An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Fear of Failure in Learning Scale

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to signify the concept of fear of failure in learning. To this
end, exploratory factor analysis with principle component analysis was performed. A total of
230 undergraduates and graduates participated in this study. Accordingly four factors were
extracted, which were feeling of shame, performance avoidance, learned helplessness,
and self-handicapping to account for the fear of failure in learning. Also 26 items were
created to best represent the students fear of failure in learning.
Key words: fear of failure, exploratory factor analysis, motivation, and goal orientation

Introduction
Fear of failure is a disposition to avoid failure in evaluative situations based on
anticipatory shame upon failure (Atkinson, 1957; McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell,
1953). It has been wisely agreed that fear of failure is not a unidimensional construct but
a multidimensional construct (Conroy, Willow, & Metzler, 2002). Thus a clear
understanding of the fear of failure necessitates consideration of the dynamics of the
shame experience (Elliot & Thrash, 2004). In response, many researchers have developed
a scale to measure such multidimensional nature of fear of failure construct (see, e.g.,
Houston and Kelly (1987)s fear of failure scales; Conroy et al. (2002)s the performance
failure appraisal inventory). Yet, these instruments are by and large concerned with the
general feeling of shame and/or anxiety toward evaluative events in a general setting, not
specifically in a learning situation. Nonetheless, much research on the fear of failure and
learning has more or less employed these instruments to measure students fear of failure
in learning; more often than not, many researchers have created their own measurement
on the fly with intent to suit their research purposes. The problem here lies in the fact that
many studies have employed these non-related and/or unreliable instruments to measure
students fear of failure in learning situation, thus causing a severe threat to validity of the

study as well as resulting in a significant misinterpretation of the results after all. As such,
it is necessary to have an instrument for the fear of failure pertaining to learning situation,
so that we can have a clearer understanding of this construct. This study thus aims to
identify and specify the factor structure of the fear of failure in learning and to develop
item stems that best represent this construct, fear of failure in learning.
Hypothesized Factors for the Fear of Failure in Learning
The fear of failure is by and large rooted in achievement goal theory (Atkinson,
1957; Covington, 2000; Martin, 2010), such that this construct has much to do with
motivation. On the other hand, many studies regarding the fear of failure have also
focused on its emotional attributes. These studies thus view the fear of failure as feelings
of shame and irrational anxiety about failing to measure up to the standards and goals set
by oneself or others (McGregor & Elliot, 2005; Passer, 1983; Sagar & Stoeber, 2009).
Many studies on the fear of failure and learning found that students fear of failure
significantly influences their motivation, intention, self esteem and behavior in learning
(Caraway, Tucker, Reinke, & Hall, 2003; Chen, Wu, Kee, Lin, & Shui, 2009; Entwistle,
1988; Martin 2010). Given the fact that the fear of failure has much to do with the
underlying motive/drive or determinant to exhibit a certain behavior in learning, it is
important to note that this construct in turn plays a critical role in students performance
(Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat, 2005; Busato, Prins, Elshout, & Hamaker, 2000).
From the literature review on the study of fear of failure, the hypothesized factors are
specified as follows:

Performance avoidance (PA) : a persons orientation to avoid uncertain and/or

unfavorable event.

Feeling of shame (FS): a personal embarrassing self-presentational failure.

Self-handicapping (SH): an action or choice, which prevents from being the self
responsible for failure.

Learned helplessness (LH): a personal perception that s/he has no control over the
situation.
Based on the hypothesized factors for the fear of failure, an initial pool of items

was created (see Table 1).

INSERT TABLE 1 HERE
Methods
Content Validity
In order to establish the content validity of the instrument, the expert validation
has been processed to collect the information about the construct relevance of individual
items, item clarity and language appropriateness, and to double check for whether or not
there are any irrelevant items included in the current initial pool of items. Three experts
who are knowledgeable in the proposed construct (i.e., the fear of failure in learning)
were invited. As a result of experts validation process, 3 items were omitted from the 35
original item stems, and 7 items were reworded according to the experts comments and
suggestions.
Participants
A total of 230 undergraduate and graduate students at one of U.S. eastern regional
Universities participated in the study. Participants were recruited mostly via email, and
they were asked to complete the questionnaires including 32 items through an anonymous
online survey. There were no missing data included.

