Mediating effects of achievement emotions between peer support and learning satisfaction in graduate nursing students

Graduate nursing students experience considerable stress due to their multiple responsibilities, including professional responsibilities, graduate coursework and family commitments. Peer support can help graduate students overcome stress and may heavily influence their learning satisfaction. However, the mechanisms underlying the influence of peer support on learning satisfaction in graduate students remain unclear. Thus, this cross-sectional study examined the relationship between peer support, achievement emotions (learner-specific emotions related to achievement activities) and learning satisfaction, as well as the mediating effects of achievement emotions among 225 graduate nursing students working in the Korean health care system. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing these variables. Pearson correlation was conducted to investigate the relationship between the variables and Baron and Kenny's regression analysis and Sobel test were conducted to examine the mediating effects of achievement emotions. Peer support correlated positively with positive achievement emotions and learning satisfaction and negatively with negative emotions. Positive emotions were positively and negative emotions were negatively, correlated with learning satisfaction. Achievement emotions mediated the relationship between peer support and learning satisfaction. Our findings indicate that peer support plays an important role in improving learning satisfaction, emphasizing the advantages of positive emotions and the disadvantages of negative emotions in graduate nursing students.