Emotional experiences during test taking: Does cognitive ability make a difference? Thomas Goetz a, ⁎ , Franzis Preckel a , Reinhard Pekrun a , Nathan C. Hall b a University of Munich, Germany b University of California, Irvine Abstract This study examined test-related experiences of enjoyment, anger, anxiety, and boredom in a sample of 2059 German school students (50% female) from grade 6, and how they relate to students' abstract reasoning ability (ARA). Emotions were assessed immediately before, during, and after a mathematics achievement test. Analysis of variance showed that emotions experienced during the test situation differed based on students' ARA level, with correspondence analysis revealing substantial differences between the emotional profiles of different ability groups. Enjoyment proved to be most prominent in students with high ARA, whereas anger and anxiety were predominant for students with low ARA. Boredom was found to be highest among students in the intermediate ARA group. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Keywords: Cognitive ability; State emotions; Mathematics; Test; Enjoyment; Anxiety; Anger; Boredom Despite burgeoning research interest in the role of affect in psychological development, emotions experienced in the academic domain has until recently remained a largely unexplored field of psychological research. With the exceptions of research on emotions in achievement settings based on attribution theory (see Weiner, 1985, 2001) and an extensive body of research on test anxiety which has been studied since the 1950s (Sarason & Mandler, 1952; Zeidner, 1998), there is a notable lack of empirical research on students' emotions (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002a). Little is known about students' state emotions experienced in academic settings, that is, their emotions during actual academic situations including class lessons, taking tests and exams, and completing homework assignments. Considering situations of testing as emotionally salient events, numerous studies have concentrated on state emotions experienced before and after taking a test, particularly in the context of test anxiety. However, less is known about emotions ☆ This study is supported by grants from the German Research Foundation to the third author (DFG; PE 320/11-1, PE 320/11-2, PE 320/11-3, PE 320/11-4) and by a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to the fourth author. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Thomas Goetz, Department of Psychology, University of Munich, Leopoldstr. 13, D - 80802 Munich, Germany. Electronic mail may be send via Internet to goetz@edupsy.uni-muenchen.de. ⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +49 89 2180 5250. E-mail address: goetz@edupsy.uni-muenchen.de (T. Goetz). First publ. in: Learning and Individual Differences 17 (2007), pp. 3–16 Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-76962 URL: http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2009/7696