The Influence of Motivation and Academic Emotions on Academic Performance in High School Learning

Abstract

Emotions felt during learning influence students’ behavior, thinking, and attention in the classroom. On the other hand, motivation is a crucial factor that impacts high school students' performance in learning, as it helps students feel the urge to pay attention and desire to learn, whether for a good grade or other reasons. Through this research, we aimed to discover the relationship between motivation and academic motions as predictors of academic performance, when it comes to the learning process during lessons. We intended to determine whether performance is directionally influenced by motivation and academic emotions, and if so, to what extent. Additionally, we seek to identify which types of emotions —positive or negative, activating or deactivating — have a greater impact on learning. 110 high school students from the 9th and 12th grades participated in this study. The main finding indicated that positive emotions, and also activating emotions contribute to the explained variation of performances of students in high school classes more than motivation. Conclusions and recommendations are also made.