1. Psychometric Properties of the short version
of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale
(S-PACES) in a Spanish Children Sample
Rosa M.Baños Rivera
July, 4, 2014
Domínguez, A. 1, Escobar, P. 1, Cebolla, A. 2,3, Miragall, M. 1, Botella, C. 2,3 & Baños, R. 1,3.
1.University of Valencia, Spain, 2. Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain. 3. CiberObn, Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y la Nutrición,
Santiago de Compostela.

2. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY (PA)
• Regular PA has many desirable outcomes for health,
specially for children.
• PA is necessary for normal growth and development
of cardiorespiratory endurance, muscle strength,
flexibility, motor skills, bone development, agility, and
so on
• PA in children and adolescents has declined in a
dramatic way in the recent years.
• Physical inactivity has been identified as an important
public health concern for youth

3. Introduction
EUROPEAN CHILDREN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY (PA) LEVELS
-WHO (2009) (report on PA in 2005): children of all the European countries have a
mean of recommended PA levels of:
-11 years old, boys = 52%, girls = 43%
-15 years old, boys=43%, girls = 28%
-Countries with higher PA children
-Ireland, Finland, United Kingdom (Scotland and Wales)
-Countries with lower PA children ;
-the Russian federation, Portugal, Italy, and Malta.

4. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY (PA)
• It is known that PA habits established during childhood and
adolescence are predictors of PA in adulthood, and that the PA has
benefits both physically and psychologically.

5. • The increment of sedentary way of life is directly
related to obesity, plus an increasing abundance of
“energy dense” foods.
• Management of childhood obesity is commonly based
on lifestyle interventions where nutrition, PA and
behaviour modification are the main targets.

6. Obese children’s physical fitness levels are lower than those of normal weight
children (Dupuis et al., 2000).
The most compelling benefit of PA (Dupuis et al., 2000)
-for normal-weight adolescents is “pleasure” (an intrinsic motive),
-For obese adolescents are “losing weight”, “feeling or looking better”, and
“improving health and physical condition” (all extrinsic motives).

7. IMPORTANCE OF PA PROGRAMS
-Programs focused to promote PA in children population shows very low levels of
adherence (Wang, et al. 2013).
- There is a need of research for programs to enhance adherence, especillay for
obese children, et al. 2007).
-Do positive emotions has a role on PA promotion?

8. ENJOYMENT AND ITS RELATION WITH PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
- Enjoyment can be described as a “positive affective emotional state that reflects
feelings of pleasure, liking, and fun” (Wankel, 1993).
- Enjoyment and positive emotions are not taken into account in most of the
clinical guidelines for the PA promotion in obese children interventions.
- Sallis, Prochaska, & Taylor, (2000): positive emotions and enjoyment during PA
explain variation in exercise behavior or to predict exercise behavior.

9. Introduction
LACK OF INSTRUMENTS TO MEASURE POSITIVE EMOTIONS AND
ENJOYMENT FOR PA IN CHILDREN
-Only one questionnaire developed, the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) has been
used.
-Only 2 studies validated the psychometric properties of the PACES in children and adolescent
population: (Motl, et al; 2001; Moore et al., 2009).
-There is a validation of the PACES in children (Paxton et al., 2008) but not in Spanish language.

10. METHODOLOGY
AIMS
To analyze the psychometric
properties of the S-PACES in a
Spanish children sample.
To analyze the relationship
between the S-PACES, the BREQ-2
(a questionnaire to measure
motivation), and the Body Index
Mass (BMI) z score of the
children.

11. METHODOLOGY
SAMPLE
- The sample was composed by 125 Spanish children, from 7 to 15 years old (M =
11.61; SD = 1.47 years old).

12. METHODOLOGY
-Each participant’s height and weight were measured with a calibrated electronic
stadiometer (Scale-Tronix, Wheaton, IL) and a digital body fat analyser (TANITA SC 330
MA, Holtain, Crymych, Wales), to the nearest 0.5 cm and 0.1 kg respectively.
-Standardized Body mass index (BMI-z) was calculated according to Cole’s LMS method.
Inclusion criteria
•Age between 8 and 15 years old.
•Not to have any medical problems or physical impediments to practicing PA.
•Informed consent signed by parents.

