Aim To explore nursing students’ academic emotions during ongoing learning activities focusing on perceived challenge and competence.

Background Emotions plays an important part in learning. Positive emotions can be beneficial while negative emotions can be detrimental to educational outcomes. Optimal experiences are situations when learners simultaneously experience sufficient challenge and competence. Since various learning activities are performed in different learning environments during the nursing program, it is of interest to investigate students’ ongoing emotions in the occurring contexts.

Design A longitudinal descriptive study.

Methods By using the Contextual Activity Sampling System, data was collected every third week on a three-year nursing program. From August 2015 to January 2020, a total of 2, 947 questionnaires were answered by 158 students. Experiences of positive and negative academic emotions were calculated for the entire program. Optimal experience was calculated for courses where high discrepancy between positive and negative experiences were identified.

Results Students self-reported academic emotions varied over time and in relation to learning activities. High ratings of negative emotions were reported during clinical practice in all semesters except the final. Students’ positive academic emotions and optimal experience in clinical practice increased after having deepened their academic knowledge.

Conclusion Nursing students had an increased positive experience when they themselves practice a learning activity and it appeared that they benefit from academic preparation prior to entering internship. Nursing students need an academic competence to develop their skills during training in the clinical reality. Increased collaboration between academia and clinic would be beneficial for students’ clinical development.