Revalidation of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES)

Background/Purpose: Enjoyment is a positive affective and emotional state that reflects feeling of fun, liking or pleasure. Previous studies have provided evidence that enjoyment is correlated with physical activity (PA). Therefore, a reliable and valid scale of measuring enjoyment could provide us with useful data to better understand enjoyment. Kendzierski and DeCarlo (1991) developed the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale   (PACES) for undergraduate students. The scale was uni-dimensional. Although the scale was validated in differenent languages such as Spanish and German, no studies have revalidated the scale in other undegraduate student populations. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to revalidate the scale among first two year students at a large state university.

Method: The PACES was distributed to freshmen and sophomores (n= 372) at the beginning of a semester. There were 52.9% of males and the mean age of the participants was 18.5 (SD = 1.25). The original PACES consisted of 18 items using bipolar statements (e.g., I feel bored-I feel interested) with a 7-point Likert scale. Both positive and negative items were used in the scale and negative items were reversely coded so that a higher score represented more enjoyment.

Analysis/Results: Confirmative factor analysis was first performed to test the construct validity of the original scale and the fit indices were not within acceptable range (i.e., GFI=.72, AGFI =.64,CFI=.87 and RSMEA=.12). Thus, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to examine the structure of the scale and two domains were revealed (i.e., perception of enjoyment and antecedent of enjoyment), which accounted for 75.57% of the total variance. Moreover, the EFA results identified five cross-loading items and therefore were removed, resulting in the retention of 13 items in the revised scale. The revised scale also demonstrated acceptable reliability. Cronbach’s alpha for the entire revised scale was .96 while the alpha for the domain of perception and antecedent of enjoyment was .9 and .95, respectively, which were within the acceptable range.   

Conclusions:

The findings from the study suggested that the revised scale consisted of two domains with acceptable reliability and validity, providing us with a valid measure of PA enjoyment for freshmen and sophomores. The improved reliability and validity reflect the possible context sensitivity of the construct. Examining sources of PA enjoyment beyond first two year university students would also expand the understanding of the origins of enjoyment among university students.