Measuring general levels of physical activity: preliminary evidence for the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children

TLDR

The Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ‑C) is a guided, self‑administered 7‑day recall tool designed to assess general physical activity levels during the school year for children in grades four and higher. This article reports three studies that examined the psychometric properties of the PAQ‑C. The third study applied Generalizability theory to evaluate the reliability of averaging two or three PAQ‑C scores collected across fall, winter, and spring seasons. Across all three studies, the PAQ‑C demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, test‑retest reliability, and generalizability coefficients exceeding 0.80, with males showing higher activity levels than females, supporting its use as a cost‑efficient assessment of children’s physical activity.

Abstract

This article reports three studies that investigated psychometric properties of the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C). The PAQ-C is a guided self-administered 7-day recall measure designed to assess general physical activity levels during the school year for children in grades four and higher. Study one, with 215 students ranging in age from 9 to 15 yr, found the PAQ-C had acceptable item and test score characteristics such as item distribution, corrected item-total correlations, and internal consistency. Study two, involving 84 students ranging from 9 to 14 yr, indicated acceptable levels of test-retest reliability for both males (r = 0.75) and females (r = 0.82) after 1 wk. The third study used Generalizability theory to investigate the reliability for using the average of either two or three PAQ-C scores collected during fall, winter, and spring seasons. Based on the responses of 200 students ranging from 8 to 16 yr, generalizability coefficients exceeded 0.80 for either the average of two or three responses for both younger (<13 yr) and older subjects. In all three studies, the PAQ-C demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and males were significantly more active than females. These results provide preliminary support for the PAQ-C as a cost efficient method of assessing general levels of children's physical activity during the school year.