States, Traits, and Dispositions: The Impact of Emotion on Writing Development and Writing Transfer Across College Courses and Beyond - from the editors

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay

Using a five-year longitudinal dataset tracking thirteen college writers, the study examines how students’ emotions and emotional dispositions influence writing knowledge transfer and overall writing development. Participants’ emotional experiences were categorized as generative, disruptive, or circumstantial, and students managed emotions differently: rational interpreters, emotional interpreters, and emotional managers using metacognitive monitoring and control. Findings indicate metacognitive monitoring and control support navigation of complex emotional challenges in higher education.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Role of Emotion in Learning and Writing Transfer

Current Issue From the Editors Weblog Editorial Board Editorial Policy Submissions Archives Accessibility Search Composition Forum 34, Summer 2016 States, Traits, and Dispositions: The Impact of Emotion on Writing Development and Writing Transfer Across College Courses and Beyond Dana Lynn Driscoll and Roger Powell Abstract: Drawing from a five-year longitudinal data set following thirteen college writers through undergraduate writing and beyond, we explore the impact of students’ emotions and emotional dispositions on their ability to transfer writing knowledge and on their overall writing development. Participants experienced a range of emotions concerning their writing, but those emotions could be broadly categorized as generative, disruptive, or circumstantial. Students managed these emotions in different ways, with some approaching their learning less emotionally (rational interpreters), others moreso (emotional interpreters), and a final group using metacognitive practices to manage their emotions (emotional managers) . Our results suggest that metacognitive concepts of monitoring and control are keys to students’ navigation of the complex emotional landscape of writing in higher education. Our discussion posits ways that faculty can help students become emotional managers and work with students’ emotions in the classroom, and it suggests further avenues for research. Introduction We didn’t anticipate we would study emotions. We set out to understand how students learn to write across a fiveyear period, following thirteen students as they encountered various writing situations and examining how they discussed their writing and learning and how they engaged in writing transfer. Then we met Alice, whose writerly development was strongly tied to her emotions, and Abby, who carefully monitored and changed her behavior to avoid negative emotions. Despite the fact that none of the questions in the study were explicitly geared toward students’ emotions, the emotional connection to learning and transfer became an important part of these students’stories. Further, in the broader landscape of higher education, many commentaries have recently been published discussing students’“trigger warnings” and “lack of emotional resiliency” for common college stressors (Gray; Wilson) . Given the exigency of emotions in higher education, then, the question of how emotions impact writing development and transfer is a critical one. One of the foundational assumptions in educational systems is that knowledge, processes, and skills learned in one context will be transferred, adapted, transformed, or built upon in new contexts. That is, over time a single learner engages in a trajectory of literate development that builds on and interacts with previous learning. While researchers call this term “transfer,” we recognize that this term is an inadequate metaphor for the messy reality of learning that involves not just knowledge or skills but dispositions, identities, and social and cognitive processes. Despite the contention of the term, in the last decade writing researchers have begun to carefully tease out the mechanisms that drive students’ writing transfer or lack thereof. While substantial attention thus far has been focused on prior knowledge, genre knowledge, pedagogies, and thinking processes surrounding transfer (Rounsaville, Goldberg and Bawarshi; Beaufort; Robertson, Taczak and Yancey; Wardle; Driscoll; Downs and Wardle), research into the personal, internally held characteristics that students bring into learning situations—including their emotions—is much less defined. One way that such personal characteristics have been addressed recently is through a growing interest indispositions, which are the internally held characteristics, like self-efficacy or persistence, that students possess and that manifest in learning environments (Driscoll and Wells) . The question of how these internal characteristics impact lear

FAQs

What data does the study use to examine emotion and writing transfer?

The study draws on a five-year longitudinal dataset following thirteen college writers from undergraduate writing onward.

How were students’ emotions categorized in the research?

Students’ emotions were broadly grouped into generative, disruptive, or circumstantial categories.

Which student approach was linked to managing emotions in writing contexts?

Metacognitive practices—monitoring and control—characterized emotional managers, supporting students in navigating the emotional landscape of writing in higher education.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay