Empowering or disabling? Emotional reactions to assessment amongst part-time adult students

This article focuses on emotional reactions to learning and assessment. It draws on a qualitative research project involving first-generation adult students on a foundation degree programme. Endorsing the notion of emotional reactions as situated in participants' lived power relations, we map out emotional patterns to Semester 1 and then explore in more detail, participants' particular emotional reactions to assessment. We found three key themes: higher education assessment as an unknown risk; assessment success ‘out of the blue’ and assessment as trauma and euphoria. A major aspect of the project was to offer socially constructed pedagogic developments in response to these themes and nurture emotion as positive energy for transformation.