DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY HEALTH LITERACY SCALE FOR ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

This research developed scales to assess physical activity health literacy among adolescents. The scales were examined for content validity by experts, for reliability by 60 non-actual participants, and for their congruence by empirical evidence. The study was conducted in 822 undergraduate students in Rajabaht universities in 4 regions throughout Thailand: Northern, Central, Northeastern, and Southern, who were randomly recruited through multi-stage sampling method. Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha was employed to assess the reliability, whereas the construct validity was assessed through the confirmatory factor analysis. The results were as follows:

1. The developed scales devised based on synthesized literature including research studies, dissertations and academic articles. The scales were comprised of 9 key dimensions with a total of 96 items. The key dimensions include access to data about physical activity, understanding of physical activity, perceived physical activity benefits, perceived barrier to physical activity, perceived physical activity competence, attitude toward physical activity, interpersonal influence on physical activity, environmental/situational influences on physical activity, and physical activity behavior. Based on the content validity, 89 items showed high validity with the value of 0.5 and above, whereas 79 items were found to be acceptable with the discrimination indexes ranging from .21-.80 and the overall reliability value of .91.

       2. The construct validity showed that the devised scales were congruent with the empirical evidence (chi-square = 4.77; p = 0.688; df = 7; GFI = .992; RMR = 0.009; RMSEA = .000). The scales, thus, showed capacity to discriminate physical activity health literacy among adolescents and to be a guiding light in improving and developing adolescent physical activity programs.