Achievement Emotions¶

Learner Variable · All learner variables
Evidence · 140 claims (92 show a difference, 37 mixed, 11 no difference) · 87 studies (31 associational, 21 causal, 13 review, 10 qualitative, 8 theoretical, 4 design), q1–q4 · 20 of 87 report an effect size · 137 claims rest on one study

Description¶

Achievement emotions are the emotions learners feel about learning activities (enjoyment, boredom, frustration) and about their outcomes (pride, shame, hope, hopelessness). In control-value theory they arise from how much control a learner feels over an activity and how much they value it. Positive activating emotions such as enjoyment go with engagement and achievement, deactivating ones such as boredom with disengagement, and the relationship runs both ways. Anxiety is an achievement emotion with its own page, academic anxiety; enjoyment overlaps with interest.

How strongly it relates to achievement¶

Mathematics. These are correlations across meta-analyses (Breit et al. 2025, a systematic review of 30 meta-analyses; overview [~W]): how strongly learners who differ on this characteristic differ in mathematics achievement, not how much changing it would change achievement. Many of these characteristics are correlated with one another, and the review is about mathematics only.

Enjoyment r = .31, boredom −.28. Claim [+W]

Implications¶

Context¶

Task difficulty, autonomy, relevance and feedback shape what learners feel during learning.

Target Learners¶

Learners who are bored or frustrated in a subject.

Target Learning Objectives¶

Engagement, persistence and achievement.

