Validation of the Children's Beliefs and Intentions to Play with Peers with Disabilities in Middle School Physical Education Scale

This study assessed structural validity and internal consistency of the Children's Beliefs and Intentions to Play with Peers with Disabilities in Middle School Physical Education (CBIPPD-MPE); a scale measuring beliefs and intentions of middle school children without disabilities to play with a hypothetical peer with a physical disability in general physical education, and determined relationships among the CBIPPD-MPE subscales. A background questionnaire and the CBIPPD-MPE were administered to a convenience sample of 808 middle school students. As a part of cross-validation, the sample was stratified by gender and grade and randomly split into a calibration sample (n=404) and a validation sample (n=404). The results of two confirmatory factor analyses showed a good fit of the model to the data. Internal consistency of the four subscales ranged between .71 and .91. Belief scores were strongly associated with intentions and the belief subscales were inter-correlated (p<.01).