The Development and Validation of the Short Form of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale

The Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (FLES) was originally introduced by Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014). We used a data set with n = 1,603 learners of foreign languages (FL) to develop and validate the Short Form of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (S-FLES). The data was split into two groups and we used the first sample to develop the short-form measure. A three-factor hierarchical model of FLE was uncovered, with FLE as a higher order factor and Teacher Appreciation, Personal Enjoyment, and Social Enjoyment as three lower order factors. We selected three items for each of the three lower order factors of the S-FLES. The proposed nine-item short form of FLE was validated in the second sample, and the fit statistics for the factor structure indicated close fit. Further evidence was found to support the internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the S-FLES. The S-FLES provides a valid and reliable short-form measure of FLE, which can easily be included in any battery of assessments examining individual differences in language learning.