Refocusing the lens through which we view affect dynamics: The Skills, Difficulty, Value, Efficacy and Time Model

For more than a decade, a handful of theoretical models have shaped a substantial amount of the research related to students’ emotional experiences during learning. This research has been productive, but articulating the underlying implicit assumptions in existing theories and their implications in our empirical interpretations can help to better investigate the reciprocal relationships between learning and emotion, and subsequently, to develop better interventions. This paper expands upon the existing theoretical frameworks, increasing the types of questions we ask about affect dynamics. We do so within the context of Crystal Island, a virtual world that allows middle school students to investigate microbiology questions. Specifically, we use this data to examine and revise the assumptions that are implicit in these models and the methods we use to investigate them.