Physical education course satisfaction scale for Chinese college students: development and psychometric properties

The scientific community still lacks effective assessment tools for evaluating college students' PE course satisfaction. Addressing this gap will help to foster improved learning experiences and satisfaction among college students during PE course, and help achieve better health outcomes and support consistent healthy habits. Accordingly, this study aims to develop a PE course satisfaction scale for Chinese college students (PECSS-CCS).

We identified a primary scale based on a literature review and semi-structured interviews with experts. This scale were then administered to 996 Chinese students from colleges within a public university. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were combined to establish and verify the structural validity of PECSS-CCS. The scale's reliability was assessed through internal consistency and temporal stability tests. To assess the validity of the scale, we administered the tests of content validity, construct validity, convergent validity and criterion-related validity. And we verified measurement invariance across gender groups.

According to EFA (N = 404), we extracted six factors namely teaching characteristics, teacher characteristics and attitudes, course experience, learning atmosphere, facilities and examination. The CFA (N = 472) fit indices results were χ²/dƒ = 1.705, RMSEA = 0.039, CFI = 0.968, TLI = 0.963 and SRMR = 0.042. For the reliability, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient ranged from 0.827 to 0.924, the McDonald's omega value was 0.833 to 0.925, the composite reliability (CR) values ranged between 0.841 and 0.96, while the split-half reliability coefficient was 0.862, and the test-retest coefficient was 0.752 to 0.884 (N = 120). For the validity, the average variance explained (AVE) value ranged from 0.575 to 0.702, the PECSS-CCS subscales were positively correlated with basic psychological needs in exercise scale (BPNES), the correlation coefficient was 0.320 to 0.554. For the measurement invariance, the ΔCFI, ΔSRMR, and ΔRMSEA were all under 0.010. Therefore, the main psychometric indicators of the scale had reached the satisfactory statistical standard.

In summary, the PECSS-CCS, which includes 26 items, demonstrates satisfactory reliability and validity, serving as a valid assessment tool for PE course satisfaction among Chinese college students.