Student eXperience (SX) covers a broad range of aspects, including the emotional one. The importance of emotions is more evident when we analyze SX as a particular case of Customer eXperience (CX), which considers the emotional customer-brand relationship. For this reason, it is important to analyze the role that emotional aspects have in SX. This article presents a literature review of the last 5 years (between 2015 and 2021) regarding the impact of emotions on SX. The results show that there is a lack of studies that address the topic from a CX perspective. Articles analyze mainly three aspects: students' well-being, their learning experiences, and their engagement.
The satisfaction and well-being of students are conditioned by the quality of
interactions with their respective Higher Education Institutions (HEI). These
interactions are studied in a wide variety of topics (Hong et al. 2020) [
According to Hill et al. CX includes “the physical and emotional experiences
occurring through the interactions with the product and/or service offering of a brand
from the point of first direct, conscious contact, through the total journey to the
postconsumption stage” [
Although the concept of CX may differ from definition to definition, the importance of the emotional and affective aspects of interactions are a common ground. It is therefore interesting to collect information and analyze the role and implications of emotions in SX. Emotions are highly relevant in Human Computer-Interaction (HCI). In recent years HCI scholars show an increasing interest in CX.
We carried out a literature review in order to analyze the role and impact of emotions
on SX. We want to better understand the emotions nature of SX, in order to improve its
evaluation, and to hopefully enhance students’ satisfaction. We used 5 scientific
databases: Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE
Xplore. In this review we searched for articles published between 2015 and 2021,
following as guide the framework proposed by Kitchenham, initially designed to carry
out literature reviews in software engineering [
The understanding of CX concept is of vital importance to satisfy the needs and engage
the clients of a company. Klaus & Maklan define CX as “the customer’s cognitive and
affective assessment of all direct and indirect encounters with the firm relating to their
purchasing behavior” [
All CX definitions refer in some way to emotions and/or affective aspects. Since the
customer-company interactions can be both physical and emotional [
Student eXperience is a subject widely covered in the literature. A large number of
topics related to students' experiences have been detected. Hong et al. have identified
through text mining the research trends related to SX. Twenty-one topics referring to
the SX were identified, where the affective and emotional aspects are related to the
“First-year transitions” and “Assessment and feedback” topics respectively [
One of the perspectives for analyzing the interactions and perceptions of students is that of CX. In this way, the SX is a particular case of CX where the customer-brand relationship is specified in a student-HEI interaction. In this way, SX can be defined from a CX approach as all the perceptions that a student experiences when interacting, both physically and emotionally, with the products, systems or services offered by a HEI. SX includes the whole student’s journey, from the “pre-consumption” stage to the “post-consumption” stage and contemplating external and internal spaces to the HEI.
Our study looks for the role that emotions have in student-HEI interactions, and what is the emotions’ impact on SX. 2.3
Although there’s no general agreed definition for "emotions" in scientific community,
several definitions and theoretical models have been outlined, in different areas. Sherer
has defined emotions according to the framework of the component process model as
"an episode of interrelated, synchronized changes in the states of all or most of the five
organismic subsystems in response to the evaluation of an external or internal stimulus
event as relevant to major concerns of the organism” [
The role of emotions and their impact on SX are important, since emotional stimuli
can occur as a result of student-HEI interactions in different touchpoints. Affective
analysis is important in first-year students, since it has been observed how emotions
have effects over short- and long-term adaptational outcomes [
Evaluating emotions in SX is an important aspect. It is evident that given the large
number of topics that the SX encompasses [
This literature review was performed with the guide of a framework for performing
literature review in software engineering, proposed by Kitchenham [
To ensure the rigor of the literature review, the checklist of elements proposed by
the PRISMA methodology was used, focused on improving the content of a literature
review and meta-analysis [
ID RQ1 RQ2 RQ3
We oriented the literature review to the following elements: (1) the topics that deal with emotional aspects regarding SX, (2) the impact of emotions on SX, and (3) the methods that are used to evaluate emotions in the SX. Table 1 presents the research questions (RQs) that guided the study. For this research we examined the literature published within the last 5 years (from 2015 to 2021), indexed in five databases: Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore. The search strings were formulated based on the relevant topics to the literature review. In all five databases we searched for three terms, using the following conceptual string search: “Student experience” and (“Emotions” or “Affective”). The number of indexed studies in each database and the percentage of contribution to the total results are described in Table 2.
We found 4 documents in IEEE Xplore (Fig. 5), most of them related to Educational Courses.
