Students’ Achievement Emotions and Self-Regulation of Learning: Associations With Performance in a Critical Thinking Test

Emotions are recognized as essential factors in learning activities, and self-regulation is considered an essential element in learning. Both emotions and self-regulation are theorized to contribute to critical thinking, which is a multidimensional concept comprising a set of skills and dispositions. However, empirical research on the interrelations between these concepts is scarce. In the present study, the participants were 2,404 undergraduate students from 18 Finnish higher education institutions. Students’ achievement emotions and self-regulation were measured with a self-report survey, and critical thinking with a performance task. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings highlight that especially activating emotions are significant in a low-stakes test situation. Excitement, a pleasant activating emotion plays a crucial role in such a context. However, self-regulation did not show a strong association with test performance and did not add to the effect of emotions on test performance.