prospective, antic-
ipatory joy and hopelessness are expected to be trig-
gered when there is high perceived control (joy) or a
complete lack of perceived control (hopelessness).
For example, a student who believes she has the nec-
essary resources to get an A on an important exam
may feel joyous about the prospect of seeing this
grade becoming reality. Conversely, a student who
believes he is incapable of preventing failure on a
Academic Emotions
final exam may experience hopelessness. Prospective
hope and anxiety are instigated when there is uncer-
tainty about control, the attentional focus being on
anticipated success in the case of hope and on antici-
pated failure in the case of anxiety. For example, a
student who is unsure about being able to succeed
on an important exam may hope for success, fear
failure, or both.
Retrospective joy and sadness are considered
control-independent emotions that immediately fol-
low success and failure, whereby further cognitive
elaboration is unnecessary (in line with Weiner’s
[1985] propositions). In contrast, disappointment
and relief are thought to depend on the perceived
match between expectations and the actual out-
come; disappointment arises when anticipated
success does not occur, and relief arises when antici-
pated failure does not occur. Finally, pride, shame,
gratitude, and anger are assumed to be instigated by
causal attributions of success and failure to oneself
or others, respectively. Within the control–value
theory, the perceived controllability of success and
failure is posited to trigger these outcome-related
achievement emotions rather than the controllabil-
ity of the causes of success and failure as posited by
Weiner (1985).
Furthermore, the control–value theory proposes
that these outcome-related emotions also depend on
the subjective importance of achievement outcomes,
implying that they are a joint function of perceived
control and value. For instance, students should feel
worried if they judge themselves incapable of pre-
paring for an exam (low controllability) that is
important (high value). In contrast, if students feel
that they are able to prepare successfully (high con-
trollability) or are indifferent about the exam (low
value), their anxiety should be low (for empirical
evidence, see Goetz, Frenzel, Stoeger, & Hall, 2010;
Pekrun, Lichtenfeld, & Maier, 2009).
Regarding activity emotions, enjoyment of
achievement activities is proposed to depend on a
combination of positive competence appraisals and
positive appraisals of the intrinsic value of the action
(e.g., studying) and its reference object (e.g., learn-
ing material). For example, students are expected to
enjoy learning if they feel competent to meet the
demands of the learning task and value the learning
13
Pekrun and Stephens
material. If students feel incompetent or are uninter-
ested in the material, studying is not enjoyable.
Anger and frustration are aroused when the intrinsic
value of the activity is negative (e.g., when working
on a difficult project is perceived as taking too much
effort, which is experienced as aversive). Finally,
boredom is experienced when the activity lacks any
intrinsic incentive value (see Pekrun et al., 2010).
Automatic emotion arousal. It is important to
note that appraisal theories do not imply that aca-
demic emotions are always mediated by conscious
appraisals. Rather, it can be expected that recur-
ring appraisal-based induction of emotions can
become automatic and nonreflective over time.
When academic activities are repeated over and over
again, appraisals and the induction of emotions can
become routinized to the extent that there is no lon-
ger any conscious mediation of emotions—or any
cognitive mediation at all (Pekrun, 2006; Reisenzein,
2001). In the procedural emotion schemata estab-
lished by routinization, situation perception and
emotion are directly linked such that perceptions
can automatically induce the emotion (e.g., the mere
smell of a chemistry lab inducing joy). However,
when the situation changes or attempts are made to
change the emotion (as in psychotherapy), apprais-
als come into play again.
Gender and Achievement Goals as Distal
Individual Antecedents of Emotions
To the extent that cognitive appraisals are the proxi-
mal determinants of academic emotions, more distal
individual antecedents should affect these emotions
by first influencing appraisals (Figure 1.1; Pekrun,
2006). Two individual variables that have gained
empirical attention are students’ gender and their
achievement goals.
Gender. Test anxiety research has accumulated
an impressive body of evidence showing that test
anxiety scores are generally higher for female than
for male students (Hembree, 1988; Zeidner, 1998).
Similarly, anxiety in school subjects such as math-
ematics has been found to be higher for female stu-
dents (Hyde, Fennema, Ryan, Frost, & Hopp, 1990).
For emotions other than anxiety, the evidence is
quite limited. Regarding emotions in mathematics,
14
Frenzel et al. (2007a) found that female students
reported less enjoyment, pride, and boredom than
male students, but more anxiety, hopelessness, and
shame. Students’ appraisals also differed between
genders, with female students reporting lower
competence appraisals and lower perceived value
of mathematics. Notably, in line with the proposed
proximal function of appraisals, the gender dif-
ferences in emotions were mediated by these dif-
ferences in appraisals. This finding suggests that
appraisals are of critical importance for explaining
gender differences in academic emotions. As such,
educators should benefit by attending to female stu-
dents’ appraisals in mathematics and related subjects
to help them ameliorate maladaptive patterns of
emotions in these subjects.
Achievement goals. Achievement goals are viewed
as the competence-relevant aims for which individu-
als strive in achievement settings (Elliot, 2005).
These goals can relate to different definitions of
achievement provided by (a) intraindividual stan-
dards of improvement in performance over time and
absolute criteria of task mastery (i.e., mastery goals)
or (b) normative standards comparing performance
across individuals (i.e., performance goals). In addi-
tion, both types of achievement goals can focus on
either approaching success or avoiding failure, thus
rendering four types of goals within a 2 × 2 taxonomy
as proposed by Elliot and McGregor (2001; mastery–
approach, mastery–avoidance, performance–ap-
proach, performance–avoidance).
Because achievement goals are central to achieve-
ment motivation (Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Nich-
olls, 1984), understanding the relationship between
these goals and emotions is of specific importance to
explaining achievement strivings. In a recent exten-
sion of the control–value theory linking achievement
goals to emotions, Pekrun et al. (2006; Pekrun,
Elliot, et al., 2009) argued that mastery–approach
goals focus attention on the perceived controllability
of mastering an activity and the positive value of the
activity itself, thus fostering positive activity emo-
tions such as enjoyment of learning and reducing
negative activity emotions such as boredom (for
mastery–avoidance goals, see Elliot & Pekrun,
2007). In contrast, performance–approach goals
 Academic Emotions

Environment Appraisal Emotion Performance

Cognitive Quality Cognitive

Resources
Control
Motivational Quality
- Expectancies Achievement Interest +
Autonomy Support Emotions Motivation
- Attributions

Goal Structures + - Activity Strategies

Expectations Emotions
Values Self- vs. External
- Outcome
Performance - Intrinsic Regulation
Emotions
- Feedback
- Extrinsic
- Consequences
Performance

Achievement Goals Genes Intelligence

Beliefs Temperament Competences

Appraisal-Oriented Emotion-Oriented Problem-Oriented

Regulation Regulation Regulation
Design of Tasks
and Environments
Emotion-Oriented Competence
Cognitive Treatment
Treatment Training

FIGURE 1.1. Antecedents and outcomes of academic achievement emotions. From

“The Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions: An Integrative Approach to
Emotions in Education,” by R. Pekrun, A. Frenzel, T. Goetz, and R. P. Perry (p. 17). In
P. A. Schutz and R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in Education, 2007, San Diego, CA: Academic
Press. Copyright 2007 by Academic Press. Adapted with permission.

were posited to focus attention on the perceived con-
trollability and positive value of success outcomes,
implying that they should facilitate positive outcome
emotions such as hope and pride. Performance–
avoidance goals were posited to focus attention on
the perceived uncontrollability and negative value of
failure outcomes, suggesting that they should evoke
negative outcome emotions such as anxiety, shame,
and hopelessness. The available evidence is largely in
line with these propositions (Daniels et al., 2009;
Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002; Mouratidis et al.,
2009; Pekrun et al. 2006; Pekrun, Elliot, et al., 2009).
As a whole, research on achievement goals and
emotions has led to the conclusion that educators
should encourage students to pursue mastery goals
and that they should discourage students from pur-
suing performance–avoidance goals, but not neces-
sarily performance–approach goals, in the classroom.
Influence of Academic Environments
The impact of learning environments on students’
emotions has largely been unexplored, except for
research on the antecedents of test anxiety (for
reviews, see Wigfield & Eccles, 1990; Zeidner, 1998,

15
Pekrun and Stephens
2007). Classroom composition and the design of
classroom instruction and exams, as well as goal
structures, expectancies, and reactions in students’
social environments, have been found to play a sig-
nificant role in students’ anxiety.
Classroom composition. The ability level of the
classroom determines the likelihood of performing
well relative to one’s classmates. All things being
equal, chances for performing well in the classroom
are higher in low-ability classrooms, thus students’
self-concepts of ability tend to be higher in low-abil-
ity classrooms. By implication, it may be preferable
to be a big fish in a little pond than to be a member
of a classroom of gifted students (Marsh, 1987; see
Volume 1, Chapter 15, this handbook). Because
negative self-evaluations of competence can trigger
anxiety of failure, the big-fish-little-pond effect of
classroom ability level on self-concept can prompt
similar effects on students’ anxiety. In fact, students’
test anxiety has been found to be higher in high-
ability classrooms than in low-ability classrooms
(e.g., Preckel, Zeidner, Goetz, & Schleyer, 2008).
Classroom instruction and exams. Lack of struc-
ture and clarity in classroom instruction as well as
excessive task demands are associated with students’
elevated test anxiety (Zeidner, 1998, 2007). These
links are likely mediated by students’ expectancies
of low control and failure (Pekrun, 1992a). This
also applies to exams, whereby lack of structure
and transparency have been shown to contrib-
ute to students’ anxiety (e.g., lack of information
regarding demands, materials, grading practices).
Furthermore, the format of test items has been
found to be relevant. For instance, open-ended for-
mats as implied, for example, by essay questions
induce more anxiety than multiple-choice for-
mats (Zeidner, 1987) because open-ended formats
require more attentional resources (i.e., working
memory capacity). As mentioned earlier, attentional
resources may be compromised as a result of anxi-
ety-induced worrying, resulting in more experienced
threat in anxious students. The use of multiple-
choice formats can reduce these effects. In addition,
practices such as permitting students to choose
between test items, relaxing time constraints, and
giving second chances (e.g., opportunities to retake
16
a test) have been found to reduce test anxiety, pre-
sumably because perceived control and achievement
expectancies are enhanced under these conditions.
Beyond anxiety, a handful of studies have inves-
tigated relationships between classroom instruction
and students’ positive emotions. For example, teacher-
centered instruction that emphasizes rigid drilling
and exercise has been found to relate negatively to
students’ enjoyment of task accomplishment and
general positive emotional attitudes toward school
(Stipek, Feiler, Daniels, & Milburn, 1995; Valeski &
Stipek, 2001). In contrast, the cognitive quality of
instruction in terms of structure and clarity, and
tasks oriented toward creative mental modeling as
opposed to algorithmic routine procedures, have
been found to correlate positively with students’
enjoyment of learning in the study by Pekrun, vom
Hofe, et al. (2007). In addition, in this study support
for students’ learning-related autonomy also corre-
lated positively with students’ enjoyment. Finally,
teachers’ own enjoyment and enthusiasm during
teaching has been found to relate positively to stu-
dents’ enjoyment, suggesting transmission of posi-
tive emotions from teachers to students (Frenzel
et al., 2009; Stipek et al., 1998).
Goal structures and social expectations. Different
standards for defining achievement can imply indi-
vidualistic (mastery), competitive (normative),
or cooperative goal structures in the classroom
(Johnson & Johnson, 1974). The goal structures
provided in achievement settings conceivably influ-
ence emotions in two ways. First, to the extent
that students adopt these structures, they influence
individual achievement goals (Murayama & Elliot,
2009; Urdan & Schoenfelder, 2006) and any emo-
tions mediated by these goals (Kaplan & Maehr,
1999; Roeser, Midgley, & Urdan, 1996). Second,
goal structures determine relative opportunities
for experiencing success and perceiving control,
thus influencing control-dependent emotions.
Specifically, competitive goal structures imply that
some students have to experience failure, thus
inducing negative outcome emotions such as anxi-
ety and hopelessness in these students. In line with
this reasoning, empirical research has shown that
competition in classrooms is positively related to

