ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1534843
This article is part of the Research TopicBuilding Health Through Physical Activity in Schools - Volume IIView all 11 articles
Development and validation of the Chinese School Environment Influencing Physical Activity Habits Scale
Provisionally accepted
- 1East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
- 2School of Sports Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
- 3Ministry of Physical Education, Shanghai Institute of Technology, shanghai, China
- 4East China Normal University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
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Regular physical activity is essential for preventing overweight and obesity in children and adolescents while also enhancing mental well-being. For teenagers, behaviors are predominantly shaped by habits, highlighting the importance of fostering positive physical activity practices. Schools, as central to adolescents' daily routines, play a critical role in influencing students' lifestyles and activity levels. This study aimed to develop and validate a measurement instrument tailored to the Chinese social context to assess the impact of school-based factors on adolescents' physical activity habits.A sample of 1,061 students was recruited through stratified cluster sampling from 24 secondary schools across six provinces in China. Following data cleaning, 1,004 valid responses were analyzed. The sample was divided into two subsets: one (n = 502) for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and one (n = 502) for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). EFA identified four factors comprising 19 items: Facility Environment Attraction (5 items), Specification of Teachers' Competence (5 items), Influence of Peer Relationships (5 items), and Guarantee of Curriculum Setting (4 items). The factors demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.841-0.895). CFA confirmed the scale's validity with an acceptable model fit (CMIN/DF = 3.888, TLI = 0.904, SRMR = 0.043, RMSEA = 0.046,GFI = 0.918). Additionally, the scale exhibited high internal consistency and test-retest reliability.This validated instrument provides researchers with a robust tool to evaluate school-related influences on physical activity habits among Chinese adolescents. The findings offer practical insights into promoting healthy behaviors, improving physical and mental health, and fostering holistic well-being in this population.
Keywords: Chinese adolescents, Physical activity habits, School environment, scale development, factor analysis
Received: 10 Jan 2025; Accepted: 28 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dai, Wu, Yan and Zeng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Zeng, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
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