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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Rachel Seymour, PhD, Institute for Health Research and Policy, Center for Research on Health and Aging, 1747 W. Roosevelt Rd, Room 558, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60608, (828) 478-2213, rseymo1@uic.edu, Thomas Prohaska, PhD, Center for Research on Health and Aging, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1747 W. Roosevelt Rd., M/C 275, Chicago, IL 60608, and Susan Hughes, DSW, Center for Research on Health and Aging, University of Illinois Chicago, 1747 W. Roosevelt Rd, Room 558, Chicago, IL 60608.

While self-efficacy for exercise (SEE) is a widely recognized antecedent for physical activity, it is not clear how well measures of SEE fully reflect its original theoretical foundation. Also, it is not known how traditional strategies for scale construction (e.g. Classical Test Theory, Confirmatory Factor Analysis) compare to Rasch analyses when applied to SEE. The goals of this study were to examine Bandura's original Theory of Self-Efficacy to determine whether existing measures of Efficacy Expectations for Exercise (EEE) and Outcome Expectations for Exercise (OEE) accurately operationalized theory constructs, and to produce revised measures that better reflected the original theory by combining qualitative and state-of-the-art quantitative methods. Qualitative methods included twenty-five exploratory and cognitive interviews and an expert panel review of items that informed scale revisions and the construction of a new scale assessing importance of outcomes to accompany the OEE. The quantitative phase of the study piloted the revised and new measures with 114 older adults. All three measures demonstrated acceptable levels of reliability with a diverse population of respondents (EEE = 0.90; OEE-A = 0.93; OEE-B = 0.96). Preliminary evidence of validity of the measures has been established through qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings from both the qualitative and quantitative phase of the study will be presented, including findings from psychometric analyses using Classical Test Theory, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Rasch and the different psychometric methods will be compared. This study resulted in three valid and reliable measures that can be used by researchers in exercise intervention research.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Discuss the qualitative findings that lead to revisions of the SEE and OEE, and the findings that prompted the development of the OEE-Importance scale.
• 2. Compare and contrast classical and modern approaches to psychometric analysis, and describe their utility at the different stages of scale development and testing.

Keywords: Physical Activity, Aging

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation