Students’ performance in STEM is impacted by affective factors such as motivation and achievement emotions. Such emotions include those that are both positive and negative for the student. Enjoyment and anxiety, in particular, have been found to impact academic performance in organic chemistry. Both of these emotions are activating, i.e., the emotion will generate an action by the student. Enjoyment is a positively activating emotion, implying that enjoyment will encourage a student to maintain attention. Anxiety is a negatively activating emotion, implying that anxiety can lead a student to decrease their attention. Motivation, as well, has been shown to impact performance in organic chemistry. Control-Value Theory posits that the impact of achievement emotions on performance is mediated by motivation. In our study, we evaluated the proposed mediating effect. Our results suggest a complex understanding of the interrelationships of affect with performance in postsecondary chemistry contexts.

Testing of a model of the impact of enjoyment and anxiety on performance as mediated by motivation

2019 Spring National Meeting

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