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Achievement Emotions Questionnaire

AEQ
educationpsychologyFree for research use

A modular instrument measuring nine achievement emotions (enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, boredom, relief) across class, learning, and test settings.

Items
232
Response format
5-point Likert
Version
1.0
Subscales
9

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Achievement emotions were measured with the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ; Pekrun et al., 2011), whose emotion scales showed good-to-excellent internal consistency (α ≈ .75–.93).

Reliability & validation

Validation population
University students (Pekrun et al., 2011)
Cronbach's α
0.75–0.93

Subscales

EnjoymentHopePrideAngerAnxietyShameHopelessnessBoredomRelief

Response anchors

Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neutral · Agree · Strongly agree

Known limitations

The full instrument is very long (232 items) and is designed to be used modularly by setting or emotion; scales are domain-specific and were validated primarily with university students.

Original citation

Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Frenzel, A. C., Barchfeld, P., Perry, R. P. (2011). Measuring emotions in students' learning and performance: The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ). Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36(1), 36-48.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.10.002

Questions researchers ask

What does the AEQ measure?

A modular instrument measuring nine achievement emotions (enjoyment, hope, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, boredom, relief) across class, learning, and test settings.

How many items does the AEQ have?

The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) has 232 items across 9 subscales: Enjoyment, Hope, Pride, Anger, Anxiety, Shame, Hopelessness, Boredom, Relief.

Is the AEQ free to use?

The AEQ is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the AEQ reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.75–0.93. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the AEQ, and how do I cite it?

Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Frenzel, A. C., Barchfeld, P., Perry, R. P. (2011). Measuring emotions in students' learning and performance: The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ). Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36(1), 36-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.10.002

Reference only

Folio has verified the citation and methods metadata for this scale, but does not hold confirmed item wording or scoring to import into Surveyor.

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Library entry verified July 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.