Complex Dynamics: Investigation of Within- and Between-Person Relationships Between Achievement Emotions and Emotion Regulation During Exam Preparation Through Dynamic Network Modeling

In achievement contexts like end-of-semester exam preparation, students experience a variety of positive and negative achievement emotions, and their regulation is crucial. Despite its relevance, the interplay between, and dynamics of, emotions and their regulation is still little understood, particularly as prior research primarily relied on between-person research. In the present study, we use a situated assessment approach and a novel statistical approach, dynamic network modeling, to simultaneously analyze between-person associations, contemporaneous within-person associations as well as temporal lagged within-person associations and stability of achievement emotions and emotion regulation strategies in multivariate models. We used a total of 6,915 assessments of 201 German undergraduate students on six emotions (joy, pride, hope, satisfaction, anxiety, anger, and boredom) and eight emotion regulation strategies (activation, social support, positive refocusing, rumination, reappraisal, suppression, expression, taking action) during exam preparation in two assessment waves (5 weeks prior, and 1 week before important exams). The results uncovered distinct communities of emotions and emotion regulation strategies, wherein taking action and reappraisal held a particularly central position in explaining their linkages. We found evidence for effects from emotions on the use of emotion regulation strategies, and vice versa, and identified self-enforcing loops and carryover effects. We also observed differences in the stability of the assessed constructs over time, and between the week before the exam and 5 weeks before, that emphasize the consideration of not only person and situation-specific components, but also the respective context at hand, to which end dynamic network analyses emerge as a promising research avenue. Educational Impact and Implications Statement This study sheds light on how students navigate their emotions during exam preparation and underscores the critical role of effective emotion regulation. By examining real-time emotional experiences and regulation strategies, we uncovered distinct communities of emotions and emotion regulation strategies, with "taking action" (i.e., actively acting to improve the situation) and "reappraisal" (i.e., changing the way one thinks about a situation) emerging as particularly central strategies. Following up on these networks of emotions and regulation strategies can pave the way for the development of p