students’ test anxiety (Zeidner, 1998). Similarly, if
teachers’ and parents’ expectations for achievement
are excessively high, students’ sense of control and
expectancies for success can be reduced, thus also
contributing to negative emotions such as anxiety,
shame, and hopelessness (Pekrun, 1992a).
In contrast, a cooperative classroom climate and
social support provided by parents and teachers
often fail to correlate with students’ test anxiety
scores (Hembree, 1988). This surprising lack of cor-
relation may result from well-meaning teachers and
parents whose attempts to support students actually
increase pressure to perform, thus counteracting any
beneficial effects of support, or from negative feed-
back loops between support and anxiety. In the lat-
ter case, social support may alleviate anxiety
(negative effect of support on anxiety; also see Sara-
son, 1981); however, anxiety may have provoked
support in the first place (positive effect of anxiety
on demanding support; e.g., Stoeber, 2004), thus
negating any correlational relationship between the
two variables.
Feedback and consequences of achievement.
Cumulative success can strengthen perceived con-
trol, and cumulative failure can undermine control.
In environments involving frequent assessments,
performance feedback is likely of primary impor-
tance for the arousal of achievement emotions. In
addition, the perceived consequences of success and
failure are important because these consequences
affect the value of achievement outcomes. Positive
outcome emotions (e.g., hope for success) can be
increased if success produces beneficial long-term
outcomes (e.g., acceptance to an esteemed univer-
sity), provided sufficient contingency between one’s
own efforts, success, and these outcomes. Negative
consequences of failure such as unemployment,
however, may increase achievement-related anxiety
and hopelessness (Pekrun, 1992a).
Development Across the School Years
Emotions related to achievement evolve early and
show continuous development across the life span.
These emotions emerge as a joint function of learn-
ing environments and emerging capabilities to
appraise ability and achievement. Between 2 and
Academic Emotions
3 years of age, children are able to express pride and
shame when successfully solving tasks or failing to
do so, suggesting that they are able to differentiate
internal versus external causation of success and
failure. During the early elementary school years,
children additionally acquire capabilities to distin-
guish between different types of internal and exter-
nal causes, such as ability versus effort; to develop
related causal expectancies; and to cognitively com-
bine expectancies, attributions, and value-related
information (Heckhausen, 1991). By implication,
early in their academic career students have devel-
oped the cognitive competencies to experience all
major types of achievement emotions.
Empirical evidence on the development of these
emotions in school is scarce. Again, test anxiety stud-
ies are an exception. These studies have shown that
average scores for test anxiety are low at the begin-
ning of elementary school but increase dramatically
during the elementary school years (Hembree, 1988).
This development is congruent with the decline in
academic self-concepts during this period and is
likely the result of increasing realism in academic
self-perceptions and the cumulative failure feedback
students may receive across the school years. After
elementary school, average anxiety scores stabilize
and remain at high levels throughout middle school,
high school, and college. However, stability at the
group level notwithstanding, anxiety can change in
individual students. One important source of indi-
vidual dynamics is the change of reference groups
implied by transitions between schools and class-
rooms (Zeidner, 1998). As noted earlier, all things
being equal, the likelihood of low achievement rela-
tive to peers is higher in high-ability classrooms and
lower in low-ability classrooms. Therefore, moving
from a low-ability to a high-ability classroom can
increase anxiety, whereas the reverse may apply
upon entering a low-ability classroom.
While anxiety increases in the average student,
positive emotions such as enjoyment of learning
seem to decrease across the elementary school years
(Helmke, 1993). The decrease in enjoyment can
continue through the middle school years (Pekrun,
vom Hofe, et al., 2007), which is consistent with the
decline of average scores for subject-matter interest
and general attitudes toward school (e.g., Fredricks &
17
Pekrun and Stephens
Eccles, 2002; Watt, 2004). Important factors respon-
sible for this development may be an increase in
teacher-centered instruction and academic demands
in middle school, competition between academic and
nonacademic interests in adolescence, and the stron-
ger selectivity of subject-matter interest that is part of
adolescent identity formation (Eccles & Roeser,
2011; Fredricks & Eccles, 2002; also see Hidi & Ren-
ninger, 2006). However, to date these assumptions
are speculative because empirical studies testing their
validity for emotions are largely lacking.
Summary
Appraisal theories and related empirical evidence
suggest that competence appraisals, achievement-
related expectancies and attributions, and the per-
ceived value of learning and achievement are
primary determinants of students’ academic emo-
tions. Furthermore, research has shown that gender
and achievement goals can influence students’ emo-
tions. Research on social origins indicates that
classroom composition, classroom instruction, goal
structures, performance feedback, and the conse-
quences of performance are also important anteced-
ents. Finally, developmental evidence shows that
average test anxiety scores increase during the ele-
mentary school years and tend to remain at rela-
tively high levels thereafter, whereas scores for
academic enjoyment tend to decline. However, for
academic emotions other than achievement anxiety,
the related evidence is scarce. Perhaps most impor-
tant, more research on the origins of students’
activity-related and epistemic emotions such as
enjoyment, curiosity, confusion, or boredom expe-
rienced during learning is clearly needed.
EMOTION REGULATION, COPING,
AND THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL
COMPETENCIES
As argued up to this point, positive emotions can
facilitate academic success, whereas excessive nega-
tive emotions can impede students’ learning and
educational careers. By implication, emotion regula-
tion in academic settings generally (but not always)
implies strengthening or maintaining positive
emotions and decreasing or preventing negative
18
emotions. Specifically, if negative emotions impede
higher order goals, such as recurring test anxiety
perpetually hindering academic achievement,
attempts can be made to regulate these emotions.
Regulation of negative emotions, and of stressful sit-
uations that tax or exceed individual capabilities, is
referred to as coping in the emotion literature
(Zeidner & Endler, 1996). More severe emotional
problems warrant the help of a professional thera-
pist (treatment of academic emotions). Further-
more, psychologists and educators can regulate
students’ emotions by shaping educational practices,
such as the design of tasks and learning environ-
ments, in beneficial ways. In this section, we discuss
emotion regulation, coping, and the role of emo-
tional competencies for dealing with emotions.
Implications for educational classroom practices and
treatment are addressed in the next section.
Emotion Regulation and Coping
Although academic emotions influence students’
motivation and performance, performance outcomes
can influence appraisals, emotions, and the environ-
ment in return (Pekrun, 2006; see Figure 1.1). As
such, academic emotions, their antecedents, and
their effects are expected to be linked by reciprocal
causation over time, which implies that emotions
can be regulated and changed by addressing any of
the elements involved in these cyclic feedback pro-
cesses (also see Gross & John, 2003). More specifi-
cally, managing one’s own emotions can be done by
targeting the symptoms of the emotion (emotion-
oriented regulation), by changing underlying
appraisals (appraisal-oriented regulation), by chang-
ing the learning environment (selection and design
of environments), or by acquiring competencies to
study more efficiently, thus making it possible to
experience the emotional benefits of ensuing aca-
demic success (problem-oriented regulation;
Pekrun, 2006; Figure 1.1).
To date, little is known about students’ emotion
regulation in an academic context. The only major
exception is research on coping with test anxiety.
Coping with anxiety has been addressed by Lazarus
and Folkman’s (1984, 1987) transactional stress
model, cited earlier. In this model, appraising a situa-
tion as taxing or exceeding one’s own capabilities

