Development and validation of the Principal Emotion Inventory: A mixed-methods approach

Abstract

The current study aimed to develop and validate a Principal Emotion Inventory (PEI). Equipped with the theoretical-empirical strategy of test construction, this development and validation procedure consists of one expert survey and five sequential empirical studies with sufficient samples of participating principals based on existing emotion theories and empirical studies. The reliability, substantive validity, structural validity and external validity were tested using exploratory factor analysis, confirmative factor analysis, invariance analysis and structural equation modelling. As a result, a multidimensional model on principal emotions with 25 items was identified with a good model fit. The PEI consists of five factors: enjoyment, pride, frustration, anxiety and hopelessness. This paper is the first attempt to develop and validate a sound instrument that enables measuring school principals’ salient emotions in relation to their working experiences. The PEI would provide a validated instrument for future research on discovering the nature of principal emotions as an independent construct. Measurement is critically important to the replicability and robustness of the research. The findings on principal emotions are also informative for principal preparation and evaluation while taking emotions into consideration.

Teacher Leaders’ Emotions Mirror Teacher Professionalism via Collegial Trust

“…Similar patterns ranked by teachers from China were obtained regarding positive and negative emotions (Chen 2016 ). However, the discrepancy of this study from other aforementioned studies is that, although the ratings for negative emotions (e.g., the highest rating 4.81 out of 6) are similar to those from Chinese teachers (4.63 out of 6 from Chen 2019c ), they are far lower than from principals from China (3.78 out of 6 from Chen 2020b ) and from teachers from Croatia (2.83 out of 5 from Buric et al 2018 ) and Germany (1.88 out of 5 from Frenzel et al 2016 ). These gaps indicate that teacher leaders in this study reported a higher level of negative emotions compared to their teacher colleagues and supervisors both from the same context and different contexts.…”

“…A meta-analysis project (Yang et al 2019 ) covering 116 studies in mainland China revealed a high likelihood of Chinese teachers experiencing some negative emotions such as anxiety and frustration. Chinese principals, too, are affected by high anxiety levels, feeling frustrated, and hopeless in their work (Chen 2020b ). However, few studies have examined the emotions of teacher leaders and the impacts of those emotions on their professional lives.…”

Understanding a STEM teacher’s emotions and professional identities: a three-year longitudinal case study

“…Although an absolute and widely accepted definition of emotions does not exist to date (Chen, 2020), more scholars are reaching a consensus that human emotions could be conceptualized and theorized through a sociological lens (Turner, 2009). For instance, Schutz et al (2006) defined emotions as "socially constructed, personally enacted ways of being" (p. 344).…”

Understanding teacher leaders’ behaviours: Development and validation of the Teacher Leadership Inventory

“…The paper followed the basic principles for scale development and validation recommended by the test development guidelines set out in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, 2014) and some recent modern recommendations (Burić et al, 2018; Chen, 2020; Frenzel et al, 2016; Krabbe, 2017). Three stages are employed in the current study using different independent samples.…”