Mindfulness and academic emotions: A field study during a lecture

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine whether mindfulness and academic emotions are beneficially related in specific learning situations. For that purpose, we conducted a field study during two lecture sessions in which we measured momentary mindfulness and academic emotions of N = 105 university students repeatedly, resulting in N = 551 measurements. As expected, multilevel analyses indicated that students who were more mindful during the lecture felt more positive and less negative activating emotions, better valence, and were more optimistic about an upcoming exam. In contrast to our hypotheses, trait mindfulness was not found to be related to current academic emotions. Multilevel mediation analyses point towards an indirect effect of trait mindfulness via momentary mindfulness during the lecture sessions. These findings suggest that mindfulness is of high relevance to academic emotions which in turn are important for learning, achievement, and well-being.