Validity and Reliability Analysis of Student Autonomy, Student Engagement, and English Learning Motivation Scales

This pilot study aimed to evaluate the reliability and construct validity of three instruments—Learner Autonomy Scale (LAS), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-S), and English Learning Motivation Scale (ELMS)—in the context of higher vocational college EFL students in Shandong Province. A total of 120 valid responses were collected and analyzed using SPSS Statistics 26. Reliability analysis showed high internal consistency for all three instruments, with Cronbach’s alpha values exceeding 0.90. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted to assess the underlying factor structure of each scale. For the LAS, originally consisting of 32 items, five components were identified. Ten items with factor loadings below 0.6 were removed, resulting in a refined 22-item structure. For the UWES-S (17 items), three components—vitality, dedication, and focus—were identified, with all items retained. The final structure accounted for 82.036% of the variance. For the ELMS (18 items), two components—extrinsic and intrinsic motivation—were confirmed. All items were retained, and the structure explained 79.587% of the variance, with all factor loadings exceeding 0.7. The results demonstrated that the revised instruments are reliable and valid for further large-scale data collection in this research.