Claims¶

Academic emotions—enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom—mediate the association between perceived AI-adaptive environments and SRL, accounting for 54.8% of the total effect [+M] — instruction changes it
Adaptive versus non-adaptive ITS condition showed no significant differences in mental effort, subjective difficulty, or enjoyment [-M] — instruction changes it
Affective experience during situated collaborative problem solving is organized around a stable epistemic core linking curiosity, optimism, and confusion with short-range persistence [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Affective reinforcement after a negative alert coincided with stabilization of an ongoing engagement structure, producing a brief affective shift from confusion to reassurance that returned to confusion [~W] — instruction changes it
In a randomised experiment, AI access raised students' enjoyment of learning (p = 0.063) with no statistically detectable effect on self-assessed knowledge or felt effectiveness [+W] — instruction changes it
AI literacy moderates the pathways from perceived AI-adaptive environments to academic emotions, attenuating negative emotional effects among students with higher AI literacy [~M] — instruction changes it
Anxiety and toxic stress from stereotypes, bullying, and exclusionary practices impede learning by preoccupying the brain with worry and fear [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Autonomy, meaningful purpose, and interest improve intrinsic motivation and deeper processing [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Cignition group tutoring produced slightly higher math confidence and enjoyment than control in an RCT [+M] — instruction changes it
Conscientiousness exploratorily moderated the effect of ITS condition on subjective difficulty and enjoyment [~M] — instruction changes it
Dental students in a revised low-stress TBL format reported lower stress and frustration than medical students in the original format, in a non-randomised comparison of two cohorts [+W] — instruction changes it
Early studies of the relationship between anxiety and achievement produced mixed and confusing results [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Emotion dynamics during problem-solving predict learning outcomes in a manner that depends on scaffolding design [~W] — an instructional effect differs with it
Epistemic network analysis linked the PS-GenAI-PF group to negative emotions and higher-order feedback content associations [+M] — instruction changes it
Extrinsic goals are more strongly associated with cheating than intrinsic enjoyment of learning [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Faster CPS groups show stronger transitions among curiosity and optimism, while slower groups show stronger transitions among confusion, conflict, and frustration [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Fear of hope: an acquired aversion to feeling hopeful due to anticipated disappointment may block hopeful engagement [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Frustration under the contingent tutor sat between the answer-on-request assistant and the question-only tutor [+W] — instruction changes it
High-fidelity prototype evaluation found the form-like structure frustrating; a guided progressive-disclosure design replaced it [+M] — instruction changes it
Higher self-reported confusion predicts a much larger negative effect on future performance when learners answer more questions incorrectly [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
Instructors perceive that experiential learning cultivates enjoyment, satisfaction, and self-confidence through peer and community engagement (beauty) [+W] — instruction changes it
Interviewed students described active classrooms as disjointed and frustrating and preferred the fluent passive lecture [+M] — instruction changes it
Learners invest more effort in tasks they perceive as interesting, personally important, or useful to their future goals. [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
LLM-based scoring produced fewer false negatives than Deep Tutor on a balanced test set, which the authors expect would spare students the frustration of correct explanations judged incorrect [+M] — instruction changes it
Mathematics teachers critique ChatGPT-generated generative learning lessons for poor fit to students, boredom, preparation time, missing student-facing materials, mathematical flaws, and required materials [+W] — instruction changes it
Naive hope is negatively related to civic engagement, while existential hope is proposed to be positively associated with it [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
No significant impact of frustration or boredom (or anxiousness, discouragement, distractedness) on practice performance was found [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Perceived enjoyment of GenAI tools is positively associated with in-service teachers' attitudes, perceived ease of use and behavioural intention in a Dominican Republic survey [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Pursuing unrealistic goals can lead to discouragement and frustration, so goals should balance rigor with realism [+W] — instruction changes it
Residual analysis of perception themes showed DD students more likely to report Engaged Understanding and less likely to report Overload/Frustration, though chi-square tests were not significant [-M] — instruction changes it
Student disengagement in adaptive learning platforms is linked to technical problems, boredom with long or irrelevant content, insufficient challenge and feedback, and declining engagement over time [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Student motivation, enjoyment, and engagement are higher in natural learning settings, including spillover to subsequent indoor lessons [+M] — instruction changes it
Students expected acceptance or rejection notifications from all schools they applied to, and the single-best-offer notification design produced confusion and frustration [+M] — instruction changes it
Students exposed to robot storytelling report significantly higher enjoyment than students exposed to robot explanation in a 1-week classroom study [+M] — instruction changes it
Students report higher engagement and motivation with the AI tutor, with comparable enjoyment and growth mindset [-M] — instruction changes it
Students shame themselves, peers, and in one case a faculty member for using AI [+M] — instruction changes it
SupplyNet was rated significantly more immersive, motivating, and enjoyable than the baseline, with engagement showing the most pronounced difference. [+M] — instruction changes it
