Development and Psychometric of a Physical Literacy Questionnaire for Young Adolescents (16 - 18 Years of Age): A Mixed-Method Study

Background: Despite many studies on children’s physical literacy, less attention has been paid to adolescents’ physical literacy. Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop and assess the psychometric features of a questionnaire for measuring physical literacy in 16 - 18-year-old Iranian adolescents. Methods: This study was conducted in Tehran and employed a two-step mixed method. In the first part, the concept of adolescents’ physical literacy was identified using a content analysis approach. At this stage, 15 specialists and eleven 16 - 18-year-old adolescents were selected by the convenient sampling method. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. In the Second part of the study, in order to describe the psychometric properties of the tool, its validity, reliability (internal consistency and test-retest), and factor analysis were assessed. Results: In the first stage, the analysis of the data obtained from the interviews emerged a definition for the concept of adolescents’ physical literacy as a set of skills to acquire, comprehend, and assess information and self-care skills to make the right decision and promote physical activities. In the second step, according to the qualitative analysis of the opinions of specialists and adolescents, as well as the review of the existing literature, the initial questionnaire was developed consisting of 62 questions in the dimension of physical literacy, which was subsequently abridged to 40 questions as some questions were omitted due to conceptual similarities. After the content was validated and the recommended corrections were made, the tool’s questions were further reduced to 34 items. In exploratory factor analysis, these 34 items were loaded into 5 factors, which, in total, represented 61.60% of the observed changes. However, based on the research team’s decision, the items of Factor 5 were transferred to Factor 2 due to conceptual similarities. Finally, a 34-item questionnaire with 4 factors was developed. The reliability of the tool was approved by α = 0.93, and the test-retest method with two-week intervals indicated appropriate reliability for the questionnaire (ICC = 0.97). Conclusions: The adolescents’ physical literacy questionnaire with 34 items and 4 dimensions was approved as a valid and reliable tool to measure adolescents’ physical literacy.