The role of emotion in the learning process: Comparisons between online and face-to-face learning settings

As the presence of online and hybrid coursework at institutions of higher education has increased, so too has interest among educators and scholars in understanding personal and contextual factors that predict success in different types of learning environments. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations among temporally-ordered variables, including beginning-semester self-efficacy, utility value, and relevance of instruction, mid-semester emotions (hope, frustration, and anxiety), and end-of-semester learning strategies in a sample of 291 graduate students (N = 219 for the traditional education group and N = 72 for the distance education group) enrolled in an introductory research methods course. Multigroup path analyses were performed to test the equality of path coefficients among the two groups. Results demonstrate that the groups differed with respect to several paths, including the paths from: extrinsic utility value to anxiety and to hope; relevance to hope; and frustration and anxiety to learning strategies. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed.