Commonalities and differences in strategies for regulating motivation and emotion in academic settings: A within-person approach

Motivation and emotion form important pillars of students’ educational experiences and, while representing distinguishable constructs, are closely intertwined. Consequently, it can be assumed that their regulation may be governed by similar mechanisms as well. From a theoretical perspective, MR and ER strategy taxonomies do contain overlap, particularly among strategies involving reappraisals of personal competencies, but also unique (i.e., non-overlapping) strategies. Empirically, however, motivational regulation (MR) and emotion regulation (ER) have had little intersection in prior research and stem from rather disconnected research traditions. Building on previous work on the functional interplay between students’ motivation and emotion, we examined similarities and differences in MR and ER strategies and tested the assumption that MR strategies are also used to regulate emotions, and ER strategies to regulate motivation, in study situations. Participants were 1,466 university students. Using a within-person design, students reported on their use of various strategies for managing regulatory problems involving either low motivation or negative emotions (anxiety, boredom). Using CFA and latent difference modeling, we found that strategy use was strongly correlated and differed little in terms of mean levels across motivational and emotional regulation problems. These correlations were even stronger, and mean differences smaller, than those found for regulatory problem distinctions within motivational and emotional problems. The findings indicate that many designated MR and ER strategies as distinguished in current taxonomies may be relevant for managing both motivational and emotional problems and underscore the need for joint theoretical perspectives on MR and ER. • We propose integrative perspectives on motivational and emotional self-regulation. • 1466 students rated their use of regulatory strategies in a within-person design. • Strategy use was similar across motivational and emotional problems. • Motivational strategies are used to regulate emotional problems and vice versa.