construction and validation of academic moral emotions questionnaire for iranian efl learners

Academic emotions have been demonstrated to be associated with efl learners’ achievement. therefore, any attempt to study classroom procedures and learning processes in which learners’ emotions play a role requires trustworthy instruments to identify and measure distinct emotions of the learners. the most outstanding self-report questionnaire developed so far for the purpose of measuring multiple emotions in academic situations is achievement emotions questionnaire (pekrun et al., 2002, 2011). however, instruments for measuring academic moral emotions are lacking. the current study aimed to construct and validate an instrument specifically designed to measure academic moral emotions (ame) of efl learners. ames are a set of achievement-related classroom emotions which hold a social value and have a linkage to the interests or welfare of people other than the individual learner. the constructed instrument comprised 67 items measuring 9 academic moral emotions of joy, hope, pride, sympathy, anger, anxiety, shame, disappointment, and boredom. for item generation, the existing conceptual descriptions in the literature concerning the cognitive, physiological and behavioral manifestations of each distinct emotion were collected for building the item pool. as suggested in attribution theory, the focus was on perceived antecedents of emotions. the collected items were presented to a few experts in the field to ensure initial face validity of the items. the initial questionnaire, consisting of 100 items, was administered as a pilot to a sample of about 30 efl learners. 67 items were retained based on reliability statistics demonstrated by each item. the questionnaire was administered to 300 efl learners in iran language institute. the confirmatory factor analysis based on root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) showed an excellent fit for the hypothesized structure of the ame questionnaire. the overall reliability was 0.94. the instrument can be a helpful resource for the researchers of efl classroom emotions.