Fostering students’ emotion regulation during learning : design and effects of a computer-based video training

Abstract

Emotions have an essential impact on students’ learning outcome. Empirical findings show negative correlations between negative emotions and learning outcome. Negative emotions during learning are quite common and become more frequent over the course of an academic career. Thus, regulating these emotions is important. Existing studies indicate that university students lack the ability to successfully regulate their emotions during learning. However, interventions to foster university students’ inherent emotion regulation during learning are missing. In an attempt to identify interventions, this study investigates the effect of a video-based emotion regulation training for university students on emotion regulation strategies, emotions, and learning outcome. One hundred and sixteen university students either received training in emotion regulation (n = 60) or in workplace design (n = 56) before learning in a computer-based learning environment about probability theory. The emotion regulation training lead to improved emotion regulation (more cognitive reappraisal, less suppression) and less frustration and anxiety, but did not affect learning outcome. The results confirm that university students experience significant emotion regulation difficulties and suggest that they need intensive training in emotional regulation.