Students’ Self-Regulation of Motivation and Emotion: Same Same but Different?

• In Event: Motivational Regulation Meets Emotional Regulation: Understanding Their Conceptual and Functional Interplay in Academic Settings

Abstract

To date, students’ motivational (MR) and emotional (ER) self-regulation form relatively segregated topics in educational research, despite accumulating evidence for close conceptual and functional relations between motivation and emotion (Meyer & Turner, 2006; Sutter-Brandenberger et al., 2018). Specifically, while motivation and emotion constitute separable constructs that play unique roles in students’ academic experiences (Pekrun, 2023), they are also highly intertwined. Following initial scholarly nudges towards joint perspectives on MR and ER in academic settings (Goetz et al., 2013; Miele & Scholer, 2018; Webster & Hadwin, 2015), this contribution provides an overview of contemporary theoretical stances towards possible intersections between MR and ER in students’ learning. Specifically, this paper examines similarities and differences in assumptions about core properties of MR and ER, including the nature and role of students’ regulatory goals, the degree of consciousness involved in their enactment, and the importance of distinguishing between frequency of strategy use, situation-specific strategy fit, and application quality in assessing regulatory effectiveness. Next, we outline conceptual overlap and differences in commonly distinguished MR and ER strategies based on a comparison of extant taxonomies as well as evidence from half-standardized interviews with open-ended responses (N = 100 university students) as well as a vignette-based questionnaire study (N = 1,466 university students) in which students reported on their use of regulatory strategies for managing motivational and emotional challenges during learning and their envisioned regulatory goals.
Overall, current theorizing and available research suggest that MR and ER share fundamental assumptions about the core nature of regulatory processes (e.g., comparison of current vs. target motivational/emotional states; importance of considering situational specificity in evaluating strategy fit), but also differ, especially regarding the types of regulatory goals considered (MR: focus on instrumental goal of maintaining/increasing motivation to support learning; ER: consideration of hedonic and instrumental goals). They further indicate that many strategies considered in the respective MR and ER literatures may be relevant for managing both motivational and emotional problems of similar origin (i.e., expectancy- or value-related problem), in line with assumptions about the situational-contextual specificity of MR (Engelschalk et al., 2016) and ER (Rottweiler et al., 2018). Findings also suggest that strategies involving cognitive reappraisals of personal competencies or value perceptions form core components of both MR and ER. On the other hand, strategies that may be considered as prototypical examples of ER, such as physiological modulation of feelings (e.g., relaxation), may also be relevant for managing motivation. These patterns imply that many strategies can indeed be viewed as multi-final in the sense that they can fulfill multiple purposes (e.g., hedonic vs. instrumental regulatory goals; see Ben-Eliyahu, 2019, for a similar idea) and that MR and ER strategy taxonomies are largely complementary.
Based on these insights, we will discuss implications for developing integrative perspectives on MR and ER that account for genuine overlap as well as differences between them, as called for in the literature (Goetz et al., 2013; Pekrun & Marsh, 2022), and reflect on directions for future research on MR, ER, and opportunities for supporting students’ self-regulation.

Authors

• Kristina Stockinger, University of Augsburg

• Ulrike Elisabeth Nett, Augsburg University

• Markus Dresel, University of Augsburg