Whether it’s enjoyment at an exciting topic, anxiety before an exam, or boredom during a lecture, students’ everyday learning is characterised by numerous emotions. How students deal with these emotions has far-reaching consequences. It affects their well-being and physical health, but also their academic performance. This is shown by three studies led by Dr Kristina Stockinger from the Chair of Psychology at the 威尼斯赌博游戏_威尼斯赌博app-【官网】 of Augsburg.

Six different strategies for coping with emotions were identified and examined. The result was that students differ considerably in how they regulate their emotions. Certain approaches have a more advantageous effect on health and academic performance than others.

Reappraising situations

Cognitive reappraisal proves to be especially advantageous: Students question and change their own assessment of a situation. “For example, I consciously remind myself that I have mastered a similar exam situation previously, and this reduces my anxiety. Or I think about how the content of a lecture could be useful to me later on, and this reduces my boredom,” explains Stockinger.

Another advantageous strategy is competence regulation: Students prepare well for a specific purpose, as for example for a coming exam. For this, they use effective learning strategies or study material they have not yet fully mastered particularly intensively. On the one hand, this makes it more likely that they will perform well. On the other hand, this approach also strengthens their sense of security and their sense of control. “This is a very relevant strategy. It can have a significant influence on how students feel and how well they perform,” says Stockinger. This strategy has received little attention by researchers to date – or is just not known as a form of emotional regulation.

Avoidance and suppression

In the long-term, situation selection is less advantageous, above all else with negative emotions such as anxiety and boredom: Students skip lectures they find boring or postpone studying because they have anxiety before the exam. “This strategy can have wide-reaching negative consequences, for well-being as well as for academic performance,” warns Stockinger. This is because the problem is not solved, but rather avoided.

Perhaps better than its name suggests is a fourth strategy: suppression of emotions. Previous research often contrasted cognitive reappraisal, “the good,” with suppression as “the bad.” However, Stockinger and her colleagues could not find any correlation between this strategy, student well-being, and academic performance. The effects of this strategy appear to strongly vary according to the person and situation.?

Tips for students

“There is no single strategy that always works,” says Stockinger. “It depends on the specific situation: what suits the problem, what resources do I have? What is best is that one develops a broad repertoire of strategies that one can use flexibly.”

Stockinger would like to encourage students. “The first important message is that one can influence one’s emotions,” she says. “It’s worth taking time to reflect: which strategies can I use to regulate my emotions?”

Teachers as role models

Stockinger appeals to teaching staff to see themselves as role models when it comes to dealing with emotions and to provide time in lectures for the topic. That can begin with a check in at the beginning of a session, for example: where are students at, what do they need at the moment? Teaching staff should also draw attention to advice and counselling services available at the university.

German and English students were surveyed for the three studies. The results have been published in an article in the special edition of the journal Learning and Instruction on the topic of emotion regulation in teaching and learning contexts. The three studies are part of Stockinger’s habilitation research.

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Learn more

Kristina Stockinger, Markus Dresel, Herbert W. Marsh, Reinhard Pekrun: Strategies for regulating achievement emotions: Conceptualization and relations with university students’ emotions, well-being, and health. URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102089

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