The project investigates factors in the school and home learning environments that play a role for enjoyment in elementary and lower secondary school students. This includes factors beyond instructional processes, incorporating the roles of peers, teachers, and parents, and investigates their reciprocal relationships with enjoyment.  Moreover, the project seeks to understand whether enjoyment mediates the link between these factors and student outcomes, such as achievement and motivation.

School enjoyment is a positive, activating achievement emotion directed toward school- and learning-related activities. Students who enjoy learning demonstrate higher academic achievement, increased study interest, and greater effort. They are also more intrinsically motivated, utilize advanced learning strategies more frequently, and exhibit better self-regulation. Consequently, enjoyment is pivotal to a student’s overall school functioning and success.

In this context, it is vital to investigate factors shaping enjoyment because they provide cues as to what interventions can be undertaken to increase it or at least prevent the decline of enjoyment often observed in longitudinal research. However, previous studies on the antecedents of enjoyment have focused predominantly on teaching and instruction, leaving other school- and home-related factors largely unexplored. Furthermore, existing research is primarily cross-sectional. This has limited causal interpretations, hindered the study of dynamic links between the environment and emotion, and precluded the examination of mechanisms linking the environment and student outcomes.

The project relies on secondary data analyses and uses six longitudinal datasets available in open-data repositories. This approach aligns with open science principles of reproducibility and efficiency. Regarding empirical strategy, the project employs reciprocal effects and longitudinal mediation models. The anticipated outcomes include seven papers published in leading international journals.

• Project management and application: Dr. Anna Hawrot, Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi)
• Project duration 04/2026 – 03/2029
• Sponsor: German Research Foundation (DFG)
• Link to this page: www.lifbi.de/School-Fun