Measuring Emotions in Civic Education: Development and Validation of Class-, Discussion-, and Information-Related Emotions Scales

Research in educational psychology frequently focuses on the role emotions play in learning and on related antecedents and outcomes. However, studies are often limited to a restricted number of subject domains such as mathematics, languages, or science. As civic education differs in relevant aspects from other educational disciplines (e.g., due to its cross-curricular nature and its tendency to incorporate recent political and social developments), there is a need to develop and validate scales focusing on emotions as they specifically relate to this subject. In the proposed study, we develop and validate self-report scales for three instances of civic education in which emotions likely are elicited: a class-related emotions scale, a (cross-curricular) political discussion-related emotions scale, and an epistemic emotions scale focusing on emotions experienced during processing of political information. Additionally, political topic emotions are assessed using single-item emotions scales. The objective is to analyse the internal and external validity of the scales, thereby asking whether the internal structure of discrete emotions can be shown by the data, and measurement invariance is provided. In terms of external validity, the study asks whether discrete emotions are related to antecedents and effects of emotions as proposed by the control-value theory. As antecedents, measures on control- and value-appraisals (e.g., domain specific self-concept, internal political efficacy, personal importance) were adapted to fit to the civic education context. As measures for outcomes of emotions, students' extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, engagement with politics, school grade in civic education, and achievement on a political knowledge quiz are used. All scales will be validated using data (expected N = 500) from students of part-time vocational schools (class-related emotions) and full-time vocational and non-vocational schools of the academic track (discussion-related emotions) at grade 10 to 13 in Austria. Data collection is planned for April to May 2021 using online-questionnaires which are shared with students via schools. Schools are sampled with a stratified random samples, stratified to region and school type. Confirmatory factor analysis will be used to assess the internal validity of the scales. For external validity, bivariate correlation analysis and structural equation models for latent correlations will be used in order to test relationships to antecedents and effects of emotions.

教育心理学研究往往聚焦于情感在学习过程中的作用及其相关的前因和后果。然而，研究往往局限于有限的学科领域，如数学、语言或科学。鉴于公民教育的相关方面与其他教育学科有所不同（例如，由于其跨学科性质以及其融入最新政治和社会发展的趋势），有必要开发并验证专注于情感与该学科具体相关的量表。在拟议的研究中，我们开发并验证了针对公民教育中可能激发情感的三个实例的自我报告量表：与班级相关的情感量表、与（跨学科）政治讨论相关的情感量表以及关注政治信息处理过程中体验到的认知情感量表。此外，使用单条目情感量表评估政治话题情感。研究目标在于分析量表的内部和外部效度，从而探究离散情感的内部结构是否可以通过数据得到体现，以及测量不变性是否得到保证。在外部效度方面，研究旨在探讨离散情感是否与控制-价值理论所提出的情感的前因和效应相关。作为前因，对控制-价值评估（例如，特定领域的自我概念、内部政治效能、个人重要性）的测量被调整为适应公民教育背景。作为情感结果的测量，使用学生的外在和内在动机、对政治的参与度、公民教育学校成绩以及政治知识测验的成就。所有量表都将使用来自奥地利10至13年级部分时间制职业学校学生（与班级相关的情感）和全日制职业学校及学术轨道非职业学校学生（与讨论相关的情感）的数据（预期样本量 N = 500）进行验证。数据收集计划于2021年4月至5月进行，采用在线问卷，通过学校与学生共享。学校采用分层随机抽样，分层至地区和学校类型。将使用验证性因素分析来评估量表的内部效度。为了检验外部效度，将使用双变量相关分析和潜变量相关性的结构方程模型以测试与情感的前因和效应的关系。