The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire: Validation and implementation for undergraduate physics practicals

Abstract

Physics is a discipline associated with diverse emotions; some enjoy it, others don’t. Yet, students’ emotions when studying physics are under researched. This study adapts the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) to measure the emotions of students with first year physics undergraduate practicals. The aims of this research are to validate the AEQ in our context and to probe students’ emotions towards two practicals; the control which is of standard format and the intervention which incorporates colour and historical aspects seeking to produce more positive emotions. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and descriptive statistics conducted with a sample of 320 students confirm the reliability and internal validity of the adapted AEQ (AEQ-PhysicsPrac) for the purposes of this study. Differences in emotions between the control and intervention are detected indicating that the AEQ-PhysicsPrac has utility in physics education.