Instrument
The instrument was designed to measure students fear of failure in learning. 32
items were created based on 5-point Likert-scale (1: Strongly Disagree, 2: Disagree, 3:
Neither agree/disagree, 4: Agree, 5: Strongly Agree). 9 items were created to ask about
the feeling of shame toward failing events in learning situation (i.e., feeling of shame); 9
items were to ask about ones tendency of avoiding performance toward a
uncertain/unfavorable event in learning situation (i.e., performance avoidance); 8 items
were to ask about ones perception/attitude that they are incapable in learning situation
(i.e., learned helplessness); and, 6 items were to ask about ones action/choice that
prevents from being responsible for failure in learning situation.

Extraction and rotation

For conducting an EFA, three critical decisions were considered: 1) extraction
methods; 2) factor extraction criteria; and, 3) type of rotation method. First and foremost,
in terms of extraction methods, PCA (principal component analysis) has been used, in
large because PCA is less prone to nonconvergence issues than common factor analysis.
Second, Kaisers criterion and scree plot were used to determine the number of factors to
be extracted from the solution. For the Kaisers criterion, the decision criterion was made
by checking whether eigenvalue of each variable is greater than or equal to 1.0. As for the
scree plot, the researcher examined the shape of the resulting curve. And the point (i.e.,
factor number) at which the curve stops decreasing and straightens was considered as the
maximum number of factors to be extracted in the solution.

In order to find a clearer factor structure, rotation of the factors was performed. In
terms of rotation methods, orthogonal rotation, called a Varimax rotation, was utilized, in
an attempt to locate clusters of items nearer to an axis and keep the axes at right angles.
From this solution, the rotated factor pattern matrix (i.e., factor loading) was used to
examine and interpret the factor structure. The researcher considered eliminating any
item that has a loading above 0.40 on more than one factor.

Results
Deciding on Number of factors
Preliminary Exploratory Factor Analysis
There were seven factors extracted from the preliminary EFA. Yet, as a result of rotation
of the factors, there were two items (i.e., LH3 and PA1) that had a loading above 0.40 on
more than one factor. Also item LH1 had a low loading as well as a very closed loading
value on two factors (0.37859, 0.37294). The researcher decided to remove these three
items from the data, and re-performed the EFA procedure.
Exploratory Factor Analysis with 26 items
After iterative EFA procedures followed by the decisions rules that the researcher
made, 26 items (i.e., variables) were remained for the analysis. With these data, the
researcher did run the EFA with the PCA method. As seen in Table 2, there were five
factors to be extracted based on the Kaisers criterion. Yet, when examining the shape of
scree plot (see Figure 1), the curve stopped decreasing at the point of 5. In addition to this,
when examining the variance explained by each factor (see Table 3), Factor 5 only

accounts for 3.9% of the total variance. As such, the researcher finally considered
selecting four factors as the maximum number to be extracted in the solution.
INSERT TABLE 2 HERE
INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE
INSERT TABLE 3 HERE

Final factor structure

Once four factors-solution has been decided, the researcher did rerun the EFA
with the PCA. When examining the inter-item correlation matrix, the data did fare well in
the factor analysis. From the four-factor solution, the final factor structure was seen in
Table 4.
INSERT TABLE 4 HERE
INSERT TABLE 5 HERE
As examined the variance explained by each factor (see Table 5), Factor 1
accounts for 20.8 % of the total variance; Factor 2 accounts for 15.2% of the total
variance; Factors 3 accounts for 12.9% of the total variance; and, Factor 4 accounts for
9.8 % of the total variance in the items after rotation. Also note that four-factor solution
has accounted for 58.84 % of the total variance (15.298766/26 = 0.5884).

Reliability
The researcher computed the internal consistency reliability, Cronbachs
coefficient alpha. As seen in table 6, reliability analysis for four factors revealed
Cronbachs alpha values of 0.92 for Factor 1; 0.85 for Factor 2; 0.82 for Factor 3; and,
0.77 for Factor 4. All of factors in turn yielded high levels internal consistency reliability.
Also, the overall internal consistency reliability of all of four subscales was 0.91, which
proves a very high level of internal consistency reliability.
INSERT TABLE 6 HERE

Discussion
As a result of the exploratory factor analysis for the fear of failure in learning
scale, four factors were extracted and 26 items were retained. The extracted four factors
were exactly consistent with the hypothesized factors that the researcher has posited for
this construct. As for the items, nine items were loaded onto Factor 1. It is clear that these
nine items all relate to embarrassment and/or shame toward failing situation in learning.
So this factor was labeled as Feeling of shame, and was defined as a personal
embarrassing self-presentational failure. Seven items were loaded onto Factor 2 relate to
students motivation/orientation to perform in a certain circumstance. This relates to
students orientation to avoid performing in an uncertain and/or unfavorable situation in
learning. This factor was labeled as Performance avoidance, and were defined as a
persons orientation to avoid uncertain and/or unfavorable event. Six items that loaded
onto Factor 3 relate to students perception of their incapacity on doing something in
learning situation. This factor was labeled as Learned helplessness, and was defined as
a personal perception that s/he has no control over the situation. Lastly, the four items
that loaded onto Factor 4 identify preventing the self from being responsible for failure.
This factor was labeled as Self-handicapping, and was defined as an action or choice,
which prevents the self from being responsible for failure. The final item stems were
seen in Table 7.
INSERT TABLE 7 HERE
Conclusions
This study aimed to identify and specify the construct, fear of failure in learning.
To this end, the researcher carried out the exploratory factor analysis to find factor

structure of the fear of failure in learning scale (FFLS) and to reduce the variables (i.e.,
items). As a result, four factors were identified as feeling of shame, performance
avoidance, learned helplessness, and self-handicapping. The original 32-item was
developed to access the students fear of failure in learning. However, results from
exploratory factor analysis for this study found that 26 of the original 32 FFLS items best
represented the students fear of failure in learning.
In the light of the results, conclusions are as follows:
Firs of all, this study sheds new light on understanding the fear of failure in learning. This
study attempted to identify and specify the concept of fear of failure in learning both
theoretically and empirically. This will provide research community with a more concrete
concept of the fear of failure in learning.
Secondly, this study eventually presented the factor structure and 26 items for the fear of
failure in learning. This finding can be quite useful to practitioners and researchers,
providing a possible way to measure the degree of students fear of failure in learning.
Specifically this will help researchers to design studies as to how and in what ways
students fear of failure in learning is at work in various settings.

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Table 1. An initial pool of item stems

Rating Scale (Likert Scale 1-5)
Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neither agree/
disagree

Agree

Strongly agree

Performance avoidance (PA): a persons orientation to avoid uncertain

and/or unfavorable event.
I avoid doing a task if I think I will do worse than others.
I dont try to do something when I feel difficult.
I avoid attempting to do something when I feel uncertain.
I watch rather than participate when I feel uncertain about how I might
perform compared to others in an activity.
Im reluctant to do something when I do not know exactly what I am
supposed to do.
I dont put myself in situations where I can fail.
I find myself deliberately avoiding things that I find uncertain.
Im striving to avoid doing poorly in this class.
Im inclined to avoid doing something when I feel uncertain.
Feeling of Shame (FS): a personal embarrassing self-presentational failure.
I feel shame when Im not succeeding in learning.
Im ashamed of doing something wrong while Im learning.
Im embarrassed when Im wrong.
It is embarrassing finding myself doing poorly.
Im ashamed when I make a mistake.
When I make any mistake in class, I would like to sink into the ground with
shame.
When Im failing in doing something, it makes me embarrassed.
I feel shame when I make a mistake.
I feel embarrassed when Im not doing well in learning.
Self-handicapping (SH): an action or choice which prevents the self from
being responsible for failure.
If I do poorly on something, Im inclined to make excuses.
If I didnt do well on something, this is because I didnt try to do my best.
I tend to blame others when I make a mistake.
The reason why I get low grades is because I didnt study hard.
I tend to blame circumstances when I did poorly on something.
I tend to find the reason I failed on something from situations surrounding
me.
I find myself making excuses for my anticipated poor performance.
Learned helplessness (LH): a personal perception that s/he has no control
over the situation.

I feel that my own inability to solve problems is the cause of my failures.

I feel helpless when I have no control over the outcome.

I tend not to place myself in situation if I think I cannot accomplish the tasks.
If I do well on something, this is due to chance.
Im not very confident in doing the task that I feel I will fail at it.
When I do something poorly, I think this is because I dont have the ability
to do better.
I feel that I have little control over the outcome of my work.
I feel that anyone can do better than me.
When competing with someone who I believe is better than me, I give up
trying.
No matter how hard I try, I feel I cant succeed in most tasks.

Table 2. Eigenvalues and variance explained

Eigenvalues of the Correlation Matrix: Total = 26 Average = 1
Eigenvalue
Difference
Proportion
Cumulative
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26

8.42636619
2.98445396
2.11304262
1.77490277
1.02799850
0.88419167
0.83240980
0.78079191
0.68620365
0.65374318
0.59223876
0.53686924
0.52331060
0.47149187
0.45718646
0.42367648
0.40953561
0.38935034
0.34468909
0.32053961
0.30254712
0.27138541
0.24864856
0.21907671
0.19185945
0.13349045

5.44191223
0.87141134
0.33813985
0.74690427
0.14380683
0.05178188
0.05161788
0.09458826
0.03246047
0.06150442
0.05536952
0.01355864
0.05181873
0.01430541
0.03350998
0.01414088
0.02018527
0.04466125
0.02414948
0.01799249
0.03116171
0.02273685
0.02957184
0.02721726
0.05836900

0.3241
0.1148
0.0813
0.0683
0.0395
0.0340
0.0320
0.0300
0.0264
0.0251
0.0228
0.0206
0.0201
0.0181
0.0176
0.0163
0.0158
0.0150
0.0133
0.0123
0.0116
0.0104
0.0096
0.0084
0.0074
0.0051

0.3241
0.4389
0.5201
0.5884
0.6280
0.6620
0.6940
0.7240
0.7504
0.7755
0.7983
0.8190
0.8391
0.8572
0.8748
0.8911
0.9069
0.9218
0.9351
0.9474
0.9591
0.9695
0.9791
0.9875
0.9949
1.0000

Table 3. Variance explained by each factor (Varimax)
Factor1

Factor2

Factor3

Factor4

Factor5

8.4263662

2.984454

2.1130426

1.7749028

1.0279985

Final Communality Estimates: Total = 16.3267641

32.4%

11.4%

8.1%

7%

3.9%

Table 4. Rotated factor structure for Fear of Failure in Learning

FS8
FS5
FS7
FS9
FS3
FS4
FS2
FS6
FS1
PA3
PA8
PA6
PA5
PA2
PA4
PA7
LH9
LH6
LH7
LH4
LH5
LH8
SH1
SH5
SH3
SH6

Rotated Factor Pattern (VARIMAX)

Factor1 Factor2 Factor3 Factor4 Communality
0.82613 0.19637 0.12992
0.09504
0.73484537
0.81191 0.23405 0.12546
0.08075
0.73105394
0.78060 0.18650 0.01353 -0.04879
0.65249350
0.76186 0.11226 0.21055
0.11797
0.65414154
0.75498 0.13549 -0.07733 0.21458
0.63725812
0.71366 0.15318 0.01943 -0.04551
0.53131494
0.70393 0.15793 0.27259
0.06405
0.58178824
0.65919 0.21474 0.27325
0.00659
0.54452136
0.63207 0.09399 0.23998 -0.00002
0.46651972
0.14522 0.79784 0.08661
0.14885
0.68158064
0.20266 0.79172 0.04939
0.19454
0.68272087
0.23351 0.77830 0.09189
0.15573
0.66683267
0.23771 0.66348 0.04270
0.06017
0.48199436
0.02400 0.62695 0.34344
0.20106
0.56143812
0.29451 0.56763 0.13583 -0.18713
0.45011519
0.15020 0.53309 0.22218
0.09754
0.39773389
0.10122 0.18523 0.76765
0.14088
0.65815481
-0.01868 0.07600 0.73449
0.30873
0.64908734
0.19440 0.12092 0.72893 -0.18327
0.61733456
0.17271 0.07485 0.67730
0.05275
0.49294128
0.20396 0.14139 0.64673
0.05674
0.48315550
0.22582 0.36534 0.47647
0.24319
0.47119745
0.11046 0.09623 0.02271
0.79603
0.64806260
0.06797 0.08257 0.12073
0.79553
0.67027266
0.00660 0.18014 0.08660
0.77349
0.63315611
0.08398 0.36374 0.27915
0.46746
0.43402445

