Positive Emotions And Academic Performance In American Public Schools

Introduction

“In a very sense, we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels. ” These words by Daniel Goleman give us insight on understanding and regulating our emotions. This topic captures my interest because of the main stereotype on school, which is usually negative. Even in my high school, I see many of my peers not wanting to put forth maximum effort on school and the effect on their academic performance is evident. Research on this topic can benefit students around the world to having the most effective way possible in wanting to better their performance. The students are more scared of succeeding and taking a higher position because of the lack of positive influences. As opposed to being in the low socioeconomic class where one is more worried about eating their next meal or if they live in a hostile environment, students come into school with more negative influences which may affect their performance.

Another factor that contributes to this is the level of education the parent has pursued. These socioeconomic factors play a role in what fosters positive or negative emotions. If they have sufficient funds to afford for tutoring or whether they live in a well-mannered home, the child will have more resources and assistance in having a chance at performing well in school. Having more positive emotions should allow them to have more emotional freedom for school. Positive emotions such as joy, interest, contentment, and love can help broaden habitual modes of thinking or acting. A sense to play, to explore, or to savor and integrate will help elevate the child’s perspective on school.

So, this brings the questions, how does a positive outlook on school affect their performance? Do positive emotions lead to acquiring skills faster and easier? Can negative emotions motivate students to perform better? I will be investigating this topic by using credible internet sources and empirical research. My paper will aim to underline the benefits of a positive point of view towards school. It will also, inspect which methods increase the chances of performing well in academic achievement and success during high school.

Investigation

What fosters academic success? What’s the best academic environment to learn in?

Some of the factors that deal with positive emotions are how the child is brought about the importance of school. A child whose parents are creating a more “warm, social climate in the home” (Davis-Kean, 2005) allows them to prioritize their certain matters such as their education. The parent’s education and the amount of income received can be factored to whether the child’s environment is well suited enough for the potentiality for academic achievement. The parent’s expectation plays a role in academic achievement by setting the standard which is to be met. Parent’s that have “more positive beliefs and expectations” will be more inclined to possess qualities of gaining certain achievements that are set. This may positively influence the child is receiving the same outlook as the parents. The more positivity – such as joy, interest, and love – the learner experiences, they will want to keep on learning and the more that they want to learn will influence the learner to “contribute to the greater good”. Furthermore, not only do parent’s influence a child’s attitude towards school but so do their peers and how effectively they work. Students who are satisfied with the relationship with their parents and peers are often on the right track to being successful in school.

School satisfaction is often defined as how a student views the positivity of their school experience to its totality. Having a high sense of school satisfaction helps the student to perform better in classes and receive higher grade point averages. They are more driven to learn more because of the positive environment they are in. With enhancing factors that give off positive energy to the students, they are more inclined to be more studious. This can deal with success by giving the students the building blocks to have the right judgments towards school, be committed to doing well in school activities, and be satisfied with the school as a whole. A school setting that allows a student to link positive emotions to achievement positively correlates with the student’s academic self-efficacy, the amount of effort and interest in academics, and general achievement. Do positive emotions lead to acquiring skills faster/easier? To begin with, the feelings of joy urge one to play and allow them to be engaged with their goals. Individuals can also partake in artistic and intellectual play that can help widen their minds to be more creative and inclined to learn. The urge to play points out that individuals like to explore different options of thinking and bring about other actions. In this case, the positive emotion of joy helps broaden the scope of an individual’s range of thought and action. Additionally, the positive emotion of interest allows for a sense of enjoyment in how the individual’s perceived skill matches a particular activity. Interest is the positive emotion that is most frequently experienced by people. Interest can be a factor in acquiring skills faster because it can be tied with intrinsic reasons. This allows for the individual to explore more possibilities and expands their store of knowledge. Interest “in the primary investigator of personal growth, creative endeavor, and the development of intelligence”. Student’s who express more interest in school-related activities are enabled to grow more intelligence and be more creatively inclined to learn more. This ties into acquiring skills easier because if the student is intrinsically interested in a subject, then they are more than likely to grasp on new methods that will help them make learning simple. Another positive emotion that was taken into consideration was contentment. Contentment is often grouped together with other positive emotions such as tranquility and serenity. Contentment suggests that those who are present in this emotion are satisfied with how their life is going at the moment. They are more mindful of their self-view and worldviews. This allows individuals to be more integrated and tend to savor their recent achievements. If the student is content with the outcome of their work, this may cause the student to try even harder the next time. The recall of positive emotion can lead to more integration, receptiveness, and self-complexity. Finally, love is of the last positive emotion that Fredrickson speaks on that can bring forth some shifts in people. Love is not just one emotion, but it has a variety of them. Love can be seen as the integration of many other positive emotions. A loving and positive environment can help students be more willing to learn faster and effectively.

