ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Physical Education and Pedagogy
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1682949
Adaptation and Validation of the Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) for Tertiary Physical Education Contexts in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, China
- 2Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China
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Improving the quality of physical education (PE) is vital for countering global physical inactivity and establishing lifelong active lifestyles. Research indicates that students' approaches to learning (SAL) are a key determinant of educational quality. However, a validated, psychometrically sound instrument to measure these approaches specifically within the unique context of non-PE tertiary students is currently lacking. This study aimed to validate the Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F), an instrument developed by Biggs and widely utilized across various academic disciplines to measure tertiary students' learning approaches, within the specific context of physical education (PE). Data were collected from 492 Chinese undergraduates spanning multiple academic fields. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on six competing models using two estimators, WLSMV and MLMV. Results indicated that a first-order two-factor model—comprising ten items measuring the deep approach (DA) subscale and eight items measuring the surface approach (SA) subscale—exhibited good fit to the data. Reliability analyses further confirmed strong internal consistency, with coefficients of 0.947 for the overall structural model, 0.928 for the DA subscale, and 0.855 for the SA subscale. These findings provided evidence that the adapted 18-item R-SPQ-2F was a valid and reliable tool for measuring Chinese undergraduates' learning approaches in PE contexts. By establishing a valid measure of PE learning approaches, this study provided a foundation for designing targeted interventions that bridge the improvement of PE learning approaches with active lifestyle promotion. Future validation in diverse PE settings and student populations is recommended to strengthen its utility for such health-promotion initiatives.
Keywords: Learning approaches, Reliability, validity, confirmatory factor analysis, factor structure, Highereducation
Received: 10 Aug 2025; Accepted: 22 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 TANG, HAN, CHEN and ZHANG. 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: Shengying TANG, sytang@dgut.edu.cn
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