The Lifetime Dance Exposure Questionnaire for Professional Training: Survey Development and Reliability Study

Dance is a complex mode of physical activity (PA) behavior and an art form, and one's participation in dance may occur across discrete contexts throughout the lifespan. To further advance the study of lifetime participation in dance behavior, reliable questionnaires are needed.

This study aimed to develop and test the reliability of a self-report, online questionnaire for surveilling lifetime participation in professionally led dance classes among adults.

Community-dwelling adults (N=373) completed the Lifetime Dance Exposure Questionnaire for Professional Training (LDEQ-T) at baseline (T1), and 150 adults repeated the LDEQ-T after an 8-week delay (T2). Test-retest reliability for self-reported dance training frequency, duration, and PA intensity was analyzed for the LDEQ-T between T1 and T2. Reliability for the LDEQ-T item on total years of professional dance training was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs; 2-way, random effects); linearly weighted kappa (𝜿w) was used for ordinal variables on dance class duration, intensity, and frequency; an unweighted kappa (𝜿) statistic was used to test the reliability of 3 dance training exposure groups (no or low, homogenous, or variable lifetime exposure to professional dance training). The significance level was set a priori with α=.05.

Adults reported having no or low (n=92), homogenous (n=196), or variable (n=85) lifetime exposures to professional dance classes at T1. Among adults who self-reported homogenous exposures to dance training throughout the lifespan, years of dance training were found to be reliable across all age periods (ICC range 0.83-0.94); as were weeks/month, months/year, and hours/week of dance training (𝜿w range 0.35-0.61); but not any measure of PA intensity. Among adults who self-reported variable exposures to dance training, years of dance training across all age periods (ICC=0.70-0.96); classes/week, weeks/month, months/year, and hours/week (𝜿w range 0.32-0.56); and some estimates of PA intensity (𝜿w range 0.30-0.41) were found to be sufficiently reliable.

The LDEQ-T appears to be a reliable instrument for quantifying lifetime participation in professional dance training among adults with self-reported low, homogenous, or variable exposures to professional dance classes throughout the lifespan. Among adults, researchers may surveil lifetime exposure to dance training in early childhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and middle or older adulthood using the LDEQ-T.