Validation of the Programming Emotions Questionnaire

ABSTRACTThis overarching study aims to establish the validity of the Programming Emotions Questionnaire (PEQ). The PEQ is an instrument that could be used for assessing students' emotions in a computer programming class, lab, or test. It is derived from the achievement emotions questionnaire (AEQ) that is grounded in the control-value theory of achievement emotions. Since AEQ has numerous psychometric challenges (e.g., some items are not atomic), we make significant changes to revise it, hence, we will be validating the questionnaire from scratch. In this poster we discuss the preliminary findings of our validation study, specifically, findings from the content validity phase. For content validity, we had discussions with psychometric experts and computer science experts. We also present findings of a pilot study of the target population, that is, CS1 students. The result of content validity suggests that there is a need to develop the PEQ that significantly modifies the AEQ. The immediate next steps include conducting steps to ensure construct and criterion validity, and its reliability.