The effects of academic emotions on learning outcomes: A three-level meta-analysis of research conducted between 2000 and 2024

Abstract

Over the past two decades, extensive research has been undertaken to examine students’ emotional experiences. The purpose of this meta-analysis study was to analyze the results in this area to approximate an accurate measure of the relationship between academic emotions (positive and negative) and learning outcomes (performance and motivation). A total of 120 studies were included in our analyses. The results indicate a significant relationship between positive emotions and performance (k = 76, N = 43,551, r = .24 [95 % CI:.20,.27]) and a significant effect of negative emotions (k = 78, N = 44,029, r = -.25 [95 % CI: −.28, −.21]). Regarding the effect of emotions on motivation, there were 58 effect sizes (N = 35,373) that assessed participants’ motivation and positive affect, which revealed a positive effect (r = .46 [95 % CI:.42,.51]) and 62 effect sizes (N = 37,571) that assessed participants’ motivation and negative affect, which revealed a negative effect, (r = -.28 [95 % CI: −.32, −.23]). This indicates the underlying mechanisms of how negative emotions affect motivation may be more complex than positive emotions. Culture and performance measurement moderated the effect of emotions on performance. Possibly due to the high-stakes testing environments in school, both positive and negative emotions had the strongest effect on Asian students’ performance. The effect of negative emotions was most robust when considering course grade, followed by GPA and then standardized test. It could be that emotions are short-lived and different assessment formats capture different attributes of students.