Translating, Reliability Testing, and Validating a Norwegian Questionnaire to Assess Adolescents’ Intentions to be Physically Active After High School Graduation

Abstract

This study aimed to test the reliability and validity of a Norwegian measure of adolescents’ intentions to be physically active after graduation (the Intention to be Physically Active After Graduation [IPAG] Questionnaire). The development of IPAG involved a translation and back-translation procedure and a test–retest study, performed on 105 adolescents (M age = 17.1, SD = 0.6) from three different high schools in Kristiansand, Norway. The four IPAG items loaded on one single factor, demonstrating acceptable factor loadings (.68-.90) and acceptable Cronbach’s alpha values (.84 and .84) in both the test and retest assessment. IPAG correlated positively with a measure of attitudes toward physical activity (.61-.71) and a measure of participants’ intentions to be physically active next month (.77-.82), supporting both construct validity and criterion-related validity of the IPAG-Questionnaire. Acceptable reliability and validity of IPAG was found, which supports the use of this instrument in future research.