Emotion is an important affective construct that needs to be explored especially in academic settings (Goetz, Zirngibl, Pekrun & Hall, 2003) Academic or achievement emotion, based on Reinhard Pekrun’s control-value theory, has been defined as “Emotions that are tied directly to achievement activities or achievement outcomes” (Pekrun, 2006, p.317). Among emotions, anxiety – particularly test anxiety – has been extensively studied in the literature. However, other achievement emotions (that is, enjoyment, pride, anger, boredom, hopelessness, and shame) have not gained enough attention despite their significance in the academic environment. There is still lack of evidence about which emotions are experienced in educational environments (Goetz, Zingibl, Pekrun, & Hall, 2003). Due to involving abstract concepts as a result of its nature, mathematics as an academic domain is highly influenced by the affective variables (Kleine, Goetz, Pekrun, & Hall, 2005). Furthermore, students were expected to experience less enjoyment and interest in mathematics compared to other subject areas (Tulis & Ainley, 2011).

Emotions are described as a multifaceted phenomenon that is comprised of affective being the central, cognitive, physiological, motivational, and psychological processes (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz & Perry, 2002; Pekrun, Goetz, Perry, Kramer, Hochstat, & Molfenter, 2004). Besides, achievement emotions are based on Pekrun’s control-value theory (2006) attempting to provide a dynamic system within which is consisted of cognitive appraisals, situational antecedents, learning and achievement proposing a reciprocal relationship between those elements as results of feedback loops in the model (Pekrun, 2006). Moreover, emotions influence cognitive, motivational, and regulatory processes, personality development, and social climate in classrooms, life satisfaction, student interest, and engagement (Meyer & Turner, 2002; Pekrun et al., 2002; Pekrun, 2006; Turner & Schallert, 2001). Nevertheless, there are few studies on individuals’ achievement emotions regarding grade level and gender. Although the structure and the related components of emotions are equivalent on both studies, the results revealed differences on those environmental factors.

Frenzel, Pekrun, and Goetz (2007) examined the patterns of mathematics emotions on fifth grade students based on the assumption that there are gender differences between students’ emotions due to their control and value beliefs in this subject domain. Findings of the study indicate that girls displayed less enjoyment and pride, but more anxiety, hopelessness, and shame. Goetz, Frenzel, Hall, and Pekrun (2008) studied with 1380 German students from fifth to tenth grade on three different tracks of German school system. Results indicate that boys’ class-related math enjoyment was significantly higher than girls whereby girls displayed significantly higher level of class-related enjoyment in language classes. Yüksel-Şahin (2004) also found gender differences on mathematical worry levels of 237 high school Turkish students such that females were found to be more worried than male peers. The common point of those studies is that girls displayed more negative but less positive emotions while boys experienced more positive but less negative ones.

Wigfield and Mecce (1988) reported that ninth grade students expressed higher mathematics worry than sixth graders. Furthermore, boredom displayed an increasing trend from fifth to eighth grades (Larson & Richard, 1991). However, hopelessness seemed to decrease as students passed from ninth to tenth grade (Yenilmez, 2010). On the other side, Frenzel, Goetz, Lüdtke, Pekrun, and Sutton’s (2009) longitudinal study yielded a decreasing pattern for math class-related enjoyment of students between seventh and eighth grades. That is, negative emotions generally tend to increase with grade level as opposed to positive emotions. Overall, the present study focused on examining mathematics achievement emotions by grade level and gender. More specifically, the research questions are: What are sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students’ achievement emotions in mathematics and how do they change by gender and grade level?

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