Emotion and Achievement During Adolescence

Adolescents frequently experience emotions such as enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, or boredom at school. These emotions are often intense and can profoundly affect learning, achievement, and psychological health. Traditionally, these emotions were neglected in research on adolescence, but in the past 15 years, they have gained more attention. In this article, I review studies on the links between emotions and adolescents' academic achievement. The findings from this emerging field confirm that emotions influence adolescents' learning, including their attention, motivation, use of learning strategies, self-regulation of learning, and achievement outcomes. The development of achievement-related emotions is shaped by adolescents' appraisals of success and failure, as well as individual factors and social environments influencing these appraisals, including gender, achievement, instructional practices, and test-taking procedures. In closing, I outline implications for practice and discuss the need for intervention studies targeting achievement emotions.