University Students’ Emotional States and Academic Engagement: Implications for Sustainable Learning Practices in Higher Education

Abstract Understanding the interconnected facets of human experience, including emotional states, is essential for advancing sustainable education. However, human emotional functioning remains strongly influenced by anthropocentric, egocentric, and increasingly technocentric perspectives, which can limit students’ capacity for meaningful engagement in the study process. This study explores university students’ emotional states and their role in shaping sustainable academic engagement. A total of 407 undergraduate students from two Latvian universities studying in STEM participated in the research. The findings indicate that, on average, students experienced a moderate level of emotional strain. An analysis of gender differences in emotionally influenced academic behaviors revealed that emotional states had a stronger impact on academic engagement among female students than among male students. These results suggest that emotional distress consistently affects both the academic and social dimensions of student engagement. Furthermore, age showed no meaningful correlation with any emotional or academic variable, indicating that the emotional impact on learning is independent of students’ age. These findings highlight the importance of acknowledging and addressing students’ emotional states as a critical factor shaping sustainable engagement in higher education.