(i.e., threat appraisal) is assumed to induce test anxi-
ety, and anxiety is thought to lead to attempts to reg-
ulate this emotion, the stress that caused it, or both.
Subsequently, several other taxonomies addressing
coping with negative emotions, in particular coping
with test anxiety, have been proposed (see e.g., Davis,
DiStefano, & Schutz, 2008; Kondo, 1997; Raffety,
Smith, & Ptacek, 1997; Zeidner, 1995). Basic to most
of these conceptions is the differentiation among
(a) problem-oriented coping, (b) emotion-oriented
and appraisal-oriented coping, and (c) avoidant cop-
ing (Zeidner & Endler, 1996; for a critical view, see
Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003).
Problem-oriented coping entails active attempts to
change the situation that causes subjective stress
and negative emotions. In exam-related situations,
problem-oriented coping involves investing effort
and using strategies for learning and problem solv-
ing while studying and taking exams. Problem-
oriented coping related to exams can have adverse
effects, such as increased situational anxiety,
because dealing with exam material can arouse
thoughts about the upcoming exam (Bolger, 1990).
For most students, however, the long-term benefi-
cial effects related to preparing and improving one’s
competencies, such as increased control beliefs,
improved academic performance, and decreased
anxiety, likely outweigh any negative situational
effects (see, e.g., Zeidner, 1995, for positive effects
on students’ academic performance). Problem-
oriented coping can also be used to deal with aca-
demic emotions other than anxiety. Sansone, Weir,
Harpster, and Morgan (1992) have shown that strat-
egies such as self-modifying tasks to make them
more interesting can help alleviate students’ task-
induced boredom.
Emotion-oriented and appraisal-oriented coping is
aimed at directly changing unpleasant emotions,
including attempts to actively modify the symptoms
of these emotions. Typical strategies include (a) anx-
iety reduction by means of alcohol, nicotine, or phar-
maceutical consumption or by means of relaxation
techniques; (b) reduction of emotional tension by
simply accepting anxiety and the possibility of fail-
ure (“secondary control”; Morling & Evered, 2006;
Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982); (c) induction of
positive, anxiety-incompatible emotions (e.g., by
Academic Emotions
using humor, music, or emotional support from oth-
ers); and (d) cognitively reappraising the situation as
more controllable or less subjectively important.
Although many of these strategies may effectively
reduce negative emotions, some clearly have nega-
tive side effects, such as reduced achievement or
compromised health.
Avoidance-oriented coping implies behaviorally or
mentally escaping from a stress-inducing situation.
Examples include effort withdrawal and searching
for mental distraction by focusing attention on task-
irrelevant contents; procrastination, prolonged
breaks, and ceasing preparation; and truancy, exam
avoidance, and prematurely quitting study programs.
Like emotion-oriented coping, these strategies can
reduce one’s immediate anxiety; however, the side
effects can be severe. First, consciously avoiding the
experience of anxiety can lead to a detrimental
increase in less-conscious emotional arousal on a
physiological level, as indicated by increased blood
pressure and elevated cortisol levels (e.g., Spangler et
al., 2002). Moreover, although these strategies may
temporarily reduce anxiety, the underlying factors
contributing to the experience of anxiety, such as
low perceived control, go untreated. Finally, all of
these strategies can clearly be detrimental to stu-
dents’ learning and future career prospects.
Emotional Competencies
The arousal and regulation of emotions depends on
the joint action of situational factors and individual
competencies. Relevant competencies include abili-
ties to generate, recognize, evaluate, increase or
decrease, and make use of one’s own emotions. In
addition, the ability to recognize and manage others’
emotions is important. Relevant to these competen-
cies are factors such as cognitive abilities to process
emotion-relevant information; neurophysiological
processes involved in the decoding of emotional
stimuli and the control of one’s emotions; and moti-
vational competencies to initiate and perform regu-
latory actions. As such, a broad variety of abilities,
both cognitive and noncognitive, constitute an indi-
vidual’s emotional competencies.
Despite the diversity of these abilities, the term
emotional intelligence is often used to denote compe-
tencies to generate and regulate emotions. Obviously,
19
Pekrun and Stephens
this term may imply an overinclusive use of the term
intelligence because this term is commonly used to
denote cognitive rather than noncognitive abilities
(see Chapter 2, this volume). Further adding to the
ambiguity of the concept, authors such as Goleman
(1995) and Bar-On (1997), who made emotional
intelligence a popular topic in the 1990s, often used
the term to denote an even broader array of individ-
ual dispositions, including various kinds of traitlike
variables that can directly or indirectly relate to an
individual’s emotional agency (for a detailed critique,
see Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2002; Zeidner,
Roberts, & Matthews, 2008). For example, Bar-On’s
(1997, 2000) concept of emotional intelligence
includes, among others, emotional self-awareness,
assertiveness, self-regard, self-actualization, indepen-
dence, empathy, social responsibility, problem solv-
ing, reality testing, flexibility, happiness, and
optimism. Conceptions of this kind seem more simi-
lar to concepts of personality than to a circumscribed
set of competencies specifically related to emotion.
Using the term emotional intelligence to denote
cognitive abilities to recognize, manage, and use emo-
tions—as proposed by, for example, Mayer, Salovey,
and Caruso (2000)—may invoke fewer misunder-
standings. In the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso model of
emotional intelligence, four sets of cognitive abilities
are addressed: (a) emotional perception and identifi-
cation related to abilities to encode emotional infor-
mation, (b) emotional facilitation of thought
involving abilities to use one’s emotions for thinking
and cognitive problem solving, (c) emotional under-
standing related to the evaluation of emotional infor-
mation, and (d) emotion management involving
abilities to manage one’s own emotions and the emo-
tions of others. Although this conception may involve
capabilities beyond the cognitive domain (specifically
so regarding emotion management competencies),
the focus is clearly on cognitive abilities, thus justify-
ing use of the term intelligence. In line with the abili-
ty-oriented nature of the conception, Mayer and
colleagues developed a performance test measuring
the proposed set of abilities, the current version being
the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence
Test (MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002).
Given that emotions affect students’ academic
performance and that the regulation of these
20
emotions likely depends on emotional competen-
cies, measures such as the MSCEIT should be able
to predict academic achievement over and above
IQ or prior achievement. In fact, some proponents
of emotional intelligence have stated that emo-
tional intelligence should be as, or even more,
important for predicting academic achievement
than general cognitive abilities (Goleman, 1995).
However, to date, research testing this proposition
is quite limited and has failed to demonstrate a
clear link between emotional intelligence and stu-
dents’ achievement. Although some studies found a
significantly positive, though weak, association
between these variables (e.g., Brackett, Mayer, &
Warner, 2004; Di Fabio & Palazzeschi, 2009), oth-
ers found null relations, in particular when con-
trolling for general cognitive abilities (e.g.,
Amelang & Steinmayr, 2006; Newsome, Day, &
Catano, 2000; Rossen & Kranzler, 2009). Thus, it
seems doubtful that current measures of emotional
intelligence possess any explanatory power over
and above general IQ.
However, in interpreting this evidence, one has
to take into account that the extant research on stu-
dents’ emotional intelligence is plagued with prob-
lems similar to those of research on academic
emotions more generally. Many of the existing stud-
ies have used small, nonrepresentative convenience
samples, measures of doubtful psychometric qual-
ity, and cross-sectional study designs lacking a clear
theoretical foundation. As such, it would be prema-
ture to conclude that emotional intelligence is irrel-
evant for academic achievement. Rather, it remains
a challenge for future research to demonstrate how
students’ emotional intelligence, and their emotion-
related competencies more generally, affect learning
and performance. In so doing, it would be especially
important to analyze the mechanisms that can medi-
ate the effects of emotional competencies (Kafetsios &
Zampetakis, 2008), including the impact of these
competencies on students’ daily academic emotions
and emotion regulation.
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
As outlined in this chapter, research on students’
emotions in academic settings has been slow to

