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Health Education Research Advance Access first published online on July 18, 2006
This version published online on October 23, 2006
Health Education Research, doi:10.1093/her/cyl054
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© 2006 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received September 20, 2005
Accepted May 1, 2006

Original article

Using Rasch modeling to re-evaluate three scales related to physical activity: enjoyment, perceived benefits and perceived barriers

K. C. Heesch 1 *, L. C. Mâsse 2, and A. L. Dunn 3

1 School of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia; Department of Health and Exercise Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA
2 Health Promotion Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA; Present address: Centre for Community Child Health Research, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V5H 3V4, Canada
3 The Cooper Institute, Dallas, TX 75230, USA; Present address: Klein Buendel, Inc., Golden, CO 80401, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
K. C. Heesch, E-mail: kheesch{at}hms.uq.edu.au


  Abstract

Studies suggest that enjoyment, perceived benefits and perceived barriers may be important mediators of physical activity. However, the psychometric properties of these scales have not been assessed using Rasch modeling. The purpose of this study was to use Rasch modeling to evaluate the properties of three scales commonly used in physical activity studies: the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale, the Benefits of Physical Activity Scale and the Barriers to Physical Activity Scale. The scales were administered to 378 healthy adults, aged 25-75 years (50% women, 62% Whites), at the baseline assessment for a lifestyle physical activity intervention trial. The ConQuest software was used to assess model fit, item difficulty, item functioning and standard error of measurement. For all scales, the partial credit model fit the data. Item content of one scale did not adequately cover all respondents. Response options of each scale were not targeting respondents appropriately, and standard error of measurement varied across the total score continuum of each scale. These findings indicate that each scale's effectiveness at detecting differences among individuals may be limited unless changes in scale content and response format are made.

This version is Open Access


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