Project EMMA

The role of emotions and metacognitive processes in goal adjustment

Adaptive goal setting is a central component of successful self-regulation in learning. Learners set goals before learning and check whether they have achieved them after learning. If a goal is not achieved, learning behaviour should be regulated, e.g. by adjusting goals. However, it is unclear how exactly learners adjust their goals, especially after failures. On the one hand, it is conceivable that learners set themselves higher goals to compensate for the failure. On the other hand, learners might lower their goals after failures in order to be more likely to achieve their goal the next time.
For children in particular, there are no studies that have investigated how children adjust their goal setting after failure. Emotions and the evaluation of failure may play a role in goal adjustment. The aim of the project is to find out what emotions children report after failures, how children adjust their goals after failures, and what role emotions and appraisals of failure play in goal adjustment.