Smartwatches as Tools for Emotion Regulation in Higher Education : Evidence from an Action Research Project

Digital technologies are increasingly integrated into higher education, yet the role of wearable devices in supporting learning remains underexplored.This study investigates how students in higher education use smartwatches as tools for emotion regulation in their study practices.Drawing on Gross's model of emotion regulation, we conducted an action research study with a group of nine university students combining smartwatch biofeedback with reflective diaries to examine how they interpreted and applied physiological data in their study practices.We found that smartwatch feedback acted as a real-time cue for reflection enabling students to implement both proactive and reactive strategies.Three themes emerged: (1) using smartwatches to promote general well-being, (2) organizing study sessions, and (3) maintaining focus during study sessions.While the students found that strategies aimed at promoting wellbeing and organizing study sessions were relatively straightforward, and yielded immediate benefits, focus-oriented strategies such as distraction management and mindfulness proved more challenging and elicited complex emotions.The study contributes to higher education research by highlighting the potential of smartwatches as scaffolds for emotion regulation and self-regulated learning, while also addressing the limitations of purely data-driven approaches in understanding students' behaviour.