Abstract: Following the theories and extensive studies on the learning happiness of secondary school students both in China and other countries, and based on the survey among teachers and students through interviews and descriptive questionnaire, this study first defined the learning happiness of secondary school students as a passion and immersion experienced by students in fulfilling their learning tasks in schools, a sense of pride while learning and a sense of expectation as well as multi-level pleasure generated in the process. It then suggested two models of learning happiness of secondary school students: M1 (a second order model consisting of eight first order factors and three second order dimensions), and M2 (a second order model consisting of eight first order factors and four second order dimensions). Based on the theoretical framework, the study designed a learning happiness scale containing 87 items and conducted a preliminary measurement on 7,818 secondary school students. The two models were tested and compared through an exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The result showed that M2 was more desirable. It is confirmed that learning happiness of secondary school students involves pleasure consisting of interest and efficacy, hope consisting of stronger learning capacity, optimism and inquisitiveness, rapport consisting of positive relationships and immersion from a sense of freshness and fluency. After revising the learning happiness scale and deleting some items, the authors developed the final version of the 2015 scale of secondary school students' learning happiness, which consists of 58 items in four sub-scales to measure pleasure, hope, rapport and immersion. Further test of the psychometric properties showed the split-half reliability was 0.893; internal consistency was 0.929; the root mean square residual was 0.070 and the main fit indexes all reached 0.97. The overall psychometric test results showed considerable reliability and validity. The psychological measurement indicators showed that the scale was of good performance.

Key words: secondary school students, learning happiness, pleasure, hope, rapport, immersion