learners’ achievement emotions in efl online vs. face-to-face classes: the case of gender differences

Achievement emotions have been a major issue in educational settings and research field because of their crucial role in improving students` motivation, learning, performance, and identity development. according to control-value theory, achievement emotions are discrete emotions experienced by students during specific academic or achievement-related activities. it is worth exploring it among efl learners and finding its relationship with other factors, such as gender in different learning environments. to address the existing gap in the literature, this study was designed to compare different types of achievement emotions (enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom) that female and male students might experience in two situations ‘class and exam’ in the online and face-to-face learning environments. to this end, the study followed a quantitative design with 113 iranian efl students in the online learning environment and 106 students in the face-to-face learning environment at the university of kashan. the participants responded to an adopted achievement emotions questionnaire containing eight different class-related emotions and eight test-related emotions. the results of analyzing the quantitative data indicated that there were significant differences in class-related anxiety, hopelessness, anger, and test-related anger feelings of females and males in the online learning environment. as for their emotions in the face-to-face classes, there were also significant differences in the class and test-related anger and anxiety emotions of both genders. the findings have significant implications for instructors in recognizing their students` emotions so that they could look for ways to reinforce the positive aspects and reduce the negative aspects of their achievement emotions in the online learning environment.