Students' Emotional Reactivity to School-Related Stressors and Academic Achievement: Evidence From Cardiac Vagal Activity

• In Event: 34.030 - Physiology of Emotion in Education: Theory, Methodology, and Insight

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the link between psychophysiological reactivity and school achievement. Specifically, we examined whether basal cardiac vagal tone and changes during an unpleasant emotional event predict academic achievement when controlling for gender and anxiety symptoms.

Theoretical Framework: Cognition and emotion are connected (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007) and their link is documented in educational research (e.g., Pekrun & Linnebrink-Garcia, 2014). Little attention has been devoted, however, to the role of emotional reactivity in school performance (Valiente, Swanson, & Eisenberg, 2012). One way to objectively investigate how an individual emotionally responds to the environment is the use of physiological measures. Cardiac vagal tone is a measure of individual regulation in response to environmental demands (Thayera et al., 2012). Higher basal cardiac vagal tone enables more adaptive responses (Porges, 1992) and is positively related to better performance in cognitive tasks (Marcovitch et al., 2010). Recent studies have shown that when individuals are exposed to stressful situations, or to unpleasant emotion elicitation procedures, their vagal tone decreases (Beauchaine, 2001). This decrease represents the withdrawal of cardiac vagal control and activation of the defensive system (Schwerdtfeger & Derakshan, 2010): The higher the decrease, the greater the emotional regulation (Butler, et al. 2006).
Despite the importance of individual reactivity to unpleasant school-related emotional material, there are virtually no empirical data on the role of cardiac vagal activity in predicting students’ academic achievement.

Method: In fifty-seven students (Mage=12.73, SD=.55) cardiac vagal tone was registered at three time points: T1) while watching a 5-minutes relaxing video-clip (baseline); T2) while watching a 5-minutes video-clip showing a student who is highly distressed because unable to complete a test (emotion elicitation); T3) while quietly sitting 5-minutes (recovery). Academic achievement was measured using students’ cumulative grade for core subjects. Anxiety was assessed with the emotional symptom scale of the SDQ (Goodman, 1997). PANAS (Watson, et al., 1988) was used to assess the effectiveness of the video-clip in inducing an unpleasant emotional state.

Results: From a repeated measures analysis of variance a significant effect of time emerged, F(1, 55)=5.28, p=.008, ƞp2 =.17, with cardiac vagal tone decreasing from baseline (T1) to emotion elicitation (T2), and only slightly increasing during recovery (T3). Students’ decrease in cardiac vagal tone while watching the video-clip is their healthy response to an environmental threat, reflecting emotional regulation. Moreover, the model tested in a linear regression analysis with academic achievement as the DV was significant, R2 =.32, Fchange (1, 56)=25.12, p=.034, and revealed that students’ baseline cardiac vagal tone (ß=.42), and emotional reactivity (=T2- T1) to school-related stressor (ß=.36), predicted achievement.

Scientific and scholarly significance of the study: The study has scientific significance as it provides new insights into the relationship between psychophysiological reactivity and academic achievement. The importance of a higher basal cardiac vagal tone for school success appears clearly. The study has also educational significance for its implications about the importance of taking into account students’ emotional response to unpleasant school-related events and promoting emotional regulation to improve their performance.

Authors

• Sara Scrimin, University of Padova

• Lucia Mason, University of Padova

• Caterina Tornatora, University of Padua