The measurement of exercise motives: Factorial validity and invariance across gender of a revised Exercise Motivations Inventory

Abstract

Objectives. The aim of this study was to further develop and refine the Exercise Motivations Inventory (EMI), a measure of individuals' reasons for exercising.Design. Confirmatory factor analytic procedures using LISREL were employed to test the hypothesized 14-factor structure of the revised instrument (the EMI-2) and the invariance of the factor structure across gender.Methods. Four hundred and twenty-five civil servants completed the revised instrument. Analyses were conducted in three phases. Phase 1 involved detailed examination of the fit of the 14-factors separately in order to detect and eliminate poor indicators. In Phase 2 each factor was paired with every other factor in order to detect and eliminate ambiguous items. In Phase 3 factors were grouped with conceptually related factors into five submodels and the fit and factorial invariance across gender of these submodels was tested.Results. Item elimination at Phases 1 and 2 led to the development of a set of internally consistent factors with strong indicators and good discriminant validity. Phase 3 gave further evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the items and factors and strong support for the invariance of the factor structure across gender.Conclusions. The EMI-2 is a factorially valid means of assessing a broad range of exercise participation motives in adult males and females, applicable to both exercisers and non-exercisers.

Impact of low-volume, high-intensity interval training on maximal aerobic capacity, health-related quality of life and motivation to exercise in ageing men

“…Exercise motives were assessed using the Exercise Motives Inventory-II (Markland and Ingledew 1997), which has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of motives for exercising in a range of population samples, including older adults (Dacey et al 2008). The inventory has 51 questions examining exercise motives across 14 subscales: Affiliation, Appearance, Challenge, Competition, Enjoyment, Health Pressures, Ill-Health Av o i d a n c e , N i m b l e n e s s , P o s i t i v e H e a l t h , Revitalisation, Social Recognition, Strength and Endurance, Stress Management and Weight Management.…”

Exercise motives in a sample of Brazilian university students

“…Following its design, participants respond to the 44 items of the inventory with the heading "Personally, I practice (or could practice) physical exercise….," using the Likert scale of six points (0 = "completely disagree" to 5 = "completely agree"). According to its creators (Markland & Ingledew, 1997) and following the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985;Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2008), the EMI-2 enables the identification, measurement and ordering of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors for exercise.…”

“…Following its design, participants respond to the 44 items of the inventory with the heading "Personally, I practice (or could practice) physical exercise….," using the Likert scale of six points (0 = "completely disagree" to 5 = "completely agree"). According to its creators (Markland & Ingledew, 1997) and following the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985;Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2008), the EMI-2 enables the identification, measurement and ordering of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors for exercise.Questions about socio-demographic indicators were gathered in a structured questionnaire especially developed for this study, including information about sex (female, male), age (< 19 years, 20-24 years, 25-29 years, > 30 years), ethnicity (white, non-white), marital status (single, married/ cohabiting, separated/divorced), family nucleus (living with family, student residence, alone), paid work (does not work, works < 20 hours/week, works 20-40 hours/week), family economic class (low, middle or high, according to the directives proposed by the Brazilian Association of Market Research Companies (Associação Nacional de Empresas de Pesquisa [ABEP], 2008), including the report of household goods and level of education of family members), area of study (humanities, law and social sciences, exact and technological sciences, health and biology), year of study (1 st year, 2 nd year, 3 rd year, > 4 th year) and current experience with exercise (does not exercise, has exercised for < 6 months, has exercised for 6-24 months, has exercised for > 2 years). Based on the self-reported information about body weight and height, the body mass index (BMI) was calculated, considering the following three categories: < 25 kg/m 2 (normal weight); 25-30 kg/m 2 (overweight) and > 30 kg/m 2 (obesity) (WHO, 1995).…”

Elucidating the roles of motives and gains in exercise participation.

“…Participatory motives were measured using the EMI-2 (Markland & Ingledew, 1997). Only the Affiliation, Appearance, Challenge, and Positive Health motive scales were used in the present analyses.…”

“…Motives would be represented by the EMI-2 (Markland & Ingledew, 1997) and gains by newly created corresponding scales. Interactive effects of motives and gains would be represented by motive-gain products (Baron & Kenny, 1986).…”