Intention for Warm-Up among Children and Adolescents Scale: Development and Initial Validation

Area of Science:

• Sports Pedagogy
• Psychometrics
• Adolescent Health

Background:

• Warm-up adherence is crucial for injury prevention and performance in young athletes.
• Existing measures may not adequately capture the multifaceted intentions of children and adolescents towards warm-ups.
• Understanding determinants of warm-up behavior is essential for designing effective interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a psychometrically sound scale measuring intention for warm-up among children and adolescents.
• To create a tool that can be utilized by physical education teachers and coaches.
• To assess the reliability and structural validity of the developed scale.

Main Methods:

• A four-phase development process involving domain definition, item generation, expert review, and pilot testing.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on data from 1222 elementary and middle school students.
• Scale revision based on pilot study feedback and statistical analyses.

Main Results:

• The final Intention for Warm-up among Children and Adolescents Scale (IWCAS) comprises 11 items across three domains: attitude toward warm-up, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control.
• The scale demonstrated good composite internal consistency, with scores ranging from 0.74 to 0.85.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the reliable and structurally valid nature of the IWCAS.

Conclusions:

• The IWCAS is a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating the intention of primary and secondary school students to perform warm-ups.
• The scale can be a valuable tool for physical education teachers and coaches to assess and potentially improve warm-up adherence.
• Further research could explore the predictive validity of the IWCAS on actual warm-up behavior.