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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1476732
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring the Interaction between Health-promoting and Health Risk Behaviors in Health, Volume II View all 16 articles

Validity and Reliability of Swimming Competence Assessment Scale in College Students Exploration of Structural Validity and Reliability

Provisionally accepted
Miao Zhao Miao Zhao 1Cheng Chen Cheng Chen 2Peng Ning Peng Ning 3Bo Wei Zhang Bo Wei Zhang 1Yupeng Shen Yupeng Shen 1*
  • 1 South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
  • 2 Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
  • 3 Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China

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

    Purpose: As a globally popular physical activity, swimming also presents challenges due to its inherent aquatic risks. Therefore, the cultivation of swimming competence emerges as a crucial strategy in preventing drowning incidents.This study aimed to develop and validate the Swimming Competence Assessment Scale in College Students (SCAS) to address the gap in structured swimming proficiency evaluation, essential for drowning prevention and water safety education. Method: The research involved 160 full-time second-year college students, including 92 males(age:20.48±0.51) and 68 females(age:20.65±0.70), who underwent two swimming ability assessments. The evaluation covered fundamental swimming skills, including entry, submersion, rotation, prone and supine swimming, floating, and exiting the water. Results: Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed goodness-of-fit for a two-factor model swimming coherent motion and swimming stable posture, which supported the construct validity. The inter-factor construct reliability (CR=0.866,CR=0.835)and the square root of Average Variance Extracted (1=0.754,1=0.848) exceeded the standards for supporting convergent and discriminant validity. The inter-rater reliability (IRR=0.542) and Cronbach's alpha (α=0.840,α=0.827) coefficient results have demonstrated the internal reliability of the SACS. Positive correlation between SCAS scores at pre-test and post-test provided evidence for SCAS’s test-retest reliability (TRR=0.825,TRR=0.758). Conclusion: SCAS is a valid and reliable assessment scale. It assesses college students' swimming competence through two aspects: Swimming Coherent Motion and Swimming Stable Posture.

    Keywords: Assessment of swimming competence, Structural validity, reliability analysis, college student population, Drowning prevention

    Received: 06 Aug 2024; Accepted: 12 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhao, Chen, Ning, Zhang and Shen. 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: Yupeng Shen, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 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.