The journal Behavioral Sciences has opened a Special Issue on the theme “Motivation and Emotions in Learning Processes”, focusing on how motivational and emotional experiences shape learning beyond cognition. Motivation and emotions influence engagement, attention, effort, persistence, self-regulation, achievement, and well-being across the lifespan, and are deeply intertwined with contextual factors in classrooms, families, cultures, and digital or hybrid learning environments.

The Special Issue invites contributions that advance theory and evidence on how motivational and emotional processes develop and interact with cognition and context, and how they can be effectively supported. Interdisciplinary submissions from psychology, education, neuroscience, and the social sciences are welcome, including empirical articles, reviews, and methodological papers using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods with learners from childhood through adulthood. Topics include the dynamics of motivation and emotions, contextual influences (classroom, family, cultural), teachers’ beliefs and emotions, trajectories in digital/hybrid learning, and interventions or pedagogical practices that promote engagement, self-efficacy, and positive emotions.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2027