Teacher self-efficacy is most strongly associated with perceived enjoyment of GenAI tools [+M] — instruction changes it
Text-based emotional expression in student responses showed no statistically significant differences between Emotion ON and OFF conditions [-M] — instruction changes it
Using an LLM debugging assistant boosts a student's confidence and reduces frustration during debugging [+M] — instruction changes it
Math anxiety correlates strongly and negatively with mathematics achievement among third graders [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Children showing high levels of negative externalizing emotions during the challenge task are rated as less socially competent, more hyperactive, and with poorer interpersonal and self-regulatory skills [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Competition was a constant source of enjoyment for math circle participants, with evaluation focused on the task rather than the individual [+M] — instruction changes it
In the higher track, reading enjoyment and sex show main effects on non-leisure readers' school achievement, with enjoyers of both sexes scoring higher [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
In the lower track, reading enjoyment relates to school achievement for girls but not for boys among non-leisure readers [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Observed anxiety expressions during challenging tasks predict lower teacher-rated work-related and self-regulation skills [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Observed interest/arousal during challenging tasks predicts poorer teacher-rated social competence and more hyperactivity: the top third was rated least socially competent, and the top and middle thirds more hyperactive than the bottom third [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Observed motivation indicators predict student-teacher conflict but not closeness: less persistence, greater task competence, and more interest/arousal predict greater conflict [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Observed shame expressions during challenging tasks predict greater teacher-rated social competence, work-related skills, and academic skills [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
The prevalent direction of the Grade 3 anxiety-performance link runs from math anxiety to performance, not the reverse [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Academically low-achieving students in Knowledge Building demonstrated high joy and low frustration and boredom, with emotions transitioning to similar states [+M] — instruction changes it
Danmaku questions elicit rapid co-answering and co-confusion, while discussion-board questions often go unanswered or support multi-round elaboration [+M] — instruction changes it
In over 60% of inquiry threads of low-achieving students, curiosity was followed by confusion, and joy or confusion by curiosity (sequential patterns, not shown causes) [+M] — instruction changes it
Low-achieving students in Knowledge Building predominantly expressed joy, with low percentages of frustration and boredom [+M] — instruction changes it
Low-achieving students' emotions in Knowledge Building threads tended to transition to the same or similar emotions [+M] — instruction changes it
Attending a game session rather than a lecture increased all epistemic emotions except boredom among university students in a Diplomacy-based international relations course. [~M] — instruction changes it
During the course, curiosity, enjoyment, confusion and anxiety decreased over time, boredom increased, and surprise and frustration remained stationary. [~M] — instruction changes it
Perceived teacher support in the hypothesis and experimentation phases correlated positively with post-test achievement in both groups; argumentation-support and enjoyment correlations emerged only across the pooled sample [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Students whose anxiety, surprise or enjoyment decreased over the course achieved more positive learning-outcome change than students with stable trajectories in those emotions. [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
The session-type-by-time interaction showed anxiety increasing in game sessions while decreasing in lectures, and confusion declining more steeply in game sessions. [~M] — instruction changes it
Example–problem pairs raise perceived competence but not perceived autonomy or enjoyment [-M] — instruction changes it
Boredom is the only achievement emotion predicting English vocabulary growth in primary school L2 learners; enjoyment and anxiety show no significant effect [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
English vocabulary correlates with confidence and metacognitive control at both time points but with monitoring accuracy only at T0, and with only the negative emotions boredom and anxiety at T1 [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Epistemic beliefs, prior knowledge, and the think-aloud emotion of anger jointly predict low-epistemic processing during reading of the other-side text [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
The think-aloud emotion of sadness and prior knowledge predict coherence-based processing during reading of the other-side text [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Greater anger, hopelessness, and negative emotions overall during reading are associated with poorer text comprehension, while positive emotions show no relation [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Stronger positive emotions are associated with less underconfident postdictions, and anxiety and shame with more underconfident postdictions [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Stronger positive emotions are associated with more overconfident predictions, and stronger negative emotions (anxiety, shame, hopelessness) with more underconfident predictions [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Students also use achievement emotions as cues when making postdictions about their comprehension [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Students use positive and negative achievement emotions as cues when making predictions about their comprehension [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Three emotion profiles (positive, neutral, negative) differ in prediction and postdiction magnitude and accuracy, with the positive group most overconfident in predictions and least underconfident in postdictions [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Experienced effort-by-need frustration is neither a necessary requirement nor a typical concomitant of high-quality learning [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Academic emotions moderate the relationship between belonging and achievement [~M] — an instructional effect differs with it
In Study 1, ChatTutor produced significantly higher trust, enjoyment, and behavioral intentions than ChatGPT, while students were blind to condition [+M] — instruction changes it
Emotional factors show inconsistent associations with gifted underachievement, depending on the aspect of emotion measured [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
In a piloted virtual reality WIL, most students reported improved crisis-problem-solving understanding and high enjoyment [+M] — instruction changes it
Online environments build adolescent competence through pride in achievements, social confidence, and creative confidence [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Representational pictures enhance test-taker enjoyment, response certainty, and reduce rapid-guessing behaviour [+W] — instruction changes it
Organized PD groups reported fewer negative emotions than teachers learning informally [+M] — instruction changes it
Evolutionary theory can inform more-enlightened teaching methods yielding more enjoyable and successful learning [+W] — instruction changes it
Immersion in virtual reality adds extraneous load yet can boost transfer, enjoyment, and motivation while leaving retention unaffected [+M] — instruction changes it
Anxiety, enjoyment and boredom are three critical emotions in language learning that affect outcomes and engagement [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Aggregated state emotions show no superior incremental predictive validity over self-reported traits for academic outcomes; traits corrected for states were only systematically correlated with criteria for enjoyment and somewhat for pride [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Negative emotions are not uniformly detrimental; differentiation by valence, arousal, and object focus is needed [~W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
In the HghLBO profile, boredom and enjoyment lose nearly all predictive power for persistence, though they predict persistence in full-sample and multigroup analyses [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Learning biologically primary words is rated as more enjoyable and more interesting than learning biologically secondary words [+W] — instruction changes it
Measures of presence, enjoyment, entitativity, and realism increased over a 10-week networked-VR course, suggesting XRCL advantages may grow as participants adapt [+M] — instruction changes it
Earlier boredom predicts positive changes in later interest from the second measurement point onward [-W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Enjoyment mediates the pathway from immersive media to immediate posttest score while interest mediates the pathway to delayed posttest score [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Higher earlier interest is associated with later decreases in boredom across grades 5–8, at every wave in mathematics and all but the last in German [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Middle-school students taking a virtual field trip via a 3D HMD report higher enjoyment than students taking the same trip as a 2D video [+M] — instruction changes it
Emotions measured early in the semester longitudinally predict cumulative grades and exam scores, with negative deactivating emotions (hopelessness, boredom) showing stronger coefficients than activating negative emotions [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Positive academic emotions correlate positively with interest, effort, flexible learning strategies, and perceived self-regulation, while boredom and hopelessness correlate negatively with all of these motivational variables [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Activating emotions (enjoyment, shame, anxiety) relate positively and boredom negatively to intended political participation, with a significant indirect effect of classroom climate via enjoyment [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Climate-emotion associations and the enjoyment-participation indirect effect hold when controlling for topic emotions and discussion frequency, but some emotion-outcome paths do not [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Enjoyment relates positively and shame, anxiety, and boredom relate negatively to political knowledge, but classroom climate is not significantly mediated via emotions for knowledge [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Open classroom climate is positively related to enjoyment and negatively related to anxiety and boredom in civic education, with no relation to shame [~M] — instruction changes it
Achievement goal instructions show no main effects on achievement emotions in game-based learning [-M] — instruction changes it
Negative feedback lowered math self-concept indirectly via enjoyment and hope; positive feedback raised it via hope [~M] — instruction changes it
Grades and positive affect show significant positive reciprocal within-person effects, and grades and negative affect show significant negative reciprocal effects [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Within persons, better-than-usual math grades positively predict subsequent enjoyment and pride, and enjoyment and pride positively predict subsequent grades [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Within persons, grades negatively predict subsequent anger and hopelessness, and anger, anxiety, boredom, and hopelessness negatively predict subsequent grades [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Within-person deviations of enjoyment and pride correlate positively with grade deviations (r = .12 to .55), and negative-emotion deviations correlate negatively (r = −.17 to −.44) [+W] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Between persons, trait mastery goals positively predict enjoyment and negatively predict anger and boredom; performance-approach goals predict pride; performance-avoidance goals predict anxiety and shame [+M] — instruction changes it
Beyond the hypothesized links, mastery goals also predicted pride, performance-approach goals predicted enjoyment and (weakly) shame, and performance-avoidance goals predicted anger [+M] — instruction changes it
Fluid reasoning significantly predicted enjoyment but not self-efficacy after accounting for adaptability and covariates [+W] — instruction changes it
Intraindividual and interindividual correlations between achievement goals and emotions are statistically independent yet empirically convergent, with goals and emotions less correlated within persons [~M] — instruction changes it
Most variance in state achievement goals and emotions is situational (within-person) rather than between-person [+M] — instruction changes it
Within persons, state mastery goals positively predict enjoyment and negatively predict boredom and anger in the classroom [+M] — instruction changes it
Within persons, state performance-approach goals predict pride and state performance-avoidance goals predict anxiety and shame [+M] — instruction changes it
In the Forward temporal model, initial enjoyment predicted later engagement, while initial boredom did not and emotions were unrelated to later raw performance [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Achievement emotion regulation strategies are linked to students' target emotions, with reappraisal and competence development showing the most pronounced relations [+M] — instruction changes it
Achievement emotion regulation strategies relate to well-being, health, and academic achievement across three studies [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Achievement scores correlate very strongly across the three domains while enjoyment correlations are small to medium [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Achievement-enjoyment effects are relatively robust to country-level moderators (HDI, Education Index, GDP per capita), except a stronger student-achievement effect on reading enjoyment in higher-HDI countries [~M] — instruction changes it
Class-average achievement negatively predicts student enjoyment across math, science, and reading (the Happy-Fish-Little-Pond Effect), with the reading effect trivially small [~M] — instruction changes it
Girls show higher reading enjoyment and lower math enjoyment than boys, with no science enjoyment difference, after controlling for achievement, SES, and age [~W] — instruction changes it
Including control and value variables substantially reduced the effects of student- and class-level achievement on enjoyment, consistent with control-value theory [~M] — instruction changes it
Session-specific performance-approach goals were positively related to students' overall rating and learning and negatively to boredom, while performance-avoidance goals showed the opposite pattern [+M] — instruction changes it
Student-level achievement positively predicts enjoyment in math, science, and reading among fourth graders [+M] — instruction changes it
The effect of student achievement on enjoyment is largely consistently positive across 37 countries, while the size of the negative class-average effect varies from country to country [~M] — instruction changes it
Unexpected session-level associations: task goals positively predicted joy, relational goals negatively predicted learning and boredom, and learning goals negatively predicted overall rating and positively predicted boredom [~M] — instruction changes it
Students' emotional experience predicts later academic achievement, while relationship quality does not [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Mathematics enjoyment decreases and boredom increases from first to third grade, while mean enjoyment stays fairly high and boredom low [+M] — instruction changes it
Nursing students experience a wide range of achievement emotions, including joy, hope, pride, gratitude, surprise, contentment, disappointment, shame, anxiety, anger, sadness and hopelessness, during internship feedback situations [+M] — instruction changes it
Only the initial level and rate of change in arithmetic fluency predict third-grade mathematics performance; achievement emotions do not [-M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
The type and intensity of emotions students experience in feedback situations depend on feedback focus (task vs person) and valence, in interplay with context and student characteristics [~M] — instruction changes it
Abundance hypothesis: state test boredom relates negatively to performance on the difficult test part but not the easy part [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Test boredom correlates negatively with math grades but not with the math test score in Study 1 [~M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
Images during retrieval practice enhanced feelings of competence but not enjoyment [-M] — instruction changes it
Only the current teacher's enthusiasm relates to students' enjoyment; prior-year teacher enthusiasm is unrelated to next-year enjoyment [~M] — instruction changes it
Perceived teacher enthusiasm positively predicts student enjoyment at the within-class (individual student) level [+M] — instruction changes it
Student-perceived teacher enthusiasm mediates the relationship between teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment [+M] — instruction changes it
Students' enjoyment of mathematics classes decreased significantly but very slightly from Grade 7 to Grade 8 [+M] — instruction changes it
Teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment in mathematics classrooms are positively related even after controlling for students' prior-year enjoyment [+M] — instruction changes it
Test performance predicts subsequent enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety in primary school students, but only anxiety relates reciprocally to performance [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
The reciprocal relations model fits better than unidirectional alternatives, supporting reciprocal causation between emotions and achievement [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
When enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety are modeled simultaneously, anxiety exerts the strongest predictive power for mathematics achievement [+M] — learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Examples¶

Key Sources¶

Breit, M., Schneider, M., & Preckel, F. (2025). Mathematics achievement and learner characteristics: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Learning and Individual Differences, 118, 102621. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102621

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`learner-variable`
`id`	`achievement-emotions`
`title`	`Achievement Emotions`
`description`	`Emotions tied to learning activities and their outcomes, such as enjoyment, boredom, frustration, pride, shame and hope.`
`status`	`review`
`canonical`	`True`
`generated`	by `claude/unspecified` on `2026-10-16`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content

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