Hispanic first-generation college students (FGCS) experience more potential barriers to college success than continuing generation college students (CGCS). With an eye toward identifying ways to support students in negotiating these barriers, there were three purposes to this study. First was to understand the variability among Hispanic FGCS based on their demographic variables. Second was to examine perceived stress, emotion regulation, and two components of grit (perseverance of effort and consistency of interest) in relation to academic motivation. Third was to examine the moderating roles of emotion regulation and two components of grit (perseverance of effort and consistency of interest) on the association between perceived stress and academic motivation. Participants were 491 first-year and second year Hispanic FGCS recruited from a Hispanic Serving Institution located in southern California. Students were recruited from psychology courses at the participating university and completed self-report questionnaires as part of class assignment. Multiple regression was used to examine the main effects of perceived stress, emotion regulation, perseverance of effort and consistency of interest on academic motivation. Three separate hierarchical multiple regression models were used to examine the interactions of perceived stress and the three moderators (emotion regulation, perseverance of effort, and consistency of interest) as predictors of academic motivation. Results indicated a significant bivariate correlation between perceived stress and academic motivation, but that perceived stress was not significantly associated with academic motivation in the regression analyses. There were significant main effects of emotion regulation, perseverance of effort and consistency of interest in predicting academic motivation. No significant interaction effects were found. This study contributes to the understand of Hispanic FGCS and ways to support their success. Findings have implications for the development of interventions focused on emotion regulation and grit to support the academic success (specifically, academic motivation) of Hispanic FGCS
