The English Reading Enjoyment Scale and its preliminary evidence of psychometric properties

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to fill the gaps in measuring foreign language reading enjoyment by developing an English reading enjoyment scale for Chinese university students. Scherer’s [(2000). ‘Emotions as Episodes of Subsystem Synchronization Driven by Nonlinear Appraisal Processes.’ In Emotion, Development, and Self-Organization: Dynamic Systems Approaches to Emotional Development, edited by M. D. Lewis, and I. Granic, 70–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] component process model of emotion was consulted and a sequential mixed-methods approach was taken. In the qualitative part, 29 Chinese university students of English were invited to report their English reading enjoyment representations and the collected data were analyzed with a grounded theory approach, which produced 52 thematic categories. Based on the 12 mostly endorsed categories, the English Reading Enjoyment Scale was constructed and then submitted to principal components analysis and subsequently confirmatory factor analysis, leading to an 11-item scale. The internal structure and psychometric properties of the scale as well as the limitations and implications of the study are discussed.