Skip Navigation Links.
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 12 (2024)</span>Volume 12 (2024)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 11 (2023)</span>Volume 11 (2023)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 10 (2022)</span>Volume 10 (2022)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 9 (2021)</span>Volume 9 (2021)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 8 (2020)</span>Volume 8 (2020)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 7 (2019)</span>Volume 7 (2019)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 6 (2018)</span>Volume 6 (2018)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 5 (2017)</span>Volume 5 (2017)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 4 (2016)</span>Volume 4 (2016)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 3 (2015)</span>Volume 3 (2015)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 2 (2014)</span>Volume 2 (2014)
Collapse <span class="m110 colortj mt20 fontw700">Volume 1 (2013)</span>Volume 1 (2013)
American Journal of Public Health Research. 2019, 7(5), 189-193
DOI: 10.12691/AJPHR-7-5-4
Original Research

Construct Validity Evidence for the Muscle Strengthening Activity Scale (MSAS)

Peter D. Hart1,

1Health Promotion Research, Havre, MT 59501-7751

Pub. Date: November 10, 2019

Cite this paper

Peter D. Hart. Construct Validity Evidence for the Muscle Strengthening Activity Scale (MSAS). American Journal of Public Health Research. 2019; 7(5):189-193. doi: 10.12691/AJPHR-7-5-4

Abstract

Background: The 2018 (2nd edition) Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans states that adults should participate in muscle strengthening activity (MSA) of at least moderate intensity using all major muscle groups on two or more days a week. However, these guidelines do not promote specific types of MSA such as muscular strength training or muscular endurance training. This ambiguity, in part, is due to the lack of evidence linking specific types of MSA to health outcomes. And this lack of evidence, in part, is due to the inability to measure varying MSA behavior. This study reports the construct validity evidence for the MSA Scale (MSAS). Methods: The following research consists of a second development stage presenting validity evidence for the MSAS. Previous research indicates that seven items can measure three MSA dimensions: a three-item muscular strength dimension, a three-item muscular endurance dimension, and a single-item body weight exercise dimension. The current research used both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the MSAS construct validity. Results: EFA indicated a two-factor structure explained 100% of the common variance among the 6 strength and endurance items (3 items per factor with all loadings > .52). The first factor was defined as strength and the second endurance. CFA indicated the two-factor MSAS measurement model had adequate fit (χ2/df = 4.24, GFI = 0.97, CFI = 0.92, and RMSEA = 0.09) with strength and endurance significantly (p < .001) predicting all observed variables. Factor strength scores were strongly correlated with strength sum scale scores and weakly correlated with endurance and body sum scale scores. Similarly, factor endurance scores were strongly correlated with endurance sum scale scores and weakly correlated with strength and body sum scale scores. Conclusion: The seven-item MSAS is a simple and valid tool for measuring MSA behavior in adults. Two additional items are included in the MSAS to quantify MSA participation.

Keywords

Muscle strengthening activity (MSA), Construct validity, Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

Copyright

Creative CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References

[1]  Piercy KL, Troiano RP, Ballard RM, Carlson SA, Fulton JE, Galuska DA, George SM, Olson RD. The physical activity guidelines for Americans. JAMA. 2018 Nov 20; 320(19): 2020-8.
 
[2]  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2018.
 
[3]  Hart PD. Development and item analysis of a multidimensional scale to measure muscle strengthening behavior: The Muscle Strengthening Activity Scale (MSAS). EAS Journal of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences. 2019. 1(2): 29-35.
 
[4]  Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2010). Multivariate data analysis: Pearson College Division.
 
[5]  Schumacker RE, Lomax RG. A beginner’s guide to structural equation modeling. Psychology Press. 2016, p 73.
 
[6]  Hooper D, Coughlan J, Mullen M. Structural equation modelling: Guidelines for determining model fit. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods. 2008; 6(1):53-60.
 
[7]  MacCallum, R.C., Browne, M.W. and Sugawara, H.M., 1996. Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological methods, 1(2), p.130.
 
[8]  Cody, R. P., & Smith, J. K. (2006). Applied Statistics & SAS Programming. Prentice Hall.
 
[9]  Hatcher, L. and O'Rourke, N., 2013. A step-by-step approach to using SAS for factor analysis and structural equation modeling. SAS Institute.
 
[10]  Tan, T.K., SUGAS Paper 2010 Building Latent Growth Models Using PROC CALIS: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach Teck Kiang Tan, Trivina Kang, David Hogan Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
 
[11]  McKinney, W., 2012. Python for data analysis: Data wrangling with Pandas, NumPy, and IPython. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
 
[12]  Biggs, J., 2019. Factor_analyzer documentation. Release 0.3.1.