Reliability and validity evidence for the physical activity parenting questionnaire for children (PAP-C) in Chinese school-aged children.

Unlabelled: The physical activity parenting questionnaire for children (PAP-C) is designed to assess physical activity parenting practices from children's perspectives. While initially developed in Finland, its validity and reliability have not been evaluated in different countries. This study aimed to examine the construct validity, factorial invariance, and 4-week reliability of the PAP-C in Chinese 7- to 11-year-old children. The PAP-C contains three theory-driven parenting dimensions: structure for activity, autonomy support, and involvement, with 22 items. The construct validity and internal consistency were tested by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and composite reliability in a sample of 2747 Chinese school-aged children (grades 1-6, mean age 9.1 ± 1.4 years, 48.9% girls). Factorial invariance across grades was explored via sequential multi-group CFA, and intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficients were calculated for a subsample of 865 children who completed a 4-week retest (mean age 8.7 ± 1.1 years, 47.5% girls). The PAP-C with 20 items showed high standardized factor loadings, with good to excellent internal consistency (α = 0.86, 0.76, 0.83) for structure for activity (10 items), autonomy support (4 items), and involvement (6 items), respectively. The factor structure exhibited strong stability, with robust fit indices confirming configural, metric, and scalar invariance. The ICCs (0.692-0.909) demonstrated good to excellent test‒retest stability for all grades.

Conclusion: The PAP-C is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing children's perceptions of physical activity parenting in Chinese school-aged children. The integration of the PAP-C with parental counseling can facilitate a more holistic assessment of physical activity parenting, a key determinant shaping children's physical activity behavior.

What Is Known: • Physical activity parenting is a key determinant of children's physical activity. • Few theory-driven child-reported physical activity parenting scales exist, with significant cultural limitations and lacking cross-national validation.

What Is New: • The physical activity parenting questionnaire for children (PAP-C) shows excellent construct validity and reliability in Chinese school-aged children. • Recognizing the child's perspective on physical activity parenting enables the design of child-centered physical activity interventions in pediatric clinical settings.