ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Learning Enjoyment in Higher Education: Psychometric Properties of a Novel Assessment Scale
Provisionally accepted
Azza O Alawad1
Tarig Merghani2
Mohamed Anas Patni3*
Rasha Babiker2Samah Badr4Nahla Abd Elhadi5Suresh Kumar Srinivasamurthy6- 1Department of Physiology, Al-Neelain University Faculty of Medicine, Khartoum, Sudan
- 2Department of Physiology, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
- 3Department of Community Medicine, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
- 4Department of Biochemistry, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
- 5Department of Microbiology, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
- 6Department of Pharmacology, RAK Medical and Health Sciences University, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
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Background: The Learning Enjoyment Scale (LES) was developed to quantitatively assess students' enjoyment in learning activities, offering a standardized tool for evaluating teaching methods and identifying factors that influence enjoyment. This study presents a comprehensive psychometric evaluation of the LES, assessing its reliability, validity, and applicability in undergraduate medical and dental education. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 112 undergraduate medical and dental students to evaluate the psychometric properties of the LES. The 12-item scale, rated on a five-point Likert scale, assesses aspects of knowledge acquisition, comprehension, application, analysis, concentration, and enjoyment. Descriptive statistics and item-level responses were analyzed. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha and average inter-item correlations. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) were conducted to examine the factor structure and validate the scale. Results: The LES demonstrated excellent reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.930) and strong internal consistency (inter-item correlations from 0.597 to 0.842). Factor analysis supported a unidimensional structure after removing two low-performing items, with the retained component explaining 63.178% of the total variance. LES scores were significantly associated with key variables, including teacher proficiency, topic difficulty, student participation, and stress levels (p PAGE \* Arabic \* MERGEFORMAT 4 This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article < 0.001). Most participants scored within the "Acceptable" and "Excellent" enjoyment categories, supporting the scale's discriminative validity. Conclusion: The LES is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring learning enjoyment in learning activities. Its application can inform teaching strategies by identifying factors that enhance student engagement. Further research is recommended to explore its cross-cultural applicability across diverse educational settings.
Keywords: Learning enjoyment, Medical Education, Psychometric validation, student engagement, teaching effectiveness
Received: 06 Jan 2026; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Alawad, Merghani, Patni, Babiker, Badr, Elhadi and Srinivasamurthy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mohamed Anas Patni
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