Adapting the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) for elementary school children

BACKGROUND: Physical activity (PA) is essential for good health and proper growth and development among children and youth. Measuring PA enjoyment is important as it may reinforce participation and contribute to sustaining it. PURPOSE: We adapted the middle school version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) for use with elementary school children and assessed several psychometric properties. SIGNIFICANCE: Existing tools for measuring PA in elementary school children are few in number and are often unwieldy for this age group. Moreover, little is known about enjoyment factors that may help sustain PA. METHODS: The 16-item PACES instrument was read aloud to children in grades 3 through 5 in a school setting and produced > 600 usable results. Psychometric measures were determined via internal consistency reliability, factor analysis, and concurrent validity assessment. RESULTS: The factor analysis resulted in removal of 4 items that failed to load on either of the two factors that emerged (accounting respectively for 49.54% and 9.64% of the variance). Statistically significant correlations existed between the subscales and PA frequency, suggesting concurrent validity of the revised (PACES-R) for 3rd-5th graders. Cronbach's alpha was .862. CONCLUSIONS: The PACES-R was reliable and valid for use with this group and correlated with PA frequency. The two interpretable subscales may be useful in evaluating PA interventions. Findings support the utility of the PACES-R in research with 3rd-5th graders in measuring PA enjoyment and its potential contribution to participating in and sustaining PA, thereby increasing the long-term benefits of PA on health-related outcomes.