Understanding Academic Emotions at Princeton University

Abstract

Emotions in academic settings may have a larger impact on learning than we currently expect or understand. Students experience a wide range of emotions when attending class, doing homework assignments, or taking tests and exams, and these emotions can have a profound effect on academic effort, motivation, engagement, and performance. An understanding of these emotions can benefit students and educators alike, especially at an institution like Princeton University and in a department like Computer Science, which has grown rapidly in size and popularity over the past few years. In this paper, we analyze course reviews from Princeton’s registrar as well as data collected from a survey conducted in two introductory Computer Science classes at the University. These analyses support some findings in previous research on academic emotions and raise new questions about what is left to explore regarding academic emotions in Princeton courses.