Emotions, Motivation, and Metacognition of University Students in a SPOC Context

New technologies are changing the way we see and understand university education, with the advent of new, more flexible organization methods capable of reaching people via class formats like Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs). However, studies which have analyzed these types of courses have focused on their implementation and not on the cognitive and emotional processes of students. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the teacher’s influence on emotions, dispositional flow, motivation, and metacognitive strategies among university students. There were 1,347 participants in this study (678 men and 669 women), ranging from 18 to 26 years of age ( M = 21.43; SD = 2.64). The results were evaluated using a descriptive statistics analysis, a reliability analysis, and a structural equations model which explains the causal relationships between the study variables. In this sense, autonomy support exerted a positive influence on positive emotions and a negative influence on negative emotions. In contrast, psychological control by the teacher positively influenced negative emotions and negatively influenced positive emotions. Moreover, positive emotions exerted a positive influence on dispositional flow, whereas negative emotions exerted a negative influence on dispositional flow. In addition, dispositional flow exerted a positive influence on autonomous motivation, metacognitive strategies, and academic performance. Finally, autonomous motivation exerted a positive influence on academic performance and metacognitive strategies. These results reveal the influence of emotions, motivation, and perception of SPOCs on the adoption of adaptive habits and academic performance among university students.