Early Childhood Educators’ Confidence in Outdoor Movement, Physical Activity, Sedentary and Screen Behaviours Questionnaire (ECE-COMPASS)

Abstract

The Early Childhood Educators Confidence in Outdoor Movement, Physical Activity, Sedentary and Screen Behaviors Questionnaire (ECE-COMPASS), also known as the ECE Confidence in Outdoor Movement, PA, and Sedentary and Screen Behaviors questionnaire, was developed by Bruijns et al. in 2023. This instrument was created to formally measure the self-efficacy of Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) regarding their ability to facilitate programming related to outdoor movement, physical activity, and the minimization of sedentary and screen behaviors in childcare settings.

The initial item pool development was grounded in relevant academic literature, including seminal work on self-efficacy by Bandura (2006) and guidelines from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (2017). The scale achieved initial face validity through expert consensus. Following preliminary data collection from Canadian ECEs, an initial factor analysis prompted a revision: one item was removed, two were added, and three existing items were modified. The resulting final instrument comprises 31 items, demonstrating a robust two-factor structure confirmed through subsequent analysis. The validation study provided strong evidence supporting both the reliability and validity of the final ECE-COMPASS instrument.

Keywords

Task Self-Efficacy, Early Childhood Educators, Screen-Time, Sedentary Behavior, Outdoor Play, Physical Activity Promotion, Barrier Self-Efficacy, Face Validity, Factorial Validity, Psychometrics.

Authors

Bruijns, Brianne A., Johnson, Andrew M., Burke, Shauna M., Tucker, Patricia.

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Purpose

The primary objective of the ECE-COMPASS instrument is to provide a standardized metric for assessing the confidence levels, or self-efficacy, of early childhood educators. Specifically, the scale targets the educators’ perceived competence in crucial health promotion domains within the childcare environment.

These domains include the effective promotion of physical activity and outdoor play, alongside the critical ability to minimize children’s screen time and sedentary behaviors.

Construct

The ECE-COMPASS is fundamentally designed to measure Teacher Self-Efficacy specifically applied to health behaviors in young children. Drawing heavily from Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, the instrument operationalizes self-efficacy into two distinct sub-constructs:

• Task Self-Efficacy: This factor assesses the educators’ confidence in their ability to successfully execute specific behaviors and tasks related to promoting active lifestyles, such as leading structured activities, incorporating movement into the curriculum, and serving as a positive role model.

• Barrier Self-Efficacy: This factor measures the educators’ confidence in their ability to overcome common environmental and personal obstacles (barriers) that might hinder the implementation of physical activity and outdoor play, such as poor weather, lack of space, or resistance from parents/colleagues.

Validity

Factorial Validity

The structural integrity of the ECE-COMPASS was supported by the results derived from the factor analysis. This analysis confirmed a two-factor structure—Task Self-Efficacy and Barrier Self-Efficacy—as the most appropriate model, indicating that the items accurately group into the intended subscales related to the construct of self-efficacy.

Face Validity

To ensure content relevance and suitability, the development of the self-efficacy items was rigorously guided by Bandura’s authoritative “Guide for Creating Self-Efficacy Scales” (2006). Furthermore, both the initial and revised versions of the questionnaire underwent comprehensive review by an expert panel. This panel consisted of mid-career researchers specializing in young children’s physical activity and health psychology, ensuring that the items appeared, on the surface, to measure the intended construct.

Reliability

Internal Consistency

The finalized 31-item questionnaire demonstrated high internal consistency, suggesting strong interrelatedness among items within their respective factors. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to be exceptionally high at 0.94 for the Task Self-Efficacy factor and 0.92 for the Barrier Self-Efficacy factor, both well above the standard acceptable threshold of 0.70.

Test-Retest Reliability

Temporal stability was assessed through a test-retest reliability assessment conducted over a 4-day interval. The resulting stability coefficients indicated a modest level of stability for the measure. Specifically, the statistics were 0.62 for the Task Self-Efficacy factor and 0.69 for the Barrier Self-Efficacy factor.

Factor Analysis

An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed on the initial item pool, leading to significant structural refinement of the instrument, including the removal of one item, the addition of two new items, and minor language alterations to three existing items. The assessment of the initial factorial validity utilized the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), which strongly supported a two-factor solution as the most parsimonious model, accounting for 44% of the total variance.

Analysis of the oblimin-rotated factor solution revealed high intercorrelation among all items. Despite this, a distinct second factor emerged, primarily consisting of three items related to educators’ role modeling and avoidance of screen-viewing. Notably, 86.7% of the item factor loadings were greater than 0.50, indicating strong association with their respective factors. The subsequent EFA performed on the revised 31-item questionnaire also confirmed the two-factor solution, but demonstrated improved explanatory power, accounting for 54% of the variance.

Instrument

Test Type: This is an Original Inventory/Questionnaire, specifically designed to measure Teacher Self-Efficacy related to Physical Activity Promotion. Its official acronym is ECE-COMPASS.

Format: The instrument consists of 31 items. Respondents use an 11-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0, defined as “Not confident at all,” to 10, defined as “Completely confident.” The test is typically administered electronically.

Language Available: English.

Population Group: Human; Male; Female; Genderqueer.

Age Group: Adulthood (18 years and older).

Population Details: The measure is validated for use with Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) primarily located in Canada.

Test Methodology: The psychometric properties were comprehensively evaluated using standard methods, including Test Validity (Face Validity, Factorial Validity), Test Reliability (Test-Retest Reliability), Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s alpha), and Factor Analysis (Exploratory Factor Analysis).

Keywords

Task Self-Efficacy, Early Childhood Educators, Screen-Time, Sedentary Behavior, Outdoor Play, Physical Activity Promotion, Barrier Self-Efficacy, Face Validity, Factorial Validity, Psychometrics, Teacher Confidence.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Andrew M. Johnson (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7269-3016); Patricia Tucker (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8392-9418).

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected] (Corresponding Author).

Correspondence Address: Tucker, Patricia: Western University, School of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, 1201 Western Road, Elborn College, Room 2547, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 1H1, [email protected].

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Permissions: Contact Publisher

• Commercial: No

• Fee: No

• Test Year: 2023

Reference’s

Bruijns, B. A., Johnson, A. M., Burke, S. M., & Tucker, P. (2023). Educators’ self-efficacy to promote physical activity and outdoor play and minimize sedentary behaviors in childcare: A tool validation study. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 37(1), 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2022.2053006

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Items of the Early Childhood Educators Confidence in Outdoor Movement, Physical Activity, Sedentary and Screen Behaviors Questionnaire (ECE-COMPASS)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The full list of the 31 items for this measure is available. The items can be found within the supplemental material (Pages 1-2) of the source publication by Bruijns et al. (2023).

Please indicate, on a scale from 0 (not confident at all) to 10 (completely confident), how confident you are in your ability to perform the following during your childcare day:

Rating Scale:

• 0 = Not confident at all

• 5 = Moderately confident

• 10 = Completely confident

TASK Self-Efficacy

BARRIER Self-Efficacy