emerge (Schutz & Pekrun, 2007). During the past
10 years, however, studies examining the nature of
students’ emotions have increased. These studies
have produced new insights and demonstrated that
emotions profoundly affect students’ engagement,
performance, and personality development, also
implying that they are of critical importance for the
agency of educational institutions and of society at
large. At the same time, however, the studies con-
ducted thus far seem to pose more new, challenging
questions than they can answer. Theories, strate-
gies, and measures for analyzing these emotions
have yet to be fully developed. Also, there have not
yet been enough studies done to allow any meta-an-
alytic synthesis based on cumulative evidence or
any firm conclusions informing practitioners in val-
idated ways how to deal with emotions, evidence
on test anxiety being an exception. The progress
made so far is promising, but much more has to be
done if research on academic emotions is to evolve
over the next years in ways benefiting education
and society.
As such, numerous challenges exist for future
research, including integrating seemingly disparate
emotion concepts within psychology and the social
sciences, exploring how academic emotions vary
cross-culturally and within educational systems,
assessing how these emotions change and evolve
over time, integrating neuroaffective perspectives
into educational research, and developing interven-
tions to optimize emotional experiences in academic
contexts. We focus on the latter two directions in
the next sections (see Pekrun & Schutz, 2007, for a
more comprehensive analysis).
Making Use of Neuroscientific
Perspectives
Emotions are deeply embedded in the human brain.
Neuroscientific research has made substantial prog-
ress in analyzing relevant brain structures during
the past 20 years. The limbic system (specifically,
the amygdala and hippocampus) and its connections
to other parts of the brain (e.g., the frontal lobe
responsible for executive control processes) have
been identified as central to emotion and its impact
on thinking, decision making, learning, and memory
(Davidson, Pizzagalli, Nitschke, & Kalin, 2003).
Academic Emotions
Educational psychology, however, has to date virtu-
ally ignored the progress made in this field.
Neuroscientific approaches can be used by edu-
cational emotion research in several ways. First,
neuroscientific research has important implications
for conceptualizing and assessing academic emo-
tions. For example, affective neuroscience has
shown that emotional processes are often implicit
and can occur without awareness (e.g., Öhman &
Soares, 1998), suggesting that self-reported assess-
ment of emotion needs to be complemented by mea-
sures of implicit emotional processes. Second,
neuroscientific research has provided indicators suit-
able to assess the effects of emotions on cognitive
processes and learning. For example, neuroimaging
methods such as electroencephalography and func-
tional MRI help in tracking the effects of emotional
states on attention and cognitive problem solving
during learning. Finally, affective neuroscience also
allows an analysis of the physiological mechanisms
of individual emotional problems such as excessive
anxiety experienced in achievement settings.
By implication, there is a clear need to integrate
neuroaffective perspectives into educational research.
However, when doing so, the limitations of these per-
spectives should also be kept in mind. Learning at
school involves the formal acquisition of culturally
defined, systematic knowledge. Formal learning fol-
lows its own logic and cannot simply be explained by
brain mechanisms based on biological evolution;
rather, the contents and contexts of learning also
have to be taken into account (Blakemore & Frith,
2005). By implication, to explain the role of emotions
in school learning, an analysis of the contents of stu-
dents’ emotions, their cognitive and social anteced-
ents, and their functions for formal learning and
performance is needed, which cannot be provided by
perspectives from affective neuroscience alone.
Need for Intervention Research on
Emotions in Academic Settings
The vast research on test anxiety has provided
evidence-based principles regarding how to alleviate
students’ anxiety (Zeidner, 1998), but it is still largely
open to question what can be done to reduce stu-
dents’ boredom, anger, shame, or hopelessness and to
foster their hope, pride, and enjoyment of learning.
21
Pekrun and Stephens
Concerning these emotions, empirical research can-
not yet provide firm, evidence-based conclusions on
how to design learning environments and educational
systems in “emotionally sound” ways (Astleitner,
2000, p. 169). By implication, we need more interven-
tion studies demonstrating the ways in which educa-
tors, parents, and the organization of schooling can
influence students’ emotions.
To date, the few available intervention studies on
emotions other than test anxiety have met with only
partial success (e.g., Gläser-Zikuda, Fuss, Lauken-
mann, Metz, & Randler, 2005; Kim & Hodges, in
press), meaning that creating affectively sound envi-
ronments will not be an easy task. The success story
of test anxiety research, however, suggests that it
will be possible to generate usable knowledge for
emotions other than anxiety as well. Furthermore,
research has shown that related variables, such as
students’ interest and motivation, can be successfully
influenced in the classroom (Hulleman & Harackie-
wicz, 2009; Ruthig, Perry, Hall, & Hladkyj, 2004;
see Chapter 7, this volume), suggesting that it will
likely prove possible to design emotionally effective
learning environments and interventions targeting
various academic emotions in the near future.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: DESIGN
OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND
TREATMENT OF EMOTIONS
What can teachers and parents do to foster students’
adaptive emotions and prevent maladaptive emo-
tions? As noted, research on academic emotions is
clearly at a nascent stage. Nevertheless, the extant
research has a number of implications for psycho-
logical and educational practice. Specifically, beyond
students’ individual attempts to regulate their aca-
demic emotions, these emotions can be influenced
by shaping tasks and learning environments in ade-
quate ways. Furthermore, in the case of more severe
individual problems, therapy can be used to improve
students’ affective well-being in academic settings.
Tasks, Teacher Behavior, and Learning
Environments
It is the responsibility of educators and administra-
tors to shape school environments to foster students’
22
academic development and health, including their
emotional approaches to learning. However, in
deriving practical recommendations regarding how
to foster students’ adaptive emotions and prevent or
reduce maladaptive emotions, one should keep in
mind that cumulative evidence exists for students’
test anxiety, whereas the evidence for academic
emotions other than anxiety is still quite limited. By
necessity, evidence-based recommendations to date
primarily pertain to influencing students’ anxiety,
whereas recommendations for emotions other than
anxiety are less firmly based on empirical findings.
The following groups of factors may be especially
important for consideration in educational practice.
Cognitive quality of tasks and instruction.
Raising the cognitive quality of instruction and task
assignments should increase students’ sense of con-
trol, thus positively influencing their achievement
emotions. Improving facets of instruction such as
clarity, structure, and the quality of examples can
be assumed to contribute to students’ competence
acquisition and related perceptions of control. The
same applies to task assignments. From an affective
perspective, cognitively activating material is prefer-
able to less activating material (e.g., mathematical
tasks oriented toward mental modeling vs. algorith-
mic tasks involving technical routine procedures).
The level of task demands implied by instruction
and assignments is important as well and likely
influences students’ emotions in two ways. First,
demands determine the difficulty of learning mate-
rial, thus influencing students’ chances for master-
ing the material and resulting control perceptions
and emotions. Second, the relative match between
demands and individual capabilities can influence
the student’s perceived value of the material. As pos-
ited by the control–value theory of achievement
emotions (Pekrun, 2006), if demands are too high
or too low, task values can be reduced to the extent
that boredom is experienced.
Similarly, from the perspective of instigating
epistemic emotions, cognitive quality and task
demands are also critically important. Tasks should
imply demands that students can ultimately meet,
yet that simultaneously challenge their existing cog-
nitive schemas, which should result in the arousal of

