Salience of elementary, middle, and high school students’ achievement emotions and antecedents

Theoretical models such as Pekrun’s control-value theory (Pekrun & Perry, 2014) have recently given particular impetus to the research on achievement emotions and their antecedents. Notwithstanding the large amount of studies on these issues, scarce attention has been paid to the use of instruments different from structured data collection techniques, involving also young students. Therefore, we examined individual differences in elementary, middle, and high school students’ achievement emotions and their antecedents, using a qualitative approach to investigate their salience and the relations between them. The subjects were 149 fourth, seventh, and eleventh-graders (55% females), who participated in semi-structured interviews focused on how they usually felt when facing literacy or mathematics, and on their perception of the underlying antecedents that triggered the emotions. A Generalized Linear Mixed Models analysis indicated higher salience of enjoyment and relaxation compared to a range of other positive and negative emotions. There were class level differences in terms of a higher number of spontaneously reported emotions for eleventh-graders compared to younger students. Using a Self-Organizing Maps algorithm, we identified five groups of students, each characterized by a different pattern of emotions. Applying Multiple Correspondence Analysis revealed differences between groups in the pattern of perceived antecedents. Acknowledging limitations, these findings have particular value considering the role played by early emotional competence in predicting later school performance. They also help inform our understanding of children’s “emotional worlds” with a view to providing appropriate support to foster general emotional wellbeing–a central role for schools