ABSTRACT

Objective: The purpose of this study was to verify the validity of the Activity Participation Assessment(APA) for school age children. Methods: The subjects were 495 school aged children. The validity of the APA was verified using Rasch analysis to investigate the persons and items fitness, the distribution of item difficulty, separation reliability, and the appropriateness of the rating scale. Finally, the items were categorized using exploratory factor analysis. Results: The result of Rasch analysis showed that 16 out of 495 school aged children were not fit unidimensionality. Out of 83 items, 19 items were determined to be unsuitable items. Of the appropriate items, the most difficult item was ‘play the baseball’, and the easiest item was ‘bath/shower’. A three-point rating scale of the APA was found to be more appropriate than the original six-point rating scale. The separation reliability of subjects and items was each .95 and .99. The result of exploratory factor analysis revealed 8 factors consisting of 30 items. Conclusion: The validity of APA was verified using Rasch analysis. Further research needs to prove the concurrent validity of the APA with a three-point rating scale and to analyze the factors that influence the participation of children.