surprise, curiosity, and productive confusion, possi-
bly prompting conceptual change (Craig et al.,
2008).
Motivational quality of tasks and instruction.
The control–value theory (Pekrun, 2006) proposes
that positive values of academic engagement and
achievement should be fostered, and negative values
should be prevented, to facilitate adaptive emotions.
Teachers and peers deliver direct verbal messages
about academic values and more indirect messages
conveyed by their behavior and by the learning assign-
ments provided to students. Two important ways to
foster students’ academic values include the following.
First, the development of values can be promoted
by shaping instructional material, assigned tasks,
and classroom interaction such that they meet stu-
dents’ needs (Krapp, 2005). Examples are authentic
learning tasks and classroom discourse that engages
all students such that needs for social relatedness are
met. Second, by way of observational learning and
emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rap-
son, 1994), teachers’ own enthusiasm in dealing
with academic material likely facilitates students’
absorption of values and positive emotions (Frenzel
et al., 2009; J. C. Turner, Meyer, Midgley, & Patrick,
2003). However, to be effective, it is likely impor-
tant that enthusiasm be openly displayed and that
displayed enthusiasm be congruent with experi-
enced emotion rather than just being enacted in
superficial ways.
Autonomy support and teaching for self-regulation.
Learning environments that create demands to
engage in self-regulated learning can also promote
positive emotions. Self-regulation can take place
at the individual level or at the group level (e.g.,
in cooperative learning). As argued earlier, when
the learning environment affords opportunities for
self-regulated learning and when students perceive
themselves as capable of regulating their learn-
ing, positive emotions (e.g., enjoyment) should be
increased for at least two reasons. First, students can
fulfill their need for autonomy and increase their
sense of personal control (Deci & Ryan, 1987). As
compared with individual learning, cooperative self-
regulated learning has the additional advantage of
also serving students’ social needs, which may also
Academic Emotions
contribute to their appreciation of academic engage-
ment. Second, students can select and organize
learning material to meet their individual interests,
thus increasing the subjective value of the course
and course material (e.g., Sansone et al., 1992).
However, for self-regulated learning to be emo-
tionally effective, an important requirement is that
students are in fact competent to self-direct their
learning. If students are unable to regulate their
learning, negative emotions may be promoted
because of perceived loss of control, thus highlight-
ing the need to fine tune the affordances and con-
straints of these learning environments to students’
regulatory capabilities (see also Buff, Reusser,
Rakoczy, & Pauli, 2011).
Goal structures, grading practices, and achieve-
ment expectations. The goal structures of the
classroom define students’ opportunities to attain
success and avoid failure (Johnson & Johnson,
1974). In individualistic goal structures, achieve-
ment is defined by individual competence gain
(individual standard of evaluation) or by mastery
of the learning material (absolute standard). Under
such structures, individual achievement is inde-
pendent of other students’ attainment, meaning
that all students can attain success provided that
sufficient progress is made. In contrast, in competi-
tive goal structures, achievement is defined by nor-
mative standards, making individual achievement
dependent on the relative attainment of others. In
competitive structures, the achievement of differ-
ent students is negatively linked because success of
some students implies failure of others. By implica-
tion, only some students may expect success, and
others must expect failure. In cooperative goal struc-
tures, achievement is defined by the performance
of the group, implying that attainment is positively
linked across individuals.
Different goal structures give students different
opportunities to experience success, thus likely
affecting their perceived control and emotions. For
the average student, opportunities for perceived con-
trol may be higher under individualistic and cooper-
ative goal structures, as compared with competitive
structures. By implication, although competitive
structures can be enjoyable for high-achieving
23
Pekrun and Stephens
students (Frenzel, Pekrun, & Goetz, 2007b), their
average emotional effects are likely less beneficial.
As one important consequence, it follows that
teachers should refrain from using social compari-
son standards to assess student achievement. Specifi-
cally, this applies to high-stakes assessment that can
dramatically increase the emotional impact of assess-
ment by making important consequences contingent
on achievement. Grading based on social compari-
son may be necessary for purposes of placement and
selection, implying that the goals of fostering stu-
dent emotions and producing usable information on
student achievement may conflict. However, to the
extent that assessments aim to serve teaching and
learning purposes rather than selection purposes,
criterion-oriented grading pertaining to mastery of
the learning material is likely more recommendable.
Teachers’, parents’, and peers’ individual achieve-
ment expectations can operate in similar ways as the
overall goal structures applied to the classroom.
Social expectations that a specific level of achieve-
ment should be attained also provide definitions of
success and failure, thus influencing perceived con-
trol and the emotions related to success and failure
in students who endorse these expectations. Thus,
to promote perceptions of control and have a posi-
tive impact on the resulting emotions, expectations
should not exceed students’ capabilities, such that
control perceptions and resulting emotions are not
influenced negatively.
Design of tests and exams. As implied by the
evidence on the determinants of test anxiety, struc-
turing exams in appropriate ways can be one of
the most effective, albeit complex, means of foster-
ing adaptive emotions. Drawing on test anxiety
research, measures that increase perceived control,
decrease the importance of failure, or decrease the
impact of anxiety on performance can be benefi-
cial. As noted earlier regarding the design of exams,
these measures include (a) providing structure and
transparency regarding task demands, materials,
exam procedures, and grading practices; (b) avoid-
ing excessively high task demands; (c) relaxing time
constraints; (d) giving students a choice between
tasks; (e) giving students second chances in terms of
retaking tests and exams; (f) providing external aids,
24
such as access to lecture notes, textbooks, or com-
puters; and (g) using closed item formats to ease
working memory load (Zeidner, 1998). Naturally,
some of these measures also have disadvantages.
For example, using highly structured material may
benefit anxious students but may impede less anx-
ious students’ performance. Moreover, using only
multiple-choice items may reduce anxiety but may
preclude the use of item formats that are better
suited to assessing deep-level thinking and creative
problem-solving. As such, educational measures to
reduce students’ anxiety should be counterbalanced
in the context of multiple educational goals.
Consequences of performance. Regarding the
consequences of achievement and the value of aca-
demic success and failure for future outcomes (e.g.,
career opportunities), it should prove helpful to
highlight connections between students’ academic
effort and the attainment of future prospects. Effort–
outcome associations of this type should increase
perceived control, thus strengthening positive and
reducing negative future-related achievement emo-
tions (Pekrun, 2006). To the contrary, should future
desired outcomes not be contingent on students’
academic effort, then students may experience
reduced control and increased negative prospective
emotions such as anxiety or hopelessness.
Treatment of Emotions
Some students may experience excessive negative
emotions or a severe lack of positive emotions in the
classroom that cannot be regulated by teachers, par-
ents, or the student him- or herself. In these cases,
psychological therapy for academic emotions is war-
ranted. To date, the evidence on available options is
limited to therapy for students’ test anxiety. This evi-
dence has shown that individual achievement anxi-
ety is treatable; in fact, some of the treatments for test
anxiety are among the most powerful psychological
therapies available, with effect sizes (d) greater than
1 (Hembree, 1988). Similar to the various kinds of
individual strategies of regulating emotions, different
test anxiety treatments focus on different manifesta-
tions and antecedents of this emotion (Figure 1.1),
including affective–physiological symptoms
(emotion-oriented therapy), cognitive appraisals

