Positive and negative emotional experiences play an important role in academic achievement settings. Students at school experience a variety of stress-related situations. A major type of stress-related situations is tests students are regularly confronted with.
The purpose of this study was to compare test – related emotions of students studying in schools with Estonian as the language of instruction and with Russian as the language of instruction and also compare the evaluations of students studying in mainstream classes to evaluations of students studying in special classes for learning and behavioural difficulties.
This study assessed participants (N = 687) emotional experiences in academic settings when taking tests. We measured students’ positive emotions (enjoyment, hope and pride) and negative emotions (anger, anxiety, shame and hopelessness) (Academic Emotions Questionnaire [AEQ] Pekrun, 2000).
Results showed that in academic achievement there were differences in grade, sex and class type level. In lower grades students reported significantly better marks than those in upper grade levels. According to our research test- related emotions differ between students studying in schools with Estonian as the language of instruction and with Russian as the language of instruction. That means those in Russian as the language of instruction reported significantly grater positive and negative emotions than those in schools with Estonian as the language of instruction. There was no significant difference in test- related emotions between regular classes and students in the classes for students with learning and behavioral difficulties.