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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1515859
This article is part of the Research Topic Online Assessment in Health and Sport Psychology View all 10 articles

Psychometric Evaluation of The Exercise-related Cognitive Errors Questionnaire (E-CEQ) Among Chinese Emerging Adults

Provisionally accepted
Zhihui Cheng Zhihui Cheng 1*Mengyao Guo Mengyao Guo 2Jin Kuang Jin Kuang 1Ting Wang Ting Wang 1Fabian Herold Fabian Herold 3Alyx Taylor Alyx Taylor 4Jonathan Leo Ng Jonathan Leo Ng 5Md Mahbub Hossain Md Mahbub Hossain 6,7Arthur F Kramer Arthur F Kramer 8,9Robert Joel Schinke Robert Joel Schinke 10Liye Zou Liye Zou 1
  • 1 Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
  • 2 Jishou University, Jishou, Hunan, China
  • 3 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
  • 4 AECC University College, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
  • 5 College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  • 6 Department of Decision and Information Sciences, C.T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States
  • 7 Department of Health Systems and Population Health Sciences, Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States
  • 8 Center for Cognitive and Brain Health, College of Science, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
  • 9 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, United States
  • 10 Department of Psychology, College of Arts, Social and Health Sciences, University of Northern British Columbia Canada, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Cognitive errors involve negatively biased or distorted thinking patterns that can hinder effective decision-making. When such a phenomenon occurs in the exercise domain, this is referred to as exercise-related cognitive error. Such exercise-related cognitive errors are typically assessed via a questionnaire, but a validated instrument for the application in Chinese-speaking populations is lacking. Thus, this study aims to validate the Chinese version of the Exercise-related Cognitive Errors Questionnaire (E-CEQ-C) among Chinese emerging adults, a self-report measure to evaluate cognitive errors of context-relevant information related to exercise. Methods ： Following a forward-backward translation of the E-CEQ (N = 24 items), the E-CEQ-C and the Chinese version of the Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest-C) for gathering evidence of criterion-related validity were administered among a sample of Chinese emerging adults (N= 376, 29.0% male) through an online survey. After a two-week interval, 105 out of 376 participants attended a re-test of the E-CEQ-C. Item analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity were analyzed.Results：The findings from the CFA support the 24-item informed six-factor structure among Chinese emerging adults (χ2=699.038, RMSEA=0.073, CFI=0.919, TLI=0.904, and SRMR=0.055). Cronbach's α of the six dimensions of the E-CEQ-C were all above 0.7. The test-retest reliability coefficients of each subscale and total scale were acceptable, ranging from 0.60 to 0.81. In accordance with the literature, we also observed positive associations between the six dimensions of E-CEQ-C and the constructs of the CD-Quest-C, which provided concurrent validity evidence for the E-CEQ-C.This study showed that E-CEQ-C is a psychometrically sound measure to assess exercise-related cognitive errors in Chinese-speaking populations.

    Keywords: questionnaire, psychometric evaluation, Emerging adults, reliability and validity, six-factor structure 5

    Received: 23 Oct 2024; Accepted: 09 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Cheng, Guo, Kuang, Wang, Herold, Taylor, Ng, Hossain, Kramer, Schinke and Zou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zhihui Cheng, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.