Achievement Emotions in Secondary Education: Emotional Profiles and Gender Differences

Students experience a range of emotions while participating in classroom learning activities. These emotions influence how students engage with learning tasks and shape their overall learning experiences. Guided by the Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions, this study examined the emotional profiles of Malaysian secondary school students and explored gender differences in emotions experienced during classroom learning. The participants comprised 63 secondary school students aged 16 years, including 32 males and 31 females. Data were collected using the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire–Short Version (AEQ-S) which measures enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness and boredom. Descriptive statistics, paired samples t-tests and independent samples t-tests were used to analyse the data. The findings showed that pride (M = 3.94, SD = 0.64), hope (M = 3.69, SD = 0.52) and enjoyment (M = 3.58, SD = 0.71) were the most frequently reported emotions during classroom learning. In contrast, hopelessness (M = 2.07, SD = 0.79), anger (M = 2.13, SD = 0.62) and shame (M = 2.13, SD = 0.93) recorded lower mean scores. Positive emotions scores were significantly higher than negative emotions scores, t(62) = 12.69, p < .001, d = 1.60. Female students also reported significantly higher levels of positive emotions than male students, whereas no significant gender differences were observed for negative emotions. The findings suggest that students generally experience classroom learning in a positive emotional context. Implications for classroom practice and future research are discussed.