The sudden switch to distance education to contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered adolescents' lives around the globe. The present research aims to identify psychological characteristics that relate to adolescents' well-being in terms of positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation, and key characteristics of their learning behavior in a situation of unplanned, involuntary distance education. Following Self-Determination Theory, experienced competence, autonomy, and relatedness were assumed to relate to active learning behavior (i.e., engagement and persistence), and negatively relate to passive learning behavior (i.e., procrastination), mediated via positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation. Data were collected via online questionnaires in altogether eight countries from Europe, Asia, and North America (N = 25,305) and comparable results across countries were expected. Experienced competence was consistently found to relate to positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation, and, in turn, active learning behavior in terms of engagement and persistence. The study results further highlight the role of perceived relatedness for positive emotion. The high proportions of explained variance speak in favor of taking these central results into account when designing distance education in times of COVID-19.

Coursera India Gurgaon India

Cyprus Computer Society Nicosia Cyprus

Department for Teacher Education Centre for Teacher Education University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology Faculty of Psychology University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland

Department of Educational Studies University of Potsdam Potsdam Germany

Department of Human Development and Family Relations Government Home Science College Panjab University Chandigarh India

Department of Mathematics Faculty of Mathematics University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Psychology Penn State University University Park Pennsylvania United States of America

Department of Psychology University of Bonn Bonn Germany

Faculty of Education St Kliment Ohridski University Bitola North Macedonia

Faculty of Educational Studies Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań Poland

Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences University of Wrocław Wrocław Poland

Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Institute of Psychology Faculty of Social Science University of Gdańsk Gdańsk Poland

National Anti Bullying Research and Resource Centre Dublin City University Dublin Ireland

Technische Universität Berlin Chair of Educational Psychology Berlin Germany

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