Construct Validity of Physical Fitness Tests.

摘要

The process of defining physical fitness test batteries typically relies on qualitative evaluations of individual tests. Starting from the existing consensus regarding the mapping of physical fitness tests onto physical ability constructs, analyses were carried out to develop quantitative test validity indices for use in test battery design. The validity indices were averaged factor loadings from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the inter-test correlation matrices from 85 independent samples. The CFA included latent traits representing muscular strength, muscular power, muscular endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance. The averaged factor loadings came from random effects analysis of the factor loadings from the 85 measurement models. The results confirmed the accepted assignment of fitness tests to categories representing the four physical ability constructs. The average factor loading varied from test to test within each category, but the intertest variation generally was small relative to the standard errors of the individual loading estimates. The modest validity differences leave considerable freedom to use additional criteria, such as ease of administration, time requirements, and face validity from the perspective of the test population, when designing physical fitness test batteries.