A COMPENDIUM OF SCALES for use in the SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Interest as an Emotion
Student interest can also be operationalized as an emotion (Izard, 1977) that focuses attention
and openness to receiving information (Dougherty, Abe, & Izard, 1996). From this perspective,
interest is a stable emotion that should influence intrinsic motivation to learn and interest in
academic endeavors. The Interest Subscale of the Differential Emotions Scale (Izard, Libero,
Putnam, & Haynes, 1993) has been utilized by previous researchers (Bye, Pushkar, & Conway,
2007) to operationalize interest broadly as a dispositional emotion relevant to academic
outcomes. The Interest Subscale (α = .75; Bye et al., 2007) is a 3-item measure of the degree to
which individuals generally experience the emotion of interest, and consists of the items “How
often do you feel so interested in what you’re doing that you’re caught up in it?,” “How often
do you feel like what you’re doing or watching is interesting?,” and “How often do you feel
alert, curious, and kind of excited about something?” Participants respond using a 1 (rarely or
never) to 5 (very often) response range. Interest conceptualized this way is positively correlated
with intrinsic motivation to learn (Bye et al., 2007). It is important to note, however, that this
measure of interest is macro-level, and does not pertain to student interest or engagement to
particular aspects of classroom material, though items could easily be adapted to assess the
degree to which students experience the emotion of interest specifically toward classes.
Student Engagement
Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (SCEQ)
Handelsman and colleagues (2005) created the SCEQ to assess student engagement specific to
a college course. Contrary to other measures of student engagement (e.g., NSSE), this measure
assesses more micro-level class engagement. Participants rate whether each of 23 items are
descriptive of them using a 1 (not at all characteristic of me) to 5 (very characteristic of me)
response range. Handelsman and colleagues’ exploratory factor analysis revealed that student
course engagement was composed of four factors: 1) a skills engagement factor (α = .82) that
captures engagement by means of practicing skills (example items are “Taking good notes in
class” and “Making sure to study on a regular basis”), 2) an emotional engagement factor (α =
.82) that captures engagement by means of emotional involvement with class material
(example items are “Finding ways to make the course interesting to me” and “Applying course
material to my life”), 3) a participation/interaction engagement factor (α = .79) that captures
engagement by means of class participation and interactions with teachers and other students
(example items are “Participating actively in small-group discussions,” and “Helping fellow
students”), and 4) a performance engagement factor (α = .76) that captures engagement by
means of performance level (example items are “Getting a good grade” and “Doing well on the
tests”).
Furthermore, Handelsman and colleagues (2005) demonstrated the predictive validity of the
SCEQ by finding that particular factors of the multi-faceted engagement construct were
positively related to midterm and final exam grades in a mathematics course. Additional studies
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