Emotive Variables in Motivation

Abstract

This case study is concerned with the effects of emotion on a learner and her difficulties with disruptive emotions while studying vocabulary as part of her second year university English course. The subject’s responses to two questionnaires and two informal interviews were examined in order to observe a personal account of emotion in the learning process. Her responses to the first questionnaire were positive while her responses to the second one were brief and negative. Through an interview, she noted that her increasingly heavy workload and sleep deprivation were major contributors to how she viewed herself and the class. Her experience is not unique, just as the feelings of fatigue or ambivalence are not unique. What is notable, however, is how feelings were expressed by the individual and how these could affect behavior and learning. This study is relevant to emotional control strategies (Dornyei 2005), and the relationship between emotion and motivation.