Running head: WHAT MAKES A GOOD STUDENT 1

Article Critique: What Makes a Good Student? How Emotions, Self-Regulated Learning, and

Motivation Contribute to Academic Achievement

Manjoong Yoon

George Mason University

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Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to figure out all connections between emotions, self-

regulated learning, motivation, and academic achievement. (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014).

Especially, the authors assume that emotion would affect self-regulated learning and

motivation first, and then these influence academic achievement. There have been a variety of

studies about finding relationship between each factor. However, anyone has not researched it

while they are putting them together in same context (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). Thus,

the authors examined what correlations are in all factors (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014).

Research Hypothesis

Hypothesis in this article is that there are two different types of emotion which are

positive and negative and they will influence self-regulated learning and motivation in

different way. These in turn affect academic achievement (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). In

this structure, self-regulated learning and motivation play a key role of mediating the effects

of emotions on academic achievement (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). This hypothesis is

about finding some relationship based on previous research. It has intention to find some

relations and establishes a direction in this relationship. To explain, the authors presume that

each factor has to do with and influence another factor. As a result, this is alternative and

directional hypothesis (McMillan, 2016).

Population and Sampling

5805 undergraduate students from all disciplines at the University of Pauda

participated this study (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). The authors used stratified random

sampling. First, they selected all disciplines. And then, within the each group, students are
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chosen randomly (McMillan, 2016). The authors set some criteria such as age, regular

attendance to university, and existence of job to make this research more generalized (Mega,

Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). When the authors made sampling, they were not biased. This is

because they tried not to lean toward extreme way and selected random sampling. Assuming

that other university setting is similar to Pauda university, this could be generalized.

Variables

Major independent variable is students’ emotion and major dependent variable is

students’ academic achievement (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). McMillan (2016) said that

“An operational definition indicates that how the concept is measured or manipulated”(p. 55).

In this article, the authors used emotion questionnaire as a operational definition to figure out

how positive emotion and negative emotion students have (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). In

my opinion, the authors should have controlled extraneous variables such as a home

background and same grade which can affect students’ emotion. They only focused on

academic setting. However, these kinds of variables also can influence to academic

achievement (McMillan, 2016).

Threats to validity

If something bad and good happens while subjects are participating in answering

questionnaire, it would influence students’ response. Besides, if the questions in the

questionnaire induce students to answer in certain direction, it also would affect students’

answer (McMillan, 2016). These are threats to internal validity. If numerous of participants

are not interested in their academic achievement, it also affect to the validity. This is because

there will be no improvement or reduction in academic achievement for whom do not care
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about their achievement regardless of emotion (McMillan, 2016).

Data Collection

The authors utilized some questionnaires which are corresponding to each factor (e.g.,

emotion, self-regulated learning, motivation, and academic achievement). Subsequently, they

subdivided each questionnaire in more detail so that they can consider a great deal of source

which can affect each factor (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). However, in the questionnaire,

there are always possibilities that participants respond distortedly (McMillan, 2016). For

example, some participants might answer positively expecting a good result. Thus, I think

that observation of participants is needed to be handled as well to verify whether the

responses are trustworthy or not.

Research Design

Basically, this study is quantitative research. Especially, they used correlational

research design. Using the correlation analysis, they are figuring out the relationships

between all variables (McMillan, 2016). The authors examined the relationship between

students’ emotion and academic achievement. Also they probed the role of self-regulated

learning and motivation as a mediator between emotion and academic achievement (Mega,

Ronconi, & Beni, 2014).

If the authors had used mixed research design, it would have been much better for

making this study more reliable. This is because it can complement the data which is from

questionnaire.
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Evaluation

This article suggests very simple assumption that there are correlations between

some factors based on previous study. To make the result more reasonable, they were careful

to select sample which represent a variety of property of participants. Therefore, they could

show the validity and generalization of this study. However, it also showed a limitation about

method because they only used self-reported which can make some biased response. The

result shows that although there is clear correlation between each factor, it is very complex to

figure out it in detail (Mega, Ronconi, & Beni, 2014). As a result, more researches are needed

to more comprehend how each factor interacts. From this perspective, it can encourage

researchers in different filed to study together and make more specific and practical outcomes.
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References

McMillan, J. H. (2016). Fundamentals of educational research seventh edition. PEARSON.

Mega, C., Ronconi, L., & Beni, R. D. (2014). What makes a good student? how emotions,

self-regulated learning, motivation contribute to academic achievement. Journal

of Educational Psychology,12(2), 121-131.