Investigating the content and correlates of undergraduate students' academic regrets

TL;DR

This paper explores the types of academic regrets experienced by college students and how these regrets relate to their motivation and emotions.

Contribution

The study introduces new insights into how academic regrets vary in context and their impact on student outcomes.

Findings

Students report various academic regrets, which are generally unrelated to regret intensity or intrusive thoughts.

Higher regret intensity is linked to motivational and emotional outcomes in general university courses but not in computer science courses.

Findings are discussed in relation to control-value and situated expectancy-value theories.

Abstract

The types of academic regrets that college students experience, characteristics of these regrets, and relations to motivational and emotional outcomes were investigated in two studies.

Study 1 (N = 152) explored the relations between students' most severe academic regret and outcomes in general university courses, whereas Study 2 (N = 128) explored these relations in the context of a large introductory computer science course.

Across both studies, results suggested that students report various academic regrets. Generally, the types of regrets were unrelated to regret intensity, amounts of intrusive thoughts, or whether regrets were considered an omission or commission. Results further suggested that higher regret intensity was associated with motivational and emotional outcomes in the context of general university courses (Study 1), but not in the context of a specific undergraduate computer science course (Study 2).

Results are discussed within control-value theory and situated expectancy-value theory. Implications for practice are shared.

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