Towards emotion awareness tools to support emotion and appraisal regulation in academic contexts

• Published in: Educational technology research and development Vol. 68; no. 1; pp. 269 - 292
• Main Authors: Lavoué, Elise, Kazemitabar, Maedeh, Doleck, Tenzin, Lajoie, Susanne P., Carrillo, Rubiela, Molinari, Gaëlle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-02-2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Attribution Theory; College Students; Computer Science; Education; Educational Strategies; Educational Technology; Emotions; Learning and Instruction; Learning Strategies; Metacognition; Research Article; Self Concept; Self Control; Student Attitudes; Teaching Methods; Technology for Human Learning; Academic context; Causal attributions; Emotion regulation; Quantitative descriptive study; Appraisal regulation; Emotion awareness tool
• ISSN: 1042-1629; 1556-6501
• DOI: 10.1007/s11423-019-09688-x

This paper studies learners’ emotion awareness in university level academic contexts as a first step to help learners regulate their emotions. Existing emotion awareness tools offer little information on learners’ emotions and their antecedents. This study created an emotion-reporting grid for university students based on the emotions they experienced daily. Students were interviewed based on their self-reported grid. A quantitative descriptive analysis of these retrospective interviews was conducted based on Pekrun’s control-value theory of achievement emotions. Student transcripts were analyzed based on the focus of their emotions (retrospective, activity, or prospective), the causes they attribute to their emotions (agent or external circumstances) and how they appraised the situation in which they experienced the emotions (value and control). We discuss the results with regard to the types of emotion-oriented and appraisal-oriented regulation strategies used in learning contexts and draw implications for the design of emotion awareness tools to support emotion regulation processes.