Background: This study aimed to develop a Physical Activity Triggers Questionnaire for Chinese college students and to evaluate its reliability and validity.
Methods: On the theoretical basis of the Fogg behavior model and semi-open interviews, an initial questionnaire with 18 items was compiled. The initial questionnaire was administered to 575 students, and to examine its reliability and validity, item discrimination analysis, correlation analysis, homogeneity test, and exploratory factor analysis were conducted using SPSS 26.0. After the examination of the initial questionnaire, the initial 18 items were reduced to 14. The 14-item questionnaire was administered to 621 college students, and with the data, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, validity test, and reliability test were conducted.
Results: To examine the psychometric properties of the 18 items, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted, and their reliability and validity were examined. After the first round of item development analysis, four items were removed, and a triggers questionnaire with 14 items was developed. The 14 items had three dimensions, including spark, signal, and facilitator triggers, and the cumulative explained variance of the three dimensions was 61.21%. The confirmatory factor analysis of the three dimensions of the 14 items indicated appropriate scale fit indices. The internal consistency reliability, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability of the 14 items were 0.925, 0.821, and 0.860, respectively, showing that the items have appropriate reliability.
Conclusions: The Physical Activity Triggers Questionnaire of the study has acceptable reliability and validity. It is the first questionnaire to measure Chinese college students' triggers of physical activity and will provide a new basis for the understanding of psychometric properties of physical activity triggers. In addition, the future findings collected from the developed triggers questionnaire can be used to develop strategies to promote health among college students.
Keywords: college students; physical activity; scale development; triggers.