Assessment of the Action Competencies of Exercise Coaches

Abstract

The Assessment of the Action Competencies of Exercise Coaches (Erfassung der Handlungskompetenzen von Übungsleitenden; Strauch et al., 2023) is a psychometrically validated, multidimensional self-report and observer-report instrument developed to evaluate the situated action competencies of exercise instructors and group fitness leaders. Grounded in the theoretical framework of action competence (Handlungskompetenz) established by Strauch, Wäsche, and Jekauc (2018, 2019), the scale quantifies three core operational domains: motivational competence, adaptive competence, and organizational competence. The development of the instrument commenced with an extensive pool of candidate items generated from rigorous qualitative content analyses of empirical interview investigations with exercise leaders and participants. Following initial content and structural validation, the instrument was refined and tested across two independent empirical cohorts. The resulting questionnaire comprises 9 items organized evenly into three latent subscales (3 items per dimension), evaluated using an authentic 7-point response format ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“completely agree”). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated robust structural validity, showing excellent model fit across two distinct validation studies (Study 1: χ²(24) = 116.5, p < .01, CFI = .98, RMSEA = .06; Study 2: χ²(24) = 35.3, p < .01, CFI = .99, RMSEA = .04). Criterion-related validity was corroborated through systematic associations with the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES), wherein all dimensions exhibited positive correlations with exercise enjoyment, with motivational competence uniquely preserving predictive efficacy within bifactor modeling. Internal consistency estimates across subscales proved exceptionally high, with Cronbach’s α coefficients ranging from .81 to .91 and McDonald’s ω values spanning .86 to .96. This instrument provides researchers, sports federations, and clinical exercise practitioners with an efficient, theoretically grounded psychometric scale to evaluate instructional quality, guide coach education curricula, and advance physical activity adherence research.

Keywords

Action Competencies, Adaptation Competence, Motivational Competence, Organizational Competence, Exercise Coaches, Sports Coaching, Psychometrics, Physical Activity Enjoyment, Self-Determination Theory, Instructional Quality, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Group Fitness

Authors

The instrument was designed, psychometrically evaluated, and published by a research consortium based at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT):

• Ulrich Georg Strauch — Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany. (Correspondence: Fontanestr. 64, 15569 Woltersdorf, Germany; Email: [email protected]).
• Julian Fritsch — Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
• Susanne Weyland — Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany (ORCID: 0000-0002-1411-9016).
• Hagen Wäsche — Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
• Stefani Vorgic — Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
• Darko Jekauc — Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.

Purpose

Regular engagement in structured physical activity is one of the most effective non-pharmacological interventions for preventing chronic lifestyle illnesses, mitigating cardiovascular morbidity, enhancing cognitive vitality, and fostering psychological well-being. Despite widespread awareness of these benefits, global physical inactivity rates remain critically elevated. A primary factor governing long-term behavioral maintenance in structured group exercise is the quality of leadership delivered by exercise coaches, group fitness instructors, and physical activity trainers (Übungsleitende). The social, instructional, and emotional climate cultivated by an instructor directly influences exercise enjoyment, affective evaluations during movement, self-efficacy, and exercise adherence.

Historically, the scientific evaluation of exercise coaches lacked unified, psychometrically validated instruments capable of measuring multidimensional instructional competencies specific to adult non-elite, health-oriented, and recreational exercise. Existing coach assessment inventories were predominantly developed for competitive elite athletics, targeting tactical acumen, technical drills, and win-oriented feedback. Such tools fail to capture the pedagogical, emotional, and adaptive demands placed upon instructors working in community fitness, corporate wellness, disease prevention, and rehabilitation programs.

The primary purpose of the Assessment of the Action Competencies of Exercise Coaches (Strauch et al., 2023) is to fill this empirical void. Specifically, the instrument aims to:

• Provide a brief, psychometrically rigorous, 9-item measurement tool that assesses the core operational dimensions of instructional performance in group exercise contexts.
• Diagnose strengths and targeted areas for development in professional training, continuing education, and certification programs for physical activity leaders across national sports federations (such as the German Olympic Sports Confederation, DOSB).
• Enable sport and exercise psychology researchers to examine the causal and mediating pathways linking coach behaviors to participant psychological outcomes, including autonomous motivation, exercise enjoyment, group cohesion, and long-term behavioral adherence.
• Serve as a standardized assessment instrument for quality assurance, program evaluation, and organizational benchmarking in recreational sports clubs, health studios, clinical rehabilitation centers, and public health physical activity initiatives.

Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by this scale is action competence (Handlungskompetenz) situated within the domain of exercise leadership. Rather than viewing competence as an abstract aggregate of static knowledge or isolated personality traits, action competence conceptualizes an instructor’s capacity to orchestrate professional knowledge, tactical skills, reflective problem-solving, and socio-emotional behaviors in dynamic group exercise environments. Derived from comprehensive qualitative field investigations (Strauch et al., 2018, 2019), this construct is partitioned into three distinct yet interrelated latent dimensions:

1. Motivational Competence

Motivational competence denotes the instructor’s deliberate ability to stimulate, nurture, and sustain participants’ internal motivation, positive affective states, and psychological engagement throughout the exercise session. Rooted in Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017), this dimension reflects the coach’s proficiency in creating an autonomy-supportive, task-involving motivational climate. Instructors high in motivational competence utilize positive reinforcement, constructive emotional contagion, authentic enthusiasm, and personalized verbal encouragement. They facilitate experiences of competence by framing tasks mastery-orientedly and cultivate relatedness by reinforcing mutual social support among group members. Within physical activity contexts, this competence directly promotes participants’ physical activity enjoyment, which is critical for transforming temporary exercise intentions into durable, habitual lifestyle patterns.

2. Adaptive Competence

Adaptive competence reflects the instructor’s situational flexibility and diagnostic capability to continuously adjust instructional strategies, exercise difficulty, and pacing to the heterogeneous and fluctuating needs of participants. Group exercise cohorts regularly exhibit broad variance in physical fitness, baseline motor skill, age, fatigue thresholds, and musculoskeletal limitations. An instructor displaying high adaptive competence continually monitors participant biomechanics, signs of exhaustion, and cognitive comprehension, swiftly implementing exercise regressions or progressions without disrupting class flow. This dimension captures the balance between cognitive diagnostic judgment and spontaneous didactic flexibility, ensuring participants remain within their individual zones of proximal development without encountering excessive strain or demotivating under-stimulation.

3. Organizational Competence

Organizational competence represents the structural, spatial, temporal, and logistical management of the exercise session. Effective instructional settings require seamless environmental planning, including equipment setup, clear transition pathways between exercise intervals, efficient acoustic and visual positioning, and proactive safety management. Instructors with elevated organizational competence prevent chaotic interruptions, maximize active exercise time (time-on-task), maintain clear situational pacing, and provide structured, unambiguous directives. By removing friction from the physical environment, organizational competence establishes a stable framework within which motivational and adaptive behaviors can occur effectively.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the instrument draws upon educational competence theory, sport pedagogy, and contemporary social-cognitive motivation paradigms:

1. The Action Competence Paradigm (Handlungskompetenz)

The primary theoretical bedrock stems from the German educational and vocational competence tradition articulated by Franz E. Weinert (2001) and operationalized for physical activity leadership by Strauch, Wäsche, and Jekauc (2018, 2019). Competence is defined not as an innate trait or static declarative memory, but as the learnable, contextualized disposition to solve situational problems through coordinated cognitive, volitional, motivational, and physical actions. Strauch et al. (2018) conducted qualitative content analyses of coach and participant interviews, establishing that exercise leadership requires three primary action clusters: motivational leadership, flexible didactic adaptation, and structural-organizational orchestration. These empirical clusters directly informed the structural parameters of the 9-item scale.

2. Self-Determination Theory and Motivational Climate

The motivational dimension is informed by Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2017) and Achievement Goal Theory (Ames, 1992). The coach acts as the primary architect of the social-contextual environment. When instructors exhibit high motivational competence, they support participants’ basic psychological needs for autonomy (providing choice and meaningful rationales), competence (delivering contingent, mastery-based feedback), and relatedness (fostering empathy, warmth, and peer inclusion). This environment fosters intrinsic and integrated regulations, generating positive affective responses during exercise.

3. Affective-Reflective and Dual-Mode Theories of Exercise

The instrument also integrates insights from the Affective-Reflective Theory (ART) of active behavior (Brand & Ekkekakis, 2018; Jekauc & Brand, 2015) and the Dual-Mode Model of exercise-associated affect (Ekkekakis, 2003). These perspectives demonstrate that automatic affective evaluations and somatic experiences during exercise predict future exercise adherence. Adaptive and motivational competencies serve as interactive regulators: adaptive adjustments prevent adverse physiological discomfort and distress, while motivational interventions reinforce positive emotional valence. Consequently, instructor competence translates directly into sustained physical activity enjoyment and regular exercise attendance.

Validity

The construct, structural, and criterion validity of the instrument were systematically examined across multiple developmental and psychometric phases (Strauch et al., 2023):

1. Content Validity

Content validity was established through a multi-stage inductive-deductive process. The initial candidate item pool was derived directly from qualitative interview datasets involving certified exercise instructors and active exercise participants (Strauch et al., 2018, 2019). Sport psychology experts, educational theorists, and exercise methodologists reviewed the preliminary items for conceptual fidelity, semantic clarity, representativeness, and operational distinctiveness across the three proposed dimensions. Cognitive pre-testing with exercise coaches was used to identify and revise ambiguous formulations, resulting in a refined operational instrument.

2. Structural and Construct Validity

Structural validity was assessed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across two separate samples. The theoretical three-factor correlated model (motivational, adaptive, and organizational competencies) demonstrated superior fit compared to competing unidimensional specifications. As detailed in the validation studies, factor loadings across all 9 items were high and statistically significant (p < .001), corroborating that each subscale uniquely reflects its intended action domain while maintaining moderate, theoretically anticipated inter-factor correlations.

3. Criterion-Related and Concurrent Validity

Criterion-related validity was evaluated by correlating instructor competence scores with the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES; Motl et al., 2001; Kendzierski & DeCarlo, 1991). In a standard three-factor CFA specification, all three latent competence factors (motivational, adaptive, and organizational) correlated positively and significantly with participant exercise enjoyment. In a unidimensional global model, overall instructor competence retained a significant positive correlation with PACES scores.

When examined within a bifactor model—which partitions variance into a general instructional competence factor alongside three specific orthogonal group factors—the motivational competence factor uniquely maintained a significant positive association with PACES scores above and beyond the global variance. This finding provides evidence for the incremental validity of the motivational subscale, demonstrating that coach-driven motivation exerts an independent, direct influence on participant physical activity enjoyment.

Reliability

The scale exhibits robust internal consistency across all subscales, satisfying psychometric standards for both group-level research and individual diagnostic screening:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): Internal consistency estimates across the three latent subscales consistently ranged from α = .81 to α = .91 in empirical evaluations, indicating high homogeneity among items within each three-item facet without excessive item redundancy.
• McDonald’s Omega (ω): Because Cronbach’s alpha assumes strict tau-equivalence (equal factor loadings across indicators), the authors evaluated composite reliability via McDonald’s omega. The calculated ω values ranged from .86 to .96 across subscales, verifying strong internal consistency under congeneric structural assumptions.
• Stability and Indicator Reliability: Standardized factor loadings across items consistently demonstrated substantial explained indicator variance ($R^2 > .50$), confirming that the observed items serve as reliable indicators of their respective latent action competence dimensions.

Factor Analysis

The factorial architecture of the instrument was tested across two independent samples using robust maximum likelihood estimation procedures within Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):

Model Fit Parameters

The hypothesized three-factor structural model (3 items per factor, 24 degrees of freedom) demonstrated an exceptional fit across both validation cohorts:

• Study 1: χ²(24) = 116.5, p < .01; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .98; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .06; Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) = 176.5.
• Study 2: χ²(24) = 35.3, p < .01; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .99; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .04; Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) = 95.3.

The fit indices meet and exceed conventional structural benchmarks (CFI ≥ .95, RMSEA ≤ .06), indicating that the theoretical 3-factor structure fits the empirical observation data exceptionally well across independent samples.

Factor Loadings and Structural Configurations

All 9 standardized item loadings loaded significantly onto their designated latent factors (p < .001). To evaluate construct overlap and the presence of a broader overarching action competence construct, the authors systematically evaluated three competing structural formulations:

1. A One-Factor Model: Constrained all 9 indicators onto a single global action competence factor. While this model captured substantial shared variance, it demonstrated inferior fit compared to multidimensional specifications.
2. A Three-Factor Correlated Model: Posited motivational, adaptive, and organizational competencies as correlated latent dimensions. This model yielded optimal balance between statistical fit, theoretical coherence, and parsimony.
3. A Bifactor Model: Specified a general action competence factor alongside three orthogonal specific factors. This modeling confirmed that while substantial shared variance exists across instructional competencies, the specific motivational factor contributes independent variance in predicting exercise enjoyment (PACES).

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Standardized self-report inventory and external observer-rating questionnaire.
• Construct Assessed: Situated Action Competencies in Exercise Leadership (Handlungskompetenzen).
• Subscales: Three latent subscales:
  • Motivational Competence (3 items)
  • Adaptive Competence (3 items)
  • Organizational Competence (3 items)
• Total Item Count: 9 items.
• Response Format: Authentic 7-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree (trifft überhaupt nicht zu)
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Neither agree nor disagree / Neutral
  • 5 = Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Completely agree (trifft vollkommen zu)
• Target Population: Human adults (≥ 18 years), including young adults (18–29), adults in their thirties (30–39), middle-aged adults (40–64), and older adults (≥ 65 years). Validated for exercise coaches, group fitness instructors, sports club trainers, and exercise participants in recreational, fitness, and health contexts.
• Administration Time: Approximately 2 to 4 minutes.
• Scoring Guidelines:
  • Subscale scores are calculated by averaging the items corresponding to each dimension (sum of items divided by 3), yielding subscale scores ranging from 1.00 to 7.00.
  • A composite Global Action Competence score can be computed by calculating the arithmetic mean across all 9 items.
  • Higher numerical scores reflