An integrative perspective of validating a simplified Chinese version behavioral regulation in exercise questionnaire-2

The study aims to examine psychometric property, measurement invariance, and latent mean difference of a Chinese version instrument of the Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire -2 (C-BREQ-2), which originally includes five constructs. The study also examined the relationship between C-BREQ-2and participants' weekly moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Participants were middle and high school students recruited from Shanghai, China. The final sample (N = 437, 49% for boys) was randomly split into two subsamples, where the first subsample (N = 208) was used for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the second subsample (N = 229) for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Measurement invariance and latent mean difference across gender was examined. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to explore how different motivation types relate to adolescents' weekly MVPA. Results showed that the revised 14-item, three-factor model is invariant at both configural, full metric, and full scalar levels across genders. The following latent mean comparison revealed that boys perceived higher introjected regulation than girls. Finally, only introjected regulation significantly and positively related to adolescents' MVPA.