ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: To assess emotion regulation strategies in a clear and direct manner, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) was developed based on the process model of emotion regulation. ERQ primarily assesses an individual's propensity for reappraisal (a cognitive change in the individual's psychological state in specific situations) and expressive suppression (a regulatory response where an individual alters their emotional response after the onset of an emotional reaction). Recent studies have suggested that the abbreviated 8-item version of the ERQ exhibits comparable model fit to the original version. The present study aimed to explore the psychometric properties and assess cross-gender invariance of the ERQ-8 in Chinese university students. METHODS: University students from Jiangsu Province participated in this study. Participants completed self-report surveys assessing emotion regulation strategies. It was conducted from May 2022 to July 2022. The study employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the two-factor model of ERQ-8 and measurement invariance across male and female samples. RESULTS: The mean age of 1534 participants was 19.83 years (SD = 1.54), and the majority were female (70.4%). The initial ERQ-10 model with ten items demonstrated good fit for all indicators, CFI (Comparative Fit index) = 0.967, TLI (Tucker-Lewis Index) = 0.957, RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation) = 0.043, SRMR (Standardised Root Mean Square Residual) = 0.029. However, to assess the fit of the previously proposed ERQ-8 model, two items (Q1 and Q3) were excluded. The fit of the ERQ-8 model was further improved (CFI = 0.989, TLI = 0.984, RMSEA = 0.029, SRMR = 0.021). All item loadings exceeded or were equal to 0.573. Internal consistency analysis based on the ERQ-8 model revealed Cronbach's alpha values of 0.840 for reappraisal and 0.745 for suppression, and corresponding composite reliability (CR) values of 0.846 and 0.747, respectively. Test-retest reliability, assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) (95% CI) within a one-week interval, ranged from 0.537 to 0.679. The correlation coefficient between the two factors was 0.084, significantly below 0.85, which suggested a low correlation between the two factors. The results of the invariance analysis across gender demonstrated that the values of ΔCFI and ΔTLI were both below 0.01. It was supported the gender invariance of the ERQ-8 among university students. CONCLUSION: The eight-item ERQ demonstrated validity and reliability in evaluating emotion regulation strategies, and measurement invariance was observed across gender among university students. The ERQ-8 may prove to be a practical and cost-effective tool, particularly in time-constrained situations.
Subject(s)
Emotional Regulation , Humans , Male , Female , Psychometrics/methods , Reproducibility of Results , Universities , Surveys and Questionnaires , StudentsABSTRACT
Physical activity (PA) is widely recognized as crucial for human health, yet the low level of PA in adolescents continues to raise major concerns. This study aims to validate the Chinese version of the Social Support Scale for Exercise (SE) and establish its reliability among Chinese adolescents. A cross-sectional study was conducted on two primary and two secondary schools in central China. Students were recruited using a random cluster sampling method, and written informed consent was provided after they were briefed on the purpose of the study. The standard forward-backward translation was applied to translate the English version of the SE into Chinese. The Social Support Scale used in this study consists of two factors: family support and friend support. Data were analyzed using Mplus 8 for the CFA, composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE), and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated. A total of 1422 students (boys = 838, girls = 604) with a mean age of 11 years (SD = 1.6) participated in the study. The measurement model of the translated social support scale fit the data well: CFI = .935; TLI = .929; SRMR = .038; RMSEA = .053, with a 90% confidence interval of (.051, .056; RMSEA p < .001). The composite reliability values of .935 for family support and .948 for friend support were acceptable. The intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) based on test-retest were .928 for family support, and .904 for friend support. Hence, the Chinese version of the SE was valid and reliable, its implementation will provide researchers with a valuable tool to comprehensively assess Chinese adolescents' exercise-related social support and help develop targeted and effective interventions to improve their physical activity levels.