The role of test hope and hopelessness in self-regulated learning: Relations between volitional strategies, cognitive appraisals and academic achievement

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships amongst students' test emotions of hope and hopelessness, their antecedents of cognitive control and value appraisals and volitional strategies during learning, as well as their effects on academic achievement in the domain of mathematics, using the control–value theoretical framework. Sample consisted of 365 Croatian high school students. Correlational and structural equation analysis substantiated the assumptions concerning the relationships between test emotions, cognitive appraisals, volitional strategies and academic achievement. The results showed that cognitive appraisals partially mediate the relationship between volitional strategies and test emotions, and, further, that hopelessness play a partially mediating role in the relationship between volitional strategies and academic achievement. These findings once again emphasise the complex dynamics of cognitive, emotional and behavioural components of a self-regulated learning process.

► Some hypothesis of the control–value theory of achievement emotions were confirmed.
► Test hopelessness had a detrimental effect on academic achievement.
► Cognitive appraisals were positive predictors of hope, but negative of hopelessness.
► Cognitive appraisals partially mediate the volitional strategies–emotions relation.
► Hopelessness partially mediates the volitional strategies–achievement relationship.