Background: College instruction has experienced a significant movement toward increased online learning course options. Without appropriate supports, students in virtual learning environments often face greater challenges with self-regulation, motivation, and recognizing the personal relevance of course content. Objective: The current study focuses on the prevalence of personal relevance and its associated impact on cognitive and motivational variables including achievement emotion, intrinsic value, self-efficacy, test anxiety, cognitive strategy use, self-regulation, and metacognition in a virtual learning environment. Method: Students in two online graduate level human development courses completed a series of questionnaires (N = 73) for course credit. Results: Results show the high transformative experience (TE) group reported significantly higher positive emotions, interest, intrinsic value, self-efficacy, cognitive strategy use, test anxiety, and self-regulation, giving them more cognitive and motivational benefits than those who experienced low levels. They also show no relationship between TE and course grade. Conclusion: Future research in this area may benefit from focus on ways to intentionally increase TEs from online contexts to real-life contexts. Teaching Implications: Such research would allow instructors intentionality in pedagogical endeavors while allowing students to integrate course information into their daily lives.