Development of the Exercise Participation Motivation Scale (EPMS): Validity and Reliability Study

Abstract

Participation in exercise is an activity that we often put off for personal and environmental reasons. Knowing the factors that will motivate the individual to exercise can help to support a healthy life by g & uuml;venilir bir & ouml;l & ccedil;me arac & imath; o du & gbreve;u tespit edi mi & scedil;tir. increasing participation in exercise. This study aimed to measure exercise motivation within the context of Self-Determination Theory. A total of 440 participants who exercise at least twice a week were included in the study. 227 of the participants were male and 213 were female. In addition, 317 of them are single, 123 of them are married and the average age is 22.97. The creation of the item pool, preparation of items consistent with the Self-Determination Theory, and content analysis during literature review were conducted for this purpose. The item pool was then presented to experts, and a pilot study was carried out. After testing content validity, construct validity was examined. In this context, AFA (Adaptive Factor Analysis), DFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis), reliability tests (Cronbach's Alpha, Spearman Brown, Guttman Split-Half), organized item-total correlations, and item analyses (%27 upper-lower groups analysis) were utilized. Accordingly, it was observed that the covariance values of the items in factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 and the error variances of the items were appropriate. Subsequently, fit indices were examined, providing evidence for the structure of the Exercise Participation Motivation Scale (EMS) through item analysis. The reliability of the obtained structure was also found to be high. Based on all analyses conducted, it was determined that the EPMS consists of 21 items and three factors (intrinsic extrinsic and it is a valid and reliable measurement tool.