Measuring Epistemic Emotions of Elementary School Children: Presenting the Ees4kids

• In Event: Emotions in Student and Teacher Learning: New Insights and Educational Applications

Abstract

Objectives

Students’ emotions profoundly impact their learning and wellbeing. One important group of emotions particularly relevant for learning are epistemic emotions (Morton, 2010; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). Research including multiple epistemic emotions is growing but still scarce, and it has focused on adolescents and adults but neglected the early school years. To address this gap, we developed a multi-item instrument assessing the prototypical epistemic emotions surprise, curiosity, and confusion in elementary school children: the epistemic emotions scales for kids; ees4kids). We present data supporting the reliability and validity of the instrument.

Theoretical Framework

Empirical evidence suggests that surprise, curiosity, and even confusion can promote learning (e.g., D’Mello et al., 2014; DiLeo et al., 2019; Vogl et al., 2019). Control and value appraisals have been discussed as relevant antecedents positively predicting curiosity and negatively predicting confusion (e.g., Muis et al., 2015). In terms of relationships between emotions, equally valenced emotions are generally expected to correlate positively; however, epistemic emotions, in particular surprise, can also be linked along the arousal dimension (Pekrun et al., 2017).

Method

We developed a multi-item questionnaire assessing the prototypical epistemic emotions surprise, curiosity, and confusion in elementary school children. Items are answered using a 5-point Likert scale that asks respondents to report how strongly they feel the emotion (1 = not at all to 5 = very). In contrast to the original Epistemic Emotion Scales (EES; Pekrun et al., 2017), the items for the ees4kids were developed as complete sentences using selected adjective from the EES and developed gender specific visual anchors to ease understanding (see Figures 1-3). In line with research on achievement emotions (Lichtenfeld et al., 2012), we constructed an instrument that assesses epistemic emotions in the school context in a domain-specific way (i.e., in math).The final questionnaire was completed by 201 elementary school children (Mage = 8.85 years, SD = 0.75; 104 females). To validate the questionnaire, we additionally assessed students’ control and value appraisals, their enjoyment and anxiety in math (AEQ-ES; Lichtenfeld et al., 2012), and self-reported math achievement.

Results

Preliminary findings show that the ees4kids demonstrates sufficient variation of scores, excellent item-total correlations (average rit = .54-.77) and satisfactory to excellent reliabilities (α = .72-.93). Attesting to the ees4kid’s validity, all scales were significantly related to control- and value appraisals. Control and value correlated negatively with confusion and positively with curiosity. In addition, control correlated negatively with surprise. Results showed positive correlations between curiosity and enjoyment, and between confusion and anxiety. Surprise correlated positively with both curiosity and negative emotions. Surprise and confusion were negatively and curiosity positively (marginally significant) related to students’ self-reported achievement. Further results from ongoing scale validation using structural equation modeling will be presented.

Significance

Our study suggests that the ees4kids is a reliable instrument and that its scales yield meaningful relations with antecedents and outcomes of epistemic emotions and with students’ enjoyment and anxiety, thus, documenting construct validity. Implications for scale refinement, research on epistemic emotions, and educational practice will be discussed.

Authors

• Elisabeth Vogl, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

• Stephanie Lichtenfeld, University of Hamburg

• Petra Barchfeld, University of Munich

• Reinhard Pekrun, University of Essex