(cognitive therapy), and competence deficits caused
by lack of strategies for learning and problem solving
(skills training, competence development; for a
review, see Zeidner, 1998).
Emotion-oriented therapy includes anxiety induc-
tion (e.g., flooding), biofeedback procedures, relax-
ation techniques (e.g., progressive muscle relaxation;
Jacobson, 1938), and systematic desensitization.
Cognitive therapies aim to modify anxiety-inducing
control beliefs, values, and styles of self-related
thinking. Examples are cognitive–attentional train-
ing, cognitive restructuring therapy, and stress inoc-
ulation training. Study skills training teaches
students to understand and use task-oriented learn-
ing strategies and problem-solving skills that pro-
mote academic success and thus decrease anxiety.
Finally, multimodal therapies integrate different pro-
cedures to address different symptoms and anteced-
ents of anxiety within one treatment.
Cognitive and multimodal therapies have proven
especially effective at both reducing achievement
anxiety and enhancing academic performance
(Zeidner, 1998). Study skills training has been
shown to successfully reduce anxiety in students
with deficits in their learning strategies. Consistent
with the preceding arguments, therapy focused
exclusively on emotion-oriented procedures has
been shown to successfully reduce anxiety but has
proven less effective at improving academic achieve-
ment. These kinds of therapy address the affective
and physiological components of anxiety but not the
cognitive antecedents and components of anxiety,
such as negative self-appraisals and worries about
failure, that are responsible for the performance-
debilitating effects of this emotion.
CONCLUDING COMMENT
Academic settings abound with emotions. However,
apart from studies examining test anxiety—which
has been a popular construct in psychological
research since the 1950s—research on students’ aca-
demic emotions is clearly in a nascent stage; educa-
tional psychologists are just beginning to
acknowledge the importance of emotions. The frag-
mented research efforts targeting these emotions
need more integration and need to attend to the
Academic Emotions
functions of academic emotions not only for perfor-
mance, but also for students’ social relations, well-
being, and health. Of specific importance, little is
known to date about regulation, treatment, and
design of learning environments targeting academic
emotions other than anxiety. By implication, educa-
tional psychology would be well advised to pay
more attention to the affective sides of students’ aca-
demic development. With the advent of broader
conceptions of human psychological functioning
replacing an exclusive focus on cognitive processes
by also including neuropsychological, emotion-
oriented, and sociocultural perspectives, chances
that educational psychologists consider the emo-
tional aspects of students’ learning and achievement
strivings in academic settings may in fact have
increased.
Despite the paucity of empirical research, how-
ever, theory and the evidence available today make
it possible to derive preliminary recommendations
for educational and psychological practice. As out-
lined in this chapter, learning environments can be
shaped to foster adaptive emotions and reduce mal-
adaptive emotions. The cognitive and motivational
quality of tasks and classroom instruction, auton-
omy support provided by teachers, goal structures
and grading practices in the classroom, as well as
the design of exams and the contingencies between
students’ academic engagement and future outcomes
may be especially important in this respect. Finally,
beyond recommendations for shaping tasks and
learning environments, psychology provides ways to
treat emotional problems in the academic domain,
as best documented for therapy treating students’
test anxiety.
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