How does emotional intelligence play a role? Emotional intelligence, or EQ, was popularized by Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ. Emotional intelligence has been said by many accounts that it is more important than intelligence quotient, or IQ. Emotional intelligence plays a role in academic success by allowing students to become aware of emotions, use emotions to have different ways of thinking, understand emotions, and manage emotions. As stated previously, emotional intelligence is viewed as more important than intelligence quotient because people have to understand different emotions in a group and this sees how an individual works well with others. Although many teenagers can have a good IQ level, “their declining performance appeared as a result of their emotional disturbances…”. Students who have lower emotional awareness, have a hard time understanding their feelings which causes them to decrease in academic achievement, even if they have a high IQ. On the other hand, having a high emotional quotient is a critical factor in maintaining high academic achievement for students. They end up having better relationships with their parents and teachers, which will incline them to do better in their academics. If students are intrinsically motivated and are self-aware of their actions, this will result in adolescents scoring very high in academic performance. If the correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement is prevalent, it is vitally important that schools try to bring about these qualities. Specific qualities that help students become more effective at solving problems and making decisions for themselves. Positive emotions may also help in how we think and act upon our thoughts. For instance, when we experience joy or interest, we expand on becoming more open-minded and wanting to build relationships.

Emotional quotient and positive emotions can go hand-in-hand because the more they are rehearsed, they allow for individuals to become more resistant towards negative emotions. They both have tendencies to help cope with problem-related environments. Having the ability to control which emotions to express in certain situations shows how different emotions can produce better outcomes. Emotional intelligence shows that one is able to keep track of their emotions and also be aware of others. Being self-aware of their moods as they are in the state of having them, these individuals tend to be more understanding of their emotions. Since those with high emotional intelligence is more in tune with what boundaries are set and are more likely to have a positive view on life, they don’t let interference get in their way. Mindfulness help students to regulate and manage their emotions. They use this as a method to know which emotion is appropriate at any given situation they are in. An individual possessing these abilities will have an increase in their performance in academic achievement.

Broaden-and-build Theory of Positive Emotions

The study of positive emotions is relevantly new in the use of sciences, but many findings are being made and are applicable to improving individuals and society’s well-being. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions gives a new perspective on how positive emotions can help “broaden peoples’ momentary thought-action repertoires and build their enduring personal resources”. This allows individuals to discover that these positive emotions may help remodel who they are and help assist them to apply them in any situation, such as in school. The individual can build on positive emotions enough to steer themselves in the right direction to enhance human flourishing, instead of downward spiraling. The importance for a student to possess positive emotions will help prepare themselves to become more resilient and optimistic towards adversity. In the presence of positive emotions, it leads the mind to become aware of and build resistance to the possibility of a later hard time. Positive emotions widen our thinking and can result in allowing us to expand our awareness because it opens us up, mentally and socially.

Motivation

Motivation can be generally assessed to a student in two ways, either intrinsically or extrinsically. Also, views of self-efficacy can affect whether the student believes in their capacity to execute tasks to perform well. Motivation is predicated by what someone can receive and how likely it is to obtain it. Intrinsic motivation is driven by the individual’s natural action that satisfies them, without seeking an external reward. The more students who are intrinsically motivated to learn will enhance their chances at performing better in school because the students find enjoyment through the activity in itself. Making the student want to perform better because it ties into what they desire to do. The desire to do well in classroom activities results in students to realize that they have the capacity to achieve such goals. A students’ intrinsic value and motivation to learn can be correlated to how they find different methods of cognitive strategies and become self-regulating learners. Teachers should help reinforce students’ intrinsic value for schoolwork not only because it will help the student do well in academic performance, but it also helps students engage in the activities that are present in the classroom. Students’ engagement is optimized by having a higher level of self-efficacy because they believe they’re competent enough to accomplish academic tasks.

