Project ERLE – Emotion regulation in learning situations
The function of emotion regulation for self-regulated learning
Background
Being able to continuously acquire new knowledge or adapt existing knowledge to new requirements is important for academic learning, vocational development and professional careers (Schmitz, Schmidt, Landmann & Spiel, 2007). The ability of self-regulated learning is thus considered a basic individual competency that should be fostered and enhanced in order to broaden educational opportunities. In school age, a domain that particularly requires self-regulated learning is homework (Trautwein & Lüdtke, 2008). In contrast to learning at school, homework is not teacher-directed. As a result, the learner has high degrees of freedom which allow the self-regulation of learning behaviour.
One important element of the self-regulated learning mode is emotion. Emotions are an important part of students’ everyday life and are highly relevant for learning and achievement as they influence motivation, cognition, and learning behaviour (Götz, Frenzel, Pekrun & Hall, 2006). Positive and negative emotions may originate from situations that are related to learning and achievement such as boredom with tasks, anger with schoolfellows or teachers, fear of tests, disappointment or pride because of bad/good grades, hope of good performance in the future, etc. Moreover, they can stem from other factors in students’ social life such as pleasant/unpleasant experiences during the day, planned leisure activities, birthday, pleasant emails/text messages from friends, etc.
These emotions can have beneficial effects, but very often they are a restrictive factor for learners’ educational opportunities: They can impede self-regulated learning and thus pose a problem for many learners. With regard to learning and achievement positive emotions have proved to be beneficial whereas negative emotions had detrimental effects (Pekrun & Hofmann, 1999).
Hence, dealing with emotions in terms of functional emotion regulation is presumed to be a basic prerequisite for self-regulated learning. Accordingly, it represents an important resource for learning and educational processes as much as for self-regulatory activities in other parts of everyday life.
Objectives
The objective of the research project is to examine the impact of certain types of emotion regulation strategies on components of self-regulated learning. Moreover, by investigating intervention effects in the field the results shall be utilized for practical application.
Main research questions:
1) Which function does emotion regulation have for self-regulated learning? In particular: Which types of regulation strategies are functional or dysfunctional?
2) Can the enhancement of functional emotion regulation cause an increase in self-regulated learning?
In the long term the spotlight is to be put on practical utility. We intend a broad implementation into academic and collegiate workaday life so that different target groups may benefit from the project results, for instance, by the use of trainings for pupils or college students or via training teachers and parents as disseminators.
Project ERLE – Emotion regulation in learning situations
The function of emotion regulation for self-regulated learning
Background
Being able to continuously acquire new knowledge or adapt existing knowledge to new requirements is important for academic learning, vocational development and professional careers (Schmitz, Schmidt, Landmann & Spiel, 2007). The ability of self-regulated learning is thus considered a basic individual competency that should be fostered and enhanced in order to broaden educational opportunities. In school age, a domain that particularly requires self-regulated learning is homework (Trautwein & Lüdtke, 2008). In contrast to learning at school, homework is not teacher-directed. As a result, the learner has high degrees of freedom which allow the self-regulation of learning behaviour.
One important element of the self-regulated learning mode is emotion. Emotions are an important part of students’ everyday life and are highly relevant for learning and achievement as they influence motivation, cognition, and learning behaviour (Götz, Frenzel, Pekrun & Hall, 2006). Positive and negative emotions may originate from situations that are related to learning and achievement such as boredom with tasks, anger with schoolfellows or teachers, fear of tests, disappointment or pride because of bad/good grades, hope of good performance in the future, etc. Moreover, they can stem from other factors in students’ social life such as pleasant/unpleasant experiences during the day, planned leisure activities, birthday, pleasant emails/text messages from friends, etc.
These emotions can have beneficial effects, but very often they are a restrictive factor for learners’ educational opportunities: They can impede self-regulated learning and thus pose a problem for many learners. With regard to learning and achievement positive emotions have proved to be beneficial whereas negative emotions had detrimental effects (Pekrun & Hofmann, 1999).
Hence, dealing with emotions in terms of functional emotion regulation is presumed to be a basic prerequisite for self-regulated learning. Accordingly, it represents an important resource for learning and educational processes as much as for self-regulatory activities in other parts of everyday life.
Objectives
The objective of the research project is to examine the impact of certain types of emotion regulation strategies on components of self-regulated learning. Moreover, by investigating intervention effects in the field the results shall be utilized for practical application.
Main research questions:
1) Which function does emotion regulation have for self-regulated learning? In particular: Which types of regulation strategies are functional or dysfunctional?
2) Can the enhancement of functional emotion regulation cause an increase in self-regulated learning?
In the long term the spotlight is to be put on practical utility. We intend a broad implementation into academic and collegiate workaday life so that different target groups may benefit from the project results, for instance, by the use of trainings for pupils or college students or via training teachers and parents as disseminators.