Expanding the Discrete Emotions in Physical Education Scale (DEPES): Evaluating Emotions With Behavior and Learning

Area of Science:

• * Educational Psychology
• * Physical Education Research
• * Affective Science

Background:

• * Student affective experiences are crucial in physical education (PE) but challenging to measure comprehensively.
• * Existing scales often limit the scope of emotions assessed, potentially hindering a full understanding of student motivation and behavior.
• * The Discrete Emotions in Physical Education Scale (DEPES) initially focused on in-activity emotions.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To expand the DEPES by incorporating outcome-related emotions (pride, shame, relief) alongside in-activity emotions (enjoyment, boredom, anger).
• * To investigate the factor structure and psychometric properties of the expanded DEPES.
• * To examine the predictive validity of the expanded DEPES in relation to social competence, disruptive behavior, and metacognitive knowledge.

Main Methods:

• * Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) was used to analyze data from 495 middle school students in the United States.
• * The study examined the factor structure of the expanded DEPES, including six discrete emotions.
• * Predictive validity was assessed against measures of perceived social competence, disruptive behavior, and metacognitive knowledge (declarative, conditional, procedural).

Main Results:

• * ESEM analyses demonstrated a good model fit for the six-emotion DEPES, indicating discriminant validity.
• * The expanded scale showed strong primary factor loadings with minimal cross-loadings.
• * The DEPES significantly predicted students' disruptive behavior (21% variance), social competence (40% variance), and metacognitive knowledge (40-57% variance).

Conclusions:

• * The expanded DEPES effectively measures six discrete emotions, providing precise information on students' affective experiences in PE.
• * Assessing a wider range of discrete emotions aids in capturing unique motivational tendencies influencing student behavior and knowledge.
• * The DEPES offers valuable contributions to PE research and practice by offering a more nuanced understanding of student motivation than general affect measures.