Positive emotions play a role in how students take on these tasks when they are given the opportunity and drive them to put forth maximum effort. Engagement in the classroom may help students improve their academic performance in how involved the teacher is towards the class. Schools in which are engaged by “leadership, teachers, and students, perform better on standardized tests”. A teacher who tries to implement engagement-centered education in their curriculum will give more students the potential to do better and increase their engagement. Highlighting what the students are best at along with acknowledging those qualities can cause specific behaviors to help the student become more engaged in school. Promoting a student to hone their unique abilities and qualities is another method of helping them to view school in a more positive way. Teachers that emulate positive emotions in the classroom at a personal level to the students, enable them to achieve positive school experiences and become more engaged. Student engagement behaviors and academic progress are achievable by the student’s judgment of satisfaction of their school. The relationship that students have with their parents, peers, and teachers, can result in having different views on the satisfaction of school. Those who lack a good relationship with at least one of the three groups are deemed to having unfavorable outlooks on their school experiences. The amount of motivation a student potentially can obtain is influenced by the relation they have towards the major people in their lives. To such an extent that it can cause them to have a different point of view on the school to its entirety. Some recommendations in order to promote perceptions of positive schooling, are to expose students to a curriculum that emphasizes creativity and emotional intelligence and to present academic activities that are engaging them intellectually.

Can negative emotions motivate students to perform better? Although negative emotions are usually associated with not being competent to perform well in academic tasks. Negative emotions might not feel as good as positive emotions, but they can have some positive impacts on the growth of people. In the absence of negative emotions, people would not be able to become resilient towards defective environments. Furthermore, negative emotions can help shape and change someone’s personality that’ll help them cope with what caused this traumatic experience. In this sense, negative emotions can help student’s in a way that would motivate them to do better. Two negative emotions that are related to decision making is regret and disappointment. When a situation turns out the wrong way we expected it to come out, we feel a sensation of disappointment. Afterward, regret can be seen when we come to the realization that the outcome could have possibly been different if we made a better choice. Students can harness the negative emotional energy in order to perform well and be motivated to accomplish tasks. Negative emotions can also help with understanding our true self and the world around us. We can gain wisdom from experiencing suffering and loss, which are necessary for us to grow as humans. Additionally, with these experiences that cause negative emotions to arise, we are able to grow in positive ways such as, being more modest, having consideration for others, and empathy.

How do Negative Emotions Affect Academic Performance?

The role of negative emotions In contrast, negative emotions like anger can reduce the retention of past materials and affect their ability to problem solve or think strategically. Anxiety and anger can make a student have a hard time to recall relevant material. Negative emotions can divert students stream of consciousness and can distract them from studying. We see how this can negatively affect a student’s academic performance because these emotions can hinder with scholastic activities by reducing the ability to recall important information. Also, students who are more prone to anxiety or anger have difficulties to perform well because it results in a lack of motivation to learn or be involved in the class. Learned helplessness and its effects on academic performance.

Conclusion

Based on the research I found towards the argument “To what extent do positive emotions influence academic performance in American public schools?” not only do these positive emotions influence a student to do well in their academic performance, but other factors such as the academic environment they are exposed to and the role of influences from their parents, teachers, and peers impact them heavily. Positive emotions help facilitate abilities that can be useful for students to being academically successful. Intrinsic motivation and emotional quotient are essential to preparing the student for life after school, such as in their work or their everyday lives. Negative emotions, to some extent, can push or motivate a student to try harder on the next task. Yet more often than not does anxiety and other negative emotions divert them from being motivated in school. This causes them to not be as academically successful then that of having positive emotions.