Development and Construct Validation of an Academic Emotions Scale

Abstract

This article describes the development and two studies on the construct validity of the Academic Emotions Scale (AES). The AES is a French self-report questionnaire assessing six emotions in the context of school learning: enjoyment, hope, pride, anxiety, shame and frustration. Its construct validity was studied through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. A six-factor structure emerged from exploratory factor analyses on two different samples (N = 188; N = 516). These six factors correspond to six academic emotions. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the factorial structure of the final version of the AES. A hierarchical model with a second-order factor (valence) underlying the six first-order emotional factors was the most suited to the data. The psychometric characteristics of the AES justify the use of this questionnaire in future research.