Table 5. Variance explained by each factor (Varimax)

Factor1
5.4181028

Factor2
3.9658231

Factor3
3.3606618

Factor4
2.5541779

Final Communality Estimates: Total = 15.298766

20.8%

15.2%

12.9%

9.8%

Table 6. Internal Consistency Reliability (Cronbach coefficient alpha)

Subscales

Items

Alpha

Factor1: Feeling of Shame (FS)

FS1, FS2, FS3, FS4, FS5, FS6, FS7,

FS8, FS9

0.92

Factor 2: Performance Avoidance (PA)

PA2, PA3, PA4, PA5, PA6, PA7, PA8

0.85

Factor 3: Learned Helplessness (LS)

LH4, LH5, LH6, LH7, LH8, LH9

0.82

Factor 4: Self-Handicapping (SH)

SH1, SH3, SH5, SH6

0.77

Overall

0.91

Table 7. A result of EFA for the fear of failure in learning scale (26 items, N=230)
Factor

Factor1:
Feeling of
Shame
(9 items)

Factor 2:
Performance
Avoidance
(7 items)

Factor 3:
Learned
Helplessness
(6 items)

Factor 4:
Selfhandicapping
(4 items)

Items
FS1. I feel shame when I'm not succeeding in learning.
FS2. I'm ashamed if I do something wrong while I'm learning.
FS3. I'm embarrassed when I'm wrong.
FS4. It is embarrassing if I find myself doing poorly.
FS5. I'm ashamed when I make a mistake.
FS6. If I make a mistake in class, I feel overwhelmed with
shame.
FS7. When I'm failing in doing something, it makes me
embarrassed.
FS8. I feel shame when I make a mistake.
FS9. I feel embarrassed when I'm not doing well in learning.
PA2. I don't try to do something if it feels difficult.
PA3. I avoid attempting to do something when I feel uncertain.
PA4. I watch, rather than participate, when I feel uncertain
about how I might perform in an activity.
PA5. I'm reluctant to do something when I do not know exactly
what I am supposed to do.
PA6. I find myself deliberately avoiding things that I find
uncertain.
PA7. I don't put myself in situations where I can fail.
PA8. I'm inclined to avoid doing something when I feel
uncertain about my performance
LH4. If I do well on something, this is due to chance.
LH5. When I do something poorly, I think this is because I
dont have the ability to do better.
LH6. I feel that I have little control over the outcome of my
work.
LH7. I feel that anyone can do better than me.
LH8. When competing with someone who I believe is better
than me, I give up trying.
LH9. No matter how hard I try, I feel I cant succeed in most
tasks.
SH1. If I do poorly on something, I'm inclined to make
excuses.
SH3. I tend to blame others when I make a mistake.
SH5. I tend to blame circumstances if I do poorly on
something.
SH6. If I anticipate performing poorly, I make excuses about
not trying.

Extraction method: Principal Component Analysis

Rotation method: Varimax

Factor
loadings
0.63
0.70
0.75
0.71
0.81
0.66

Cronbachs
Alpha

0.92

0.78
0.82
0.76
0.63
0.80
0.57
0.66
0.78

0.85

0.53
0.79
0.68
0.65
0.73
0.73
0.48

0.82

0.77
0.80
0.77
0.80
0.47

0.77

Figure 1. A scree plot with 26 items