An Instrument for Assessing Children's Attitudes toward Physical Activity

A multidimensional semantic differential scale was constructed based on Kenyon's conceptual model for physical activity. Although the format and content of Kenyon's attitudes toward physical activity scales were closely adhered to, substantial changes in wording were made. Subjects were 992 4th—6th grade elementary school children. Testing was conducted in a collective manner during half-hour classroom sessions; approximately 6 wk. later, 407 subjects participated in a retest. Hoyt reliability coefficients for each subdomain ranged from .80 to .89 indicating an acceptable degree of internal consistency for each dimension. Also, although significant, correlation coefficients between subdomains were quite low, demonstrating the necessity of the 6 dimensions as a composite measure of children's attitudes toward physical activity. In regard to between day reliability, Pearson correlations ranged from .44 to .62; in addition, a comparison of initial and retest group mean scores revealed identical subdomain rankings and similar mean scores for each dimension. Based on the findings, the instrument was deemed appropriate for group testing with 4th—6th grade children.