THE EXERCISE MOTIVATIONS INVENTORY - PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY OF A MEASURE OF INDIVIDUALS REASONS FOR PARTICIPATION IN REGULAR PHYSICAL EXERCISE

This paper describes the development of the Exercise Motivations Inventory (EMI), a 44-item, multidimensional instrument designed to test theoretically derived predictions concerning the influences of personal exercise goals on exercise participation. Items were generated from responses to an open-ended questionnaire and from an examination of the literature on exercise adherence. A 71-item version of the EMI was completed by 249 regular exercisers. Principal components analysis with equamax rotation yielded 12 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, accounting for 69.4% of the total variance. The factors were labelled Stress Management, Weight Management, Re-creation, Social Recognition, Enjoyment, Appearance, Personal Development, Affiliation, Ill-Health Avoidance, Competition, Fitness, and Health Pressures. The internal consistency of the 12 subscales was generally acceptable with Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients ranging from 0.63 to 0.90. Test-retest reliability coefficients over a 4 to 5 week period ranged from 0.59 to 0.88. None of the subscales appear to suffer from a social desirability response bias, as evidenced by weak, non-significant correlations with the short form of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Preliminary evidence for the discriminative and construct validity of the EMI is presented.