The importance of self-regulation and negative emotions for predicting educational outcomes - Evidence from 13-year olds in Swedish compulsory and upper secondary school

The purpose of the study was to investigate the predictive validity and relative importance of students' self-regulation and negative emotions for school work and learning for Grade Point Average in 9th Grade and graduation from upper secondary school. Students' levels of self-regulation and negative emotions in school were measured by a questionnaire in 6th Grade. In order to answer these questions, multivariate techniques were used. The data derive from the Evaluation Through Follow-Up longitudinal project, and the subjects were 9115 students born in 1992. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used. The results showed that students' negative emotions had strong predictive validity to Grade Point Average in 9th Grade and graduation from upper secondary school, while students' self-regulation had non-significant relations to the outcomes. One of the most interesting results concerns students' negative emotions about school work and learning was not fully explained by their lower cognitive ability. Gender and family educational background had only negligibly influences on the relation between negative emotions and the outcome variables.