This article presents a version of a tool to measure motivation for physical activity adapted for research on Polish participants.
Whether a person will undertake physical activity depends on a many factors. Some people will be motivated by fear of the consequences of not moving, others will respond to the competitive aspect and others will find elements of meditation in movement that also affect mental wellbeing. Motivational factors are among the most important determinants of taking up and participating in physical activity. When planning compensatory or promotional interventions, we will have a better effect if these activities are targeted and tailored to the audience. And for this we should know the structure of their motivation. Building on Nicholls' proposed distinction between task-focused or self-focused action orientation, Patherick and Markland in 2008 constructed a scale to measure both dimensions. Our work focuses on the process of adaptation to Polish conditions of this tool and its main objective is to assess the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the GOEM scale and to determine the relationships between its subscales "Task" and "Ego" and selected components of physical activity, i.e. frequency of undertaking physical activity, declared time per session and time spent undertaking physical activity.
In addition to the usual psychometric assessment indicators, we also present an analysis of the reliability of the test items by applying the IRT model.
Our study included 318 participants (173 women, 145 men) aged 21 years undertaking recreational physical activity. There were positive associations of the task-oriented subscale with frequency of physical activity and time spent during a single exercise session, which can be interpreted as a result indicating that task-oriented individuals will exercise more and more often. There are no such associations with the score on the "Ego" scale, which is colloquially known as exercising for self.
The scale is also sensitive to gender differences - in the course of the analysis we found that men on average score higher than women on the "Ego" scale. We suppose that this is reflected in the higher value of physical vigor for men than for women.