The physical activity enjoyment scale PACES is a measurement instrument that is commonly used in monitoring and intervention research to assess how much people enjoy being physically active, as this has been related to physical activity adherence. However, while the measurement properties of PACES are well-researched in the English language, there is a gap of research in the German language, especially when looking at adults.
Thus, the purpose of this work was to examine reliability, factorial validity, criterion-related validity, and measurement invariance across sex, age groups and time of the PACES for German-speaking adults.
To investigate measurement invariance across age groups, data from 2, adolescents The study provided a nationwide representative sample for Germany. Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the invariance of the measure across age groups, time, and sex.
Criterion-related validity could be shown as the global factor significantly correlated with overall physical activity, physical activity in sports clubs, and leisure-time physical activity. The analyses of factorial structure indicated a method effect for positively and negatively worded items.
Correlated uniqueness, latent method factor and a hybrid model were applied to analyze the method effect and results indicated that the method effect of positively worded items was predictive of physical activity independently of the global factor. Overall, it can be concluded that PACES is reliable, valid and invariant measure of physical activity enjoyment to be used in German-speaking adults.
