The development of a self-efficacy scale for exercise behavior

The purpose of the study was to develop a self-efficacy scale for exercise behavior. The draft items of self-efficacy scale were chosen from the previous studies, and were modified to reflect the socioeconomic differences in the target population. Ratings were made on a 3-point Likert-type scale. The self-efficacy scale was administered to 647 employees in a Japanese manufacturing company in 1990. They were also asked to identify their exercise behavior as one of exercising more than once a week, or not exercising. Two factors were extracted by principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation, and those two factors had eigenvalue of greater than 1.0. They were named "high priority" and "independent factor". Cronbach's alpha coefficients were 0.90 and 0.84 for high priority and independent factor, respectively. The test-retest correlations for the high priority and the independent factor were 0.83 and 0.74, respectively. Both factor scores and scale scores were significantly higher in employees who habitually exercised compared with those who did not exercise. A significantly higher percentage of employees with high self-efficacy scores exercised regularly than those with lower self-efficacy scores. This study provided evidence of reliability and validity of the newly developed self-efficacy scale for exercise behavior in Japan.