Emotions During the Learning of Difficult Material

Abstract

Students experience a variety of emotions (or cognitive-affective states) when they are assigned difficult material to learn or problems to solve. We have documented the emotions that occur while college students learn and reason about topics in science and technology. The predominant learning-centered emotions are confusion, frustration, boredom, engagement/flow, curiosity, anxiety, delight, and surprise. A cognitive disequilibrium framework provides a reasonable explanation of why and how these emotions arise during difficult tasks. The student is in the state of cognitive disequilibrium when confronting impasses and obstacles, which launches a trajectory of cognitive-affective processes until equilibrium is restored, disequilibrium is dampened, or the student disengages from the task. Most of our work has been conducted in computerized learning environments (such as AutoTutor and Operation Acquiring Research Investigative and Evaluative Skills! (ARIES)) that help students learn with pedagogical agents that hold conversations in natural language. An emotion-sensitive AutoTutor detects student's emotions and adaptively responds in ways to enhance learning and motivation. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.