Students’ academic emotions are feelings or perceptions associated with students’ experience during teaching-learning sessions, which could be positive or negative. This study examines the level of students’ positive and negative academic emotions, relationship between positive and negative emotions with regards to academic performance, and predictive strength of positive and negative emotions on students’ academic performance in secondary school Physics. The study adopted a descriptive-quantitative design with 300 physics students as study samples, using simple random sampling. Data were collected using Physics academic performance sheets and students’ academic emotion scale with reliability coefficient, α = 0.81, analyzed using descriptive, correlation, and regression statistics. The results revealed that: (i) students exhibited moderate positive academic emotions (enjoyment, interest, confidence) and low negative academic emotions (anxiety, boredom, frustration); (ii) positive emotions significantly and positively correlated to students’ performance (r = 0.54, p<0.05), while negative emotions significantly and negatively correlated to students’ performance (r = −0.49, p<0.05); (iii) positive and negative academic emotions jointly and significantly predicted students’ performance, F(2, 297) = 66.25, p<0.05, R² = 0.398, with positive emotions having a stronger positive predictive power (β = 0.51, t = 8.95, p<0.05) on students’ performance than negative emotions (β = −0.33, t = −6.20, p<0.05). This study concludes that positive academic emotions were stronger in predicting academic performance than the negative academic emotions. It is therefore recommended that teachers should undergo training workshops on strategies for creating emotionally supportive classrooms and its effective application.
Keywords: : Academic Performance, Secondary School, academic emotions, negative emotions, physics, positive emotions