On Fig. 6 a growing tendency can be observed in the number of publications that contain the terms "Student experience" and “Emotions”/”Affective” over the years. We can infer that the number of articles published until the end of 2021 will increase significantly; of the date of this document (April 2021), 42 articles have already been available in the databases consulted. We searched for studies focusing on the impact of emotions on SX in all areas and including all types of research methods. The inclusion criteria are described in Table 3. As indicated in Table 4 the study was limited to higher education experiences, at undergraduate level.
We fully analyzed only a selected number of articles, that we found more relevant
for our research topic. We also have to point out that our review also includes articles
that did not meet some of the previously mentioned criteria, but we find them highly
relevant [
The students’ experiences are developed in a wide range of topics, such as: learning
[
It should be noted that all the articles analyzed used self-reported methods to collect
information regarding the emotions of the students, such as questionnaires and
interviews. In one article text mining was subsequently used to analyze the data
obtained [
Regarding the impact of emotions in SX, the role of emotions in learning experiences
is the most discussed aspect in the literature. Reisenzein & Döring have proposed that
emotions have three properties: i) immediate awareness, ii) phenomenal quality, and
iii) intentionality [
The student’s attitude in learning experiences is not passive. Rentzios et al. explored
the relationship between emotional regulation, defense mechanisms, and learning. The
study makes explicit the role of defense mechanisms as mediating factors in the
relationship between academic emotions and learning. This relationship is more evident
when an immature defense style is observed on the part of the students [
The role that services has in SX is remarkable, especially in the field of learning
experiences, motivation and performance. Tan et al. have analyzed the relationship
between students and educational services, focusing on the importance of empathy on
interactions. Empathy, which is composed of cognitive and affective aspects, can
manifest itself in the interaction between students and staff. An interaction with
empathy as a mediator factor can influence the motivation and academic performance
of students [
Several articles have analyzed the relationship between feelings and student
engagement with their HEI. Kahu et al. have extensively studied the role of student
engagement, regarding students' self-efficacy, emotions, belonging and well-being. In
these studies, the importance of emotions as inhibitors of engagement and as outcomes
has become evident, being a determining factor for academic success. An assertion is
highlighted urging HEIs to recognize that each student journey is idiosyncratic [
It is important to observe how emotions impact on student’s well-being is manifested
from early stages of their interaction with the educational institutions, from their
firstyear transition to the final stages of their student life. Young et al. mention how negative
emotions such as stress impact through and beyond HE studies, especially during the
transition of fresh students [
As mentioned, when answering the first research question, a large number of articles use self-reported methods (mainly interviews, questionnaires, and surveys) to find out about students' experiences. In the articles analyzed, however, variations could be observed in the processing and postprocessing mechanisms of the reported data.
It is of special interest an article by Tzacheva et al. which used text mining to process
the feedback provided by students, to detect and analyze emotions, in order to identify
the impact of active learning methods [
In articles referring to the interaction of students with educational services, quality
questionnaires are used to analyze the experience of students. Tan et al. are using the
general, well-known SERVQUAL scale [
The importance of emotion analysis from early to late stages of the student’s experiences is evident. This considering the role they have as: i) inhibitors or enhancers of engagement, ii) agents that enhance or diminish motivation and attention, and iii) elements that facilitate empathic communication between subjects. All of these roles have a proven impact on academic outcomes and student well-being.
Interestingly, there’s a lack of articles that analyze the impact of emotions on SX from a CX perspective. This does not prevent the identification of factors related to CX in the articles we have analyzed, such as physical or emotional interactions between students and actors from the academic environment. These interactions are carried out directly between subjects and services, or through the use of graphic study material.
The generalized use of self-reported methods to collect information regarding the emotional experience of students, such as questionnaires and interviews, is also observed. This can be a problem given the length and particularity of the student journey. For this reason, we believe that it is more appropriate to analyze the temporal evolution of the emotional impact throughout the student's journey, rather than carry out evaluations at the end of it.
Given the lack of articles with a CX perspective and the lack of a continuous evaluation of the emotional impact on SX, we find it necessary to carry out future work on the matter. We hope to identify mechanisms to evaluate the emotional impact on students, throughout the touchpoints of their journey as customers. In this way the analysis will be more accurate, as it will better adjust to the specificity of each journey. Due the lack of definition of SX from a CX perspective, we intend to carry out a systematic literature review on SX definitions, aspects, and evaluation methods. Acknowledgments. Nicolás Matus is a beneficiary of the PUCV PhD Scholarship 2021, in Chile.