Gendered differences in academic emotions and their implications for student success in STEM

BACKGROUND: Understanding student anxiety is an important factor for broadening the gender diversity of STEM majors due to its disproportionate and negative influence on women. To investigate how student anxiety is related to other academic emotions I conducted open-ended interviews with 19 university students and analyzed the data using emergent grounded theory. Emergent grounded theory uses inductive and deductive reasoning to develop a model of cognition and human behavior. RESULTS: Data analysis led to the development of a detailed theoretical model outlining connections among student anxiety, positive and negative academic emotions, self-regulated learning, and performance. In addition, the data highlight important emotional differences between men and women that have the potential to influence retention in STEM. Specifically, the model elaborates on the concept of a self-deprecating cycle driven by negative academic emotions and suggests that women may be more likely to become trapped in this cycle. CONCLUSION: The model incorporates students’ emotions as a powerful influence on performance and can be used to inform strategies aimed at changing how university students experience and deal with emotions such as student anxiety.