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Learning Objective 1: The learners will be able to understand the procedures of psychometric testing.
Learning Objective 2: The learners will be able to learn procedures of conducting psychometric testing study in a different culture.
This study aimed to evaluate psychometric testing of two English-version scales measuring health lifestyle beliefs and perceived difficulty of engaging in healthy lifestyles among Taiwanese adolescents. Valid and reliable scales are essential for measuring variables of interest in research.
Methods:
We have conducted a cross-sectional study to recruit a convenience sample of 186 adolescents aged 13-15 in Taiwan. The 16-item Health Lifestyle Beliefs Scale measures belief/confidence about maintaining healthy lifestyles. The 12-item Perceived Difficulty of Engaging in Healthy Lifestyles Scale measures an individual’s perceived difficulty in living a healthy lifestyle. We translated and back-translated these two measures based on cross-culture adaptation guidelines (Beaton et al., 2000). Two native Chinese nurse researchers evaluated the cultural and linguistic appropriateness of Chinese-version scales. We assessed scale reliability with Cronbach’s α and conducted exploratory factor analysis to identify underlying dimensions of scales.
Results:
For the Health Lifestyle Beliefs Scale, two factors which accounted for 57% of total variance were retained. The internal consistency of Health Lifestyle Beliefs Scale was high, with Cronbach’s α of total scale was .94.
For Perceived Difficulty of Engaging in Healthy Lifestyles Scale, two factors which accounted for 55% of total variance were revealed. One of the items (i.e., cope/deal with stress) did not load on any factor and was removed. The internal consistency of Perceived Difficulty of Engaging in Healthy Lifestyles Scale was high, with The Cronbach’s α of total scale was .91. The missing value of these two scales was both less than five percent.
Conclusion:
The findings suggested that both Chinese-version scales were reliable for Taiwanese adolescents aged 13-15. The EFA results provided preliminary evidence about validity of the scales.