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. 2021 Oct 20;18(21):11035.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph182111035.

A Short Version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale: Development and Psychometric Properties

Cheng Chen  1 , Susanne Weyland  1 , Julian Fritsch  1 , Alexander Woll  1 , Claudia Niessner  1 , Alexander Burchartz  1 , Steffen C E Schmidt  1 , Darko Jekauc  1
Affiliations

A Short Version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale: Development and Psychometric Properties

Cheng Chen et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Objective: The purposes of this paper were to (a) develop a new short, theory-driven, version of the physical activity enjoyment scale (PACES-S) using content analysis; and (b) subsequently to measure the psychometric properties (construct validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity) of the PACES-S for adolescents.

Methods: Six experts used a four-point Likert scale to assess the content validity of each of the 16 items of the physical activity enjoyment scale according to a provided definition of physical activity enjoyment. Based on the results, exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze survey data from a longitudinal study of 182 individuals (Measure 1 of Study 1: 15.75 ± 3.39 yrs; 56.6% boys, 43.4% girls), and confirmatory factor analysis (Measure 2 of Study 1: 15.69 ± 3.44 yrs; 56.3% boys, 43.7% girls) was used to analyze the survey data from a cross-sectional study of 3219 individuals (Study 2; 15.99 ± 3.10 yrs; 47.8% boys, 52.2% girls) to assess the construct validity of the new measure. To assess the reliability, test-retest reliability was assessed in Study 1 and internal consistency in Study 1 and 2. For the concurrent validity, correlations with self-reported and device-based physical activity behavior were assessed in both studies.

Results: Four out of sixteen items were selected for PACES-S. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses identified and supported its factorial validity (χ2 = 53.62, df = 2, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.073; CFI = 0.99; RFI = 0.96; NFI = 0.99; TLI = 0.96; IFI = 0.99). Results showed good test-retest reliability (r = 0.76) and internal consistency (a = 0.82 to 0.88). Regarding concurrent validity, the results showed positive correlations with a physical activity questionnaire (Study 1: r = 0.36), with a physical activity diary (Study 1: r = 0.44), and with accelerometer-recorded data (Study 1: r = 0.32; Study 2: r = 0.21).

Conclusions: The results indicate that PACES-S is a reliable and valid instrument that may be particularly useful to measure physical activity enjoyment in large-scale studies. It shows comparable measurement properties as the long version of PACES.

Keywords: PACES; content analysis; physical activity; reliability; validity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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