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Abstract
The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ30) is a self-reporting tool measuring emotion awareness in children. Previous studies provided only marginally compelling evidence for the coherency and validity of the construct. This present study aims to enhance the understanding of the construct measured by further analyzing the reliability, stability, structure and validity of the EAQ30. Four hundred and forty-six Romanian children aged 11 to 16 participated in the study. The findings show that the EAQ30 subscales have questionable to acceptable internal consistencies, weak short-term and long-term reliabilities, low or negative inter-scale correlations and an inconsistent pattern of relations with the validity criteria. Additionally, the six-factor structure was not confirmed. Instead, the EAQ30 seems to have a four-factor structure represented by identification of emotions (Differentiating Emotions), internal-oriented thinking (Bodily Awareness and Analyses of Emotions), expression of emotions (Verbal Sharing and Not Hiding) and interest in other's emotions (Attending to Others). Nevertheless, not all dimensions have coherency or validity. Consequently, directions for revising the instrument are suggested.
Keywords: EAQ30; emotion awareness; psychometrics; confirmatory factor analysis; validity.
Introduction
The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ30; Rieffe, Oosterveld, Miers, Meerum Terwogt, & Ly, 2008) is a self-report instrument measuring emotion awareness (EA) as a multi-dimensional construct in children and adolescents aged between 9 and 16 years old. The dimensions of EA are drawn from the theory surrounding alexithymia, expanded to contain more than difficulties in identifying and describing emotions and preference for analyzing external rather than internal information (Rieffe et al., 2007). Consequently, EA, the opposite of alexithymia, is defined as an attention and attitudinal process comprising the monitoring and differentiation of emotions, of their causes, and of their physiological correspondents as well as the evaluation of emotions as positive or negative, private or interpersonal (Rieffe et al., 2007, 2008).
Nevertheless, the six dimensions of the EAQ30 originate (Rieffe et al., 2007) rather from an already existing measure of alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale - child form; Rieffe, Oosterveld, & Terwogt, 2006) than on the proposed conceptualization of EA. Specifically, the Differentiating Emotions subscale (7 items; e.g., "I often don't know why I am angry"), measuring the ability to differentiate emotions and understand their causes, was based on the emotion identification dimension of alexithymia. The Bodily Awareness subscale (5 items; e.g., "When...