13. MEASURES
The Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale Short form (S-PACES, Dishman, Motl, Sallis, et al.,
2005):
•6 items (one was excluded because children had problems to understand it).
•Include bipolar statements with 7 points between the statements.
•Likert scale from 1 to 7.
•2 factors: (1) Primary Motivation and (2) Enjoyment Perception.

14. METHODOLOGY
MEASURES
The Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ- 2, Markland & Tobi,
2004):
•Based on the Self-Determination Theory of Deci and Ryan (2000). SDT specifies that
people can be motivated for different reasons that can be modeled as lying along a
continuum of autonomy.
•It measures 5 factors:
•Amotivation
•External regulation
•Introjected Motivation…
•Identified Motivation…
•Intrinsic Motivation
•Measures the stages of the Self determination continuum.
•19 Items
•Uses a Likert – type scale of 5 points, where 0=not true for me and 4 =very true for me.

15. METHODOLOGY
PROCEDURE
- The S-PACES questionnaire was applied individually to the obese children at a
cardiovascular risk unit in a pediatric hospital and normal weight children at school.
DATA ANALYSIS
- The S-PACES scores were subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis (Scree Test and
Parallel Analyses for retaining factors and Maximum Likelihood estimation extraction
method) and the internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach´s alpha.
- Pearson’s correlation were carried out to analyze the relationships between the S-
PACES, BREQ-2 and BMI z score.
-ANOVA analysis were made to analyze the difference of the means between normal
weight children vs. obese children, and their scores in the instrument S-PACES.

16. RESULTS
Exploratory Factor Analysis
- Data’s normality: skewness < |2| and kurtosis < |7|
- Sampling Adequacy: KMO=.80 and Barlett’s test (x2 (10)= 251,139, p<.001).
- Factor to be retained: 1
Scree Plot Test Parallel Analysis
Factor Raw data
Eigenvalues
Mean Random
Data Eigenvalues
Percentile
Random Data
Eigenvalues
1 2.97 1.24 1.36
2 .79 1.09 1.16
3 .60 .99 1.04
4 .41 .88 .95
5 .21 .77 .86
Number of components
Eigenvalues

17. Item 1. It’s not at all interesting vs. It´s interesting . .86
Item 2. I dislike it vs. I like it .89
Item 3. It’s no fun at all vs. It´s very fun
.73
Item 4. It doesnt´t feels good at all vs. It feels good
.55
Item 5. It doesn´t gives me energy at all vs. It gives me energy. .42
- Internal Consistency for the overall scale: α = .82
- Factor extraction: The Maximum Likelihood factor extraction showed that 1 factor
explained the 50.90% of the total variance.
- Factorial loadings: all the items had minimum factor loadings of .30.

18. Pearson’s correlations between the S-PACES total score and the
BREQ-2 factors
** p<.01
* p<.05
**
**

19. Pearson’s correlations between the S-PACES total/items score
and BMIz Score
** p<.01
* p<.05
*
**

20. 3.4. Differences between normal-weight and over-weight
children on the S-PACES score
F(1,123) = 1.934, p =.167, ηp
2 = .015

21. Discussion
-The enjoyment measured by the S-PACES is related with the intrinsic
motivation and amotivation. The more enjoyment, the more intrinsic
motivation and less amotivation.
- The more BMI z score, the less enjoyment to the physical activity. But there
was not difference between normal-weight and over-weight children on the S-
PACES score.
- This study concludes that S-PACES has proved to be a useful tool to measure
enjoyment of physical activity on Spanish children population.

22. Limitations
-The size of the sample was small (n=125) compared with other studies where
psychometric tools where validated.
-More obese/overweight children than normal weight (69% / 31%).
-Children come from 2 different settings (cardiovascular risk unit in a pediatric
hospital and school).

23. Conclusion
- It is important to take into account positive emotions in order to apply PA
promotion interventions, more when obese children are involved.
-It is important to have reliable measures of positive emotions applied to PA,
like enjoyment.
- The join positive emotions and PA is a future research line with many
possibilities of action.

24. • THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION