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Inventories and Norms for Children's Attitudes TowardPhysical ActivityRobert W. Schutz a , Frank L. Smoll b , F. Alex Carre c & Richard E. Mosher ca Department of Sport Science , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , B.C. , CANADA ,V6T 1W5b Department of Psychology , University of Washington , Seattle , WA , 98195 , USAc School of Physical Education and Recreation , University of British ColumbiaPublished online: 08 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Robert W. Schutz , Frank L. Smoll , F. Alex Carre & Richard E. Mosher (1985) Inventories andNorms for Children's Attitudes Toward Physical Activity, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 56:3, 256-265, DOI:10.1080/02701367.1985.10605372

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02701367.1985.10605372

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SCHUTZ, SMOLL, CARRE, MOSHER

RESEARCH QUARTERLYFOR EXERCISE AND SPORT

1985, VOL. 56, No.3, PP. 256-265

Inventories and Norms for Children's AttitudesToward Physical Activity

ROBERT W. SCHUTZUniversity of British Columbia, Canada

FRANK L. SMaLL.University of Washington

F. ALEX CARRE and RICHARD E. MOSHERUniversity of British Columbia, Canada

This papersummarizes the development of an inventory for theassessment of children's attitudes toward physical activity(CATPA), includingan overview of its psychometric properties.Through a series of studies, an originaland frequently usedattitude inventory was restructured, resulting in a revisedinventory which is both shorter and psychometrically superior tothe original. This instrument, which assesses attitudinaldispositions toward each of seven physical activity subdomains, isshown to possess high internalconsistency and strongfactorvalidity. In addition, a new CATPA inventory suitable for grade3 children is introduced. The two inventories are presented,alongwith instructions for theiradministration and scoring.Norms, based on samples of approximately 500 children of eachgrade and sex, areprovided for boys and girls in grades 3, 7,and 11. Throughout thepaper consideration is given to researchapplications, as wellas cautions relative to the use andinterpretation of the two CATPA inventories.

Key words: attitude, inventory, children's attitudes,physical activity, norms, psychometric.

In the late 1960s Kenyon (1968b, 1968c) developedan inventory for the assessment of attitudes towardphysical activity (ATPA). Researchers have used thisinventory in a variety of ways, such as assessing atti­tudes within and between athletic groups (Hajjar &Gruber, 1975), comparing participants and nonpar­ticipants in athletics (Hendry & Douglass, 1975),studying factors related to attitude change (Sidney &Shephard, 1976), and examining relationships be­tween ATPA and various situational and dispositionalvariables (Straub & Felock, 1974). In ATPA investiga­tions the target populations have been young adults­the population for which Kenyon's inventory was de­veloped. However, the period of middle childhood isrecognized as the time when attitudes are beingformed (Ausubel & Sullivan, 1970; Medinnus & John­son, 1976), and as Martens (1975) has emphasized, it isimportant to study attitude formation and change

throughout childhood and adolescence. In recogni­tion of the necessity for studying attitudes of children,Simon and Smoll (1974) adapted Kenyon's inventoryfor use with elementary school students (grades 4-6).

The availability of an instrument for assessing chil­dren's attitudes toward physical activity (CATPA) hasstimulated a moderate amount of attitude researchwith this age group (e.g., Eastgate, 1975; Leonard,1975; Schutz, Smoll, & Wood, 1981a; Smoll, Shutz, &Keeney, 1976). However, further investigatory activi­ty on children's attitudes appears needed and isjustifi­able for a number of reasons. First, recent evidenceindicates that teachers, parents, and physical educa­tors rate "the development of a good attitude towardtaking part in physical activity" as one of the mostimportant, and in some cases the most important, ob­jective of a physical education program (Carre,Mosher, & Schutz, 1980). Second, attitudes continueto be the focus ofextensive research in social psycholo­gy, particularly with respect to hypothesized relationsbetween attitudes and associated behaviors. Attitude­behavior research, the utility of which was seriouslyquestioned by social scientists in the 1960s and early1970s (e.g., Fishbein, 1967, Wicker, 1971), has shown amarked resurgence in the last decade as researcherssearch for better attitude measures, attempt to rede­fine attitude-behavior models, and identify modera­tors of the attitude-behavior relation (e.g., Bagozzi,1981; Fazio, Powell, & Herr, 1983; Schuman &John­son, 1976). Research by sport scientists into the mea­surement and behavioral interrelationships of atti­tudes toward physical activity thus appears warranted.Some possible areas for investigation include assess­ment of stability and/or change in CATPA over peri­ods of time, identification of factors which intervenebetween attitudes and behavior as well as those whichcause changes in CATPA, examination of attitude­behavior cause-effect interrelationships, and develop-

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ment of better instruments to assess these relation­ships.

The quality of such future research is greatly de­pendent upon the availability of sound instrumenta­tion and the appropriate utilization thereof. In light ofthis, the major purpose of this paper is to present anoverview and summary of recently complete works onCATPA assessment. Specifically, the purposes arethreefold: (1) to report an improved and shortenedversion of the CATPA inventory and provide a sum­mary of its psychometric properties, (2) to introduce anew CATPA inventory which is suitable for grade 3children, and (3) to provide instructions for adminis­tration and norms for both of these instruments. It ishoped that this information will improve the qualityand quantity of research on the somewhat neglectedattributes of CATPA.

The Revised CATPA InventoryInstrument Development

The ATPA inventory developed by Kenyon wasbased on his multidimensional model ofphysical activ­ity (Kenyon, 1968a). The six subdomains identifiedwere physical activity as a social experience, as healthand fitness, as the pursuit of vertigo, as an aestheticexperience, as catharsis, and as an ascetic experience.For the semantic differential form of the ATPA inven­tory (Kenyon, 1968c), each subdomain is quantifiedthrough the use of a 7-point scale for each of eightbipolar adjectives. The CATPA version developed bySimon and Smoll (1974) closely follows the form andcontent of Kenyon's scales, but substantial changes inwording made this instrument appropriate for read­ing competencies in grades 4 through 6. In a study byWood (1979), CATPA data on 1,752 subjects (903males, 840 females, ages 10-12 years) were used toevaluate the psychometric properties of this inven­tory. A four-phase analysis included (a) item analysisof the discriminating power of each of the eight bipo­lar adjectives of the semantic differential scales andthe degree to which they are comprehended, (b) as­sessment of the internal consistency of the six CATPAscales, (c) evaluation of the need for reweightingCATPA data, and (d) examination of the factor struc­ture of the CATPA domain. The results indicated thatthree of the word pairs (bitter-sweet, dirty-clean, steady­nervous) were not good discriminators and/or not wellunderstood by respondents, thus promoting a recom­mendation for their deletion from the inventory.When using either raw data, reweighted data, or item­deleted reweighted data, all subdomains evidencedrelatively strong internal consistency characteristics,having Cronbach's alphas of approximately .80. Ap­plication of a reciprocal averaging procedure to the

raw data and item-deleted raw data sets yielded de­rived weights which differed very slightly from theword pair a priori weights, thus negating the necessityfor reweighting CATPA data. Finally, factor analysisof both the raw data and the item-deleted reweighteddata revealed similar structures that basically support­ed the validity of the original six-factor structure.However, for both data sets, the Health & Fitnesssubdomain was shown to be comprised of two factors,which were subsequently identified as a value-enjoy­ment dichotomy. The findings suggested the structur­ing ofa revised CATPA inventory which incorporatedthe five psychometrically sound word pairs and scoredthe Health & Fitness dimension as two separate com­ponents.

Based upon the above results a revised instrumentwas developed and administered as part of the BritishColumbia Physical Education Assessment project(Carre et al., 1980). Sixty-seven schools (34 fromgrade 7, 33 from grade 11) were selected by a strati­fied random process from all schools throughout theprovince. Approximately 35 students were randomlyselected from each school, giving a total sample ofapproximately 1,050 students for each grade, withcomplete CATPA data being collected on 1,015 grade7 students and 864 grade 11 students. The CATPAinventory utilized contained five modifications:

(1) Utilizing the results ofWood (1979), the seman­tic differential scales were reduced from eightto five bipolar adjective pairs.

(2) Based on the frequency distribution of respons­es from the above study and the findings ofMattel and Jacoby (1971), the 7-point scale wasreplaced by a 5-point scale for each adjectivepair.

(3) To reduce ambiguity of interpreting a midpointresponse (a value of 3 on the 5-point scale) an "Ido not understand this idea" response categorywas added to each subdomain.

(4) In accordance with the work of Ajzen and Fish­bein (1977), an attempt was made to increasethe congruence between the attitude object(physical activity) and any behavioral measureswhich might be taken te.g., degree of involve­ment in physical activities, fitness, and motorability). This was done by adding the phrase"Taking part in" to the description of each atti­tude subdomain. This has the effect of addingan action element to the statement in Ajzen andFishbein's terms.

(5) The Social subdomain was split into two dimen­sions. It was hypothesized that the descriptivephrase for the original subdomain containedtwo concepts for which an individual could holddifferent attitudinal dispositions. Thus the So-

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cial subdomain was split into "Taking part inphysical activities which give you a chance tomeet new people" and "Taking part in physicalactivities which give you a chance to be withyour friends."

Analysis of the British Columbia data (Carre et al.,1980) provided several important results: (a) item-testcorrelations and internal consistencies of the RevisedCATPA inventory were found to be equally as goodas, and in many cases better than, those in the originalinventory, (b) analysis of the "do not understand" cat­egory indicated that the subdomain descriptions werewell understood by grade 7 and 11 students, (c) factoranalysis procedures revealed that the instrumentalvalues held for physical activity as Social Growth andSocial Continuation represent two relatively indepen­dent concepts that must be assessed separately, and (d)it was found that the Health & Fitness subdomain iscomposed of two factors, and should be scored ac­cordingly. The first two word pairs (good-bad, ofnouse­useful) form a factor which appears to represent apersonal or societal value-oriented attitude towardhealth and fitness as being "good" and "useful," here­after referred to as Health & Fitness: Value. The re­maining three word pairs (not pleasant-pleasant, nice­awful, happy-sad) formed a second factor within thesubdomain, labeled Health & Fitness: Enjoyment.The score on this component represents an attitudewhich reflects a personal enjoyment of actually partic­ipating in physical activities for their health and fitnessbenefits.

The five revisions listed above, along with the split­ting of the Health & Fitness subdomain for scoring

purposes, resulted in a Revised CATPA inventorywhich is both psychometrically sound and time effi­cient with respect to administration. A detailed de­scription of the psychometric properties of the origi­nal and revised inventories appears elsewhere(Schutz, Smoll, & Wood, 1981b). A sample page of theRevised CATPA inventory is presented in AppendixB, and descriptions of each of the seven subdomainsappear in Appendix C.

Validity and Reliability

As indicated above, the CATPA inventory has un­dergone extensive revisions in order to improve itspsychometric properties. Although it is not the pri­mary purpose of this paper to present and discussreliability and validity information for this inventory,a brief overview of these properties seems warranted.

The original ATPA inventory was developed froma multidimensional conceptual model of physical ac­tivity (Kenyon, 1968a) which was empirically support­ed through factor analysis (Kenyon, 1968a, 1968b;Zaichkowsky, 1978). Subsequent research with theoriginal CATPA inventory and its revisions has up­held the basic factor structure (Schutz et al., 1981b).This, along with research confirming the validity ofthe construct physical activity as an attitude object(Schutz et aI., 1981a), lends partial support to theconstruct validity of the inventory. Research with boththe ATPA and CATPA inventories has provided suf­ficient evidence of construct validity. Differences be­tween sport groups (e.g., Alderman, 1970; Reid &Hay, 1979; Schutz et al., 1981a), between sex and age

Appendix BRevised CATPA Inventory: Sample Page for the Social Growth Subdomaln

How do you feel about the idea in the box?

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR SOCIAL GROWTHTaking part in physical activities which

give you a chance to meet new people.

Always think about the Idea in the Box

If you do not understand this idea, mark this box 0 and go to the next page

1. good -_.__._--_._- bad

2. of no use --'--'--'--'-- useful

3. not pleasant -_.__.-_.__._- pleasant

4. nice -_.__._--_._- awful

5. happy --'--'--'--'-- sad

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Appendix CRevised CATPA Inventory: Subdomaln Descriptions

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR SOCIAL GROWTH (Social Growth)Taking part in physical activities which give you a chance to meet new people.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY TO CONTINUE SOCIAL RELATIONS (Social Continuation)Taking part in physical activities which give you a chance to be with your friends.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR HEALTH AND FITNESS (Health & Fitness)Taking part in physical activities to make your health better and to get your body in better condition.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AS A THRILL BUT INVOLVING SOME RISK (Vertigo)Taking part in physical activities that could be dangerous because you move very fast and must change direction quickly.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AS THE BEAUTY IN MOVEMENT (Aesthetic)Taking part in physical activities which have beautiful and graceful movements.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR THE RELEASE OF TENSION (Catharsis)Taking part in physical activities to reduce stress or to get away from problems you might have.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AS LONG AND HARD TRAINING (Ascetic)Taking part in physical activities that have long and hard practices. To spend time in practice you need to give up other thingsyou like to do.

groups (e.g., Kenyon, 1968c; Mullins, 1969; Simon,1973), between athletes and nonathletes (e.g., Corbin,1976; Eastgate, 1975; Hajjar & Gruber, 1975; Hendry& Douglass, 1975), and between delinquents and non­delinquents (Straub & Felock, 1974) all provide sup­portive evidence. Furthermore, Schutz and Smoll(1977) have established the concurrent validity of theCATPA inventory relative to the ATPA inventory.

As with most attitude inventories, the CATPA in­ventory does not possess high concurrent validity interms of the extent to which the measures of attituderelate to the respondents' behaviors (or vice versa) (cf.Ajzen & Fishbain, 1977; Schuman & Johnson, 1976).However, moderate attitude-behavior relationshipshave been found, indicating that the ATPA andCATPA inventories are at least as strong as most so­cial-psychological mesures in accounting for attitude­behavior relationships. Thus, although there is littleempirical evidence for predictive validity, severalstudies do support a claim for convergent validity.Specifically, Smoll et al. (1976) found moderate rela­tionships between CATPA and children's involve­ment in physical activities; Tolson and Chevrette(1974) showed significant increases in college studentsATPA (in four of the six subdomains) following a 6­week daily physical education program; Meyers, Pen­dergast, and DeBacy (1978) found a significant corre­lation (r = .43) between the CATPA Health & Fitnesssubdomain scores and V02 max in adolescent girls;and Carre et al. (1980) reported a number ofsmall butsignificant correlations (rs "'" .30) between CATPAand knowledge of sport and physical activity withgrade 7 and 11 males.

The reliability of the CATPA inventory is well es­tablished with respect to internal consistency. Hoytreliabilities of .80 and .90 have been consistentlyfound (Schutz & Smoll, 1977; Schutz et aI., 1981b).The test-retest reliability (6 weeks) of approximately

.60 reported by Simon and Smoll (1974) and the lackof CATPA stability over time (yearly) reported bySmoll and Schutz (1980), suggests that CATPA is es­sentially unstable for elementary school children.Thus attitudinal stability as indicated by test-retest re­liability is not appropriate for this age group as it isbasically uninterpretable. However, a recent investi­gation with college students indicates that the RevisedCATPA inventory exhibits reasonably high test-retestreliabilities (Smoll & Schutz, 1983). Reliability coeffi­cients calculated for each subdomain, separately bysex, ranged from .53 to .83 (median = .71) for a 2­week interval, and .46 to .78 (median = .67) for a 9­week interval. Thus we reiterate our previous caution(Smoll & Schutz, 1980) that the CATPA inventory,although adequately reliable for assessing group sta­tus and change, should not be used for individualassessment, especially with young children.

The Health & Fitness: Value subdomain is an ex­ception which requires special consideration. The test­retest reliability for this dimension was only .20 formales and .52 for females (Smoll & Schutz, 1983). Theextreme ceiling effect is the primary contributor, asshown by the mean values of approximately 24 (seeTable 1). Although the factor analysis results clearlyidentify the Value and Enjoyment components to betwo separate factors, the small number of items foreach component (two and three word-pairs for Valueand Enjoyment, respectively) seriously reduce the reli­ability for this subdomain. It is necessary that furtherdevelopmental research be conducted on the Healthand Fitness subdomains. This might involve the devel­opment of two separate scales, one for each of Healthand Fitness: Value, and Health and Fitness: Enjoy­ment (each with five word pairs). Inclusion of thisscale item in its present form is, however, recommend­ed for normative/comparative studies.

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Table 1Normative Data for the CATPA Inventories

Grade 7 Grade 11

Subdomains Grade 3 Male Female Male FemaleMale Female

Social Growth 4.7 4.8 21.4 22.1 21.4 22.6(± .6) (± .5) (±3.0) (±3.1) (±3.0) (±2.9)

Social Continuation 4.7 4.8 22.5 22.6 22.5 22.9(± .7) (± .4) (±3.0) (±3.3) (±2.8) (±2.9)

Health & Fitness:Value 23.9 24.2 24.0 24.2(±2.2) (±1.7) (±2.1) (±1.8)

Health & Fitness:Enjoyment 4.8 4.8 21.7 22.3 20.4 21.0(± .6) (± .5) (±3.0) (±2.8) (±3.3) (±3.7)

Vertigo 3.5 3.2 18.9 17.6 20.1 16.6(±1.2) (±1.1) (±4.2) (±4.4) (±4.0) (±4.7)

Aesthetic 3.9 4.6 18.0 20.8 16.4 20.1(±1.2) (± .7) (±5.4) (±4.1 ) (±5.5) (±4.1)

Catharsis 21.0 21.3 20.7 21.6(±3.6) (±3.7) (±3.9) (±3.5)

Ascetic 18.9 18.4 16.9 15.8(±4.4) (±4.5) (±4.5) (±5.0)

N 576 515 517 498 430 434

Note: For inter-grade comparative purposes the Grade 7 and 11 values can be divided by 5.0 inorder to derive a single item score directly comparable to the Grade 3 values.

The Grade 3 CATPA Inventory

In the British Columbia Physical Education Assess­ment project (Carre et aI., 1980), grades 3, 7, and 11were selected, as they represent the final year of pri­mary, intermediate, and secondary school requiredphysical education. Because of the limited readingabilities of grade 3 children, a modified form of therevised CATPA inventory was required. This was ac­complished by making three basic changes, the firstbeing that "happy faces" were used rather than se­mantic differential scales. That is essentially equiva­lent to using only the adjective pair happy-sad. Pilotstudies indicated that grade 3 students could under­stand and respond to these. Nonverbal scales of thisnature are recommended for use with young children(Cozby, 1981), and have been used to measure atti­tudes towards physical education activities in elemen­tary school children (e.g., Martinek, Zaichkowsky, &Cheffers, 1977; Zaichkowsky, Zaichkowsky, & Mar­tinek, 1975). Mancini, Cheffers, and Zaichkowsky(1976) obtained a test-retest reliability of .97 using a 3­picture happy face format with 93 children in grades1-6.

The second change was deletion of the Catharsis

and Ascetic subdomains from this inventory. It wasfelt that 8- and 9-year-old children would not be ableto comprehend these concepts (even though the actu­al wording is at a level close to their typical readingabilities). The third change involved presenting thesubdomain descriptions in question format. Analysisof data from 1,091 grade 3 students revealed that thequestions were well understood, with less than 1%ofthe respondents selecting the "do not understand"option for any of the five subdomains.

It was not possible to directly validate the five-factorstructure of the grade 3 inventory, as each subdomainis represented by only one questionnaire item. How­ever, as the "happy faces" are Likert-type equivalentof the happy-sad bipolar adjective word pair used in theRevised CATPA inventory, and as the five subdo­mains used in the grade 3 inventory have been welldifferentiated (by factor analysis) with the happy-sadword pair for the semantic differential format, weconclude that the five items of the grade 3 inventoryrepresent five relatively unique factors.

Pilot tests indicated that the grade 3 inventory hasstrong convergent validity relative to the CATPA in­ventory. Sixty-one grade 3 students (29 males, 32 fe-

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males) and 65 grade 7 students (36 males, 29 females)were administered both inventories. The grade 3 stu­dents completed the CATPA inventory with the aid ofverbal guidance. Correlations between the five itemsof the grade 3 inventory and the subdomain scores ofthe corresponding items in the CATPA inventoryranged from a low of .71 (grade 7 males) for theAesthetic subdomain, to a high of .98 (grade 3 fe­males) for the Health & Fitness: Enjoyment subdo­mam.

Administrative Procedures, Scoring, andNorms

Administration

Instructions for administration of the RevisedCATPA inventory and the Grade 3 CATPA inventoryare given in Appendices A and D, respectively. Al­though secondary school students would be capable ofreading these instructions and self-administering theinventory, reading the instructions to the group isstrongly recommended. Experience in administering

Appendix EGrade 3: CATPA Inventory: Sample for the Social Growth Subdomaln 1

1. How do you feel about taking part in physical activities which give you a chance to meet new people?

I do not understand

lin preparing the test booklet, three items (subdomains) per page are recommended.

A sample page of the Grade 3 CATPA inventory ispresented in Appendix E, and the subdomain ques­tions appear in Appendix F. It should be noted thatalthough the CATPA inventory has been subjected tocontinuous and extensive applications and analysessince 1974, the grade 3 inventory is new. Additionalreliability and validity studies need to be undertaken.

the CATPA inventory has resulted in the adoption ofa consistent order of presentation of the seven subdo­mains. All results presented here are based on inven­tories completed in the following sequence: SocialGrowth, Health & Fitness, Vertigo, Social Continua­tion, Aesthetic, Catharsis, Ascetic. Adherence to thissequence is recommended.

Appendix FGrade 3 CATPA Inventory: Subdomaln Questions

SOCIAL GROWTHHow do you feel about taking part in physical activities which give you a chance to meet new people?

SOCIAL CONTINUATIONHow do you feel about taking part in physical activities so that you can be with your friends?

HEALTH AND FITNESSHow do you feel about taking part in physical activities to make your health better and to get your body in bettercondition?

VERTIGOHow do you feel about taking part in exciting physical activities that could be dangerous because you move very fast andmust change direction quickly?

AESTHETICHow do you feel about taking part in physical activities which have beautiful and graceful movements?

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Appendix ARevised CATPA Inventory: Administration Instructions'

This questionnaire is designedto find out how you feel about physical activity. Physical activitiesare games,sports, and dancesuch as tag, soccer, hockey, ballet and figure skating on ice.

Eachone of you has a booklet. Do not open it yet. Please listen carefully to the instructions. (Refer to visual aid2) .

At the topof eachpage in your bookletthere is a box,andin the boxthere is an idea.Downbelowthe boxare fivedifferentpairsofwords. Youwill be markingtheseword pairsto showhowyou feel aboutthe idea.This is not a test,so there are no rightor wronganswers. Read the idea in the box, for example, REFEREE. Nowgo down to the first pair words-Good-Bad. How do you feelaboutReferees? If you thinktheyareverygood,youwouldputa"j" here(markat theendof thescalebygood)or, if youthinkthatthey areverybad,you wouldput a "j" here (markat the endof the scaleby bad). If you thinkthat referees are prettygood butnotsupergoodyou would put a "j" here (indicate) or if you thoughtthat referees weresort of bad but not reallybadyou wouldput a"j" here(indicate). If you think that referees areneithergoodnorbad(l.e.,a neutralfeeling) thenput a"j" in the middle. If youdonotunderstand the ideain the boxputa"j" in thedo notunderstand boxonthemiddleof thepage.Thengo tothe nextpage.Ifyouunderstand the ideain theboxbut not thewordpair, leavethewordpair lineblankandgoontothe nextwordpair.Doyouhaveanyquestions?

It is important for you to rememberseveralthings.Firstof all, putyour" j" right in the middleof the space-not on top of the dots.Second, there are five pairs of words on each page, so how many "J" 's will you have on each page? (Five).

WhenI tell you to begin,go throughthe bookletpagebypage.Read the ideainthe boxat thetopof the pageandfill in howyoufeelaboutall of the word pairs beforeyou go on to the next page. Don't go back to a pageafter you havefinished it; and don't try toremember howyou answered theotherpages.Thinkabouteachwordpairby itself.Asyougothrough the bookletgo fairlyquickly;don'tworryor thinktoo longaboutanywordpair. Markthe first thingthat comesintoyour mind,butdon'tbe careless. Remember,the idea in the box at the top of each page is a new idea,so thinkonly aboutthat idea.Whenyou are all finished, put downyourpencil and go back through the booklet to make sure that you haven't left anything out by mistake. After you have finishedchecking, turn your booklet over and wait until everyone is finished. If you have any questions raise your hand and I will comearound and help you. You may begin.

1. To be read aloud by the researcher.2. The visual aid consistsof a samplepage (i.e.,Appendix B) with the singleword REFEREEin the box. It may be drawnon the

blackboard or a large piece of paper, or presented as an overhead, so the entire group can see it.

Appendix DGrade 3 CATPA Inventory: Administration Instructions'

Eachof you has a questionnaire, please leave it face down in frontof you. Placeyour pencilbesidethe questionnaire and listenvery carefully.

I want to know how you feel about physical activity. Physical activities are sports, games and dancing, such as soccer, tag,squaredancing and figure skating on ice.

Inorderfor us to find out how you feel aboutphysical activity, I wantyou to answersixquestions aboutphysicalactivityaccordingto how you feel about each question. This is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers. This is how you will answer thequestions. First I will read the questionout loudas you read it quietlyto yourself. Forexample, take this questionwhich is notoneof the six in your questionnaire:

How do you feel about referees?

Doeseveryoneknowwhat a refereeis? Beloweachquestion aresomehappyfacesandsomesad faces. (Referto visualaid)Af­ter reading the question, if you feel reallyhappyaboutit thenyouwouldmarka checkthrough the happiestface (point). If insteadyou felt reallysad, then you wouldmarka checkthrough the saddestface (Point). If youfelt sortof happybut not reallyhappyyouwouldmarka checkthroughthis face (Point), or if you felt sadbutnot reallysadyouwouldmarka checkthroughthis face (Point).If you felt neitherhappynor sad,you wouldmarka checkthrough the face in the middle. If you do not understand the question donot marka check throughany of the faces. Instead, put a "V" above"I do not understand". Afteryou have markedyour answerwait until I read the next question before you go on.

Remember, this is not a test. Makesureyou answeraccording to howyoufeel andnot to howthe personnextto you answersthequestion. Also,do not think too longaboutthe questionandyouranswer. Just markdownthe first thingyou feel. Don'tgo backtoa question afteryou havefinished it. Whenyou havefinished all of thequestions putyourpencildownandturn the questionnaireover. Are there any questions?

If you haveany questionswhile you are filling in the questionnaire, just raise your hand and I will come and help you. Now, turnyour pages over and we will begin.

'To be read aloud by the researcher

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Scording

The items are scored using a 5-point scale, with 5always being associated with the positive adjective and1 with the negative adjective of the word pair. Itshould be noted that in the Revised CATPA inventoryword pairs 1, 4, and 5 are reverse ordered in compari­son to word pairs 2 and 3. For the Revised CATPAinventory, the scores are added to yield a total scoreout of 25 for all subdomains except Health & Fitness.This subdomain is scored as Health & Fitness: Value(with a maximum score of 10, based on the word pairsgood-bad and of no use-useful), and as Health & Fitness:Enjoyment (with a maximum score of 15, based on theremaining three word pairs, notpleasant-pleasant, nice­awful, happy-sad). For intersubdomain comparisons,these two Health & Fitness components should berescaled to a value out of 25 by multiplying the scoresby 2.5 and 1.67. It is recommended that such rescalingbe the standard procedure. The Grade 3 CATPA in­ventory contains only one response per subdomain,and thus the single score (maximum 5) is the subdo­main score. Because the subdomains represent inde­pendent components ofATPA (both theoretically andstatistically) under no circumstances should the sub­domain scores be totalled to derive a composite atti­tude score.

Norms

Normative data (means and standard deviations),based on the Carre et al. (1980) study, are presented inTable 1. The values given are in general agreementwith data from previous studies with elementaryschool children (Simon & Smoll, 1974) and adoles­cents (Schutz et al., 1981a). This agreement is strongwith respect to the relative values held for the subdo­mains (i.e., the rank ordering of the subdomains isalmost identical), but the magnitude of the values arehigher for some domains in this study. Most notice­able are the very high values for Health & Fitness:Value (means of approximately 24, with a maximumscore of25). This, however, was not unexpected as thissubscale score, which has not previously been isolated,represents a value of generally universal acceptance­physical activity is good for one's health. Such highscores may suggest the presence of a social desirabilityeffect in this case.

Concluding RemarksPotential users of this inventory may question its

appropriateness for measuring change in attitudesdue to the near ceiling values for some subdomains(especially for grade 3 students). However, the user iscautioned that attitude measures are not recommend-

ed for assessing individual change (see Smoll &Schutz, 1980). Because of the small standard devi­ations associated with these high values, the measuresare statistically sensitive to small changes, thus result­ing in spuriously high statistical power. Such smallexpected changes (or group differences) would haverelatively little significance with regard to meaningfuldifferences in the underlying construct. Thus, forthese particular subdomains, the primary utility maybe in detecting abnormally low attitudes toward physi­cal activity.

Although a considerable amount of progress hasbeen made in the development of the Revised CATPAinventory (and a limited amount for the Grade 3CATPA inventory), there are two issues concerningthe future utilization of these inventories that must beaddressed. One is the possible presence of a socialdesirability effect and the other is the ceiling effect insome domains-both of which may contribute to afailure to detect strong attitude-behavior relation­ships. Because the role of social desirability in theexpression and subsequent measurement of specificattitudes is not clear, potential contamination effectsare being investigated in our current research. Withregard to the ceiling effect, Wood's (1979) researchindicated that changing the semantic differential for­mat from a 7-point to a 5-point scale did not reducethe internal consistency or sensitivity of the instru­ment. However, the presence of the ceiling effect forthe Grade 3 CATPA inventory and the Health & Fit­ness: Value subdomain in the Revised CATPA inven­tory (neither of which were part of the Wood study),suggests that further work on the optimal number ofscale points is warranted. In conclusion, the CATPAinventories presented here have been shown to pos­sess high internal consistency, reasonably strong con­vergent validity, and acceptable face validity. The in­struments are thus deemed suitable for social psycho­logical research. In addition, we encourage continuedformative appraisal, leading to possible modificationsand improvements in their psychometric properties.

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physical activity program. Mouvement, 7, 243-245.

Submitted: January 10, 1984Accepted: February 5, 1985

Robert W. Schutz is a professor with the Department of Sport Science,University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. CANADA V6T 1W5.Frank L. Smoll is an associateprofessor with the Department ofPsychology,University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. F. Alex Carre and RichardE. Mosher are associateprofessorswith the School ofPhysical Education andRecreation, University of British Columbia.

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