Students' daily emotions in the classroom: Intra-individual variability and appraisal correlates

Background Recent literature on emotions in education has shown that competence and value related beliefs are important sources of students emotions nevertheless the role of these antecedents in students daily functioning in the classroom is not yet well known More importantly to date we know little about intra-individual variability in students daily emotions Aims The objectives of the study were (1) to examine within student variability in emotional experiences and (2) to investigate how competence and value appraisals are associated with emotions It was hypothesized that emotions would show substantial within-student variability and that there would be within person associations between competence and value appraisals and the emotions Sample(s) The sample consisted of 120 grade 7 students (52% girls) in 5 randomly selected classrooms in a secondary school Method A diary method was used to acquire daily process variables of emotions and appraisals Daily emotions and daily appraisals were assessed using items adapted from existing measures Results Multi-level modelling was used to test the hypotheses As predicted the within-person variability in emotional states accounted for between 41% (for pride) and 70% (for anxiety) of total variability in the emotional states Also as hypothesized the appraisals were generally associated with the emotions Conclusions The within-student variability in emotions and appraisals clearly demonstrates the adaptability of students with respect to situational affordances and constraints in their everyday classroom experiences The significant covariations between the appraisals and emotions suggest that within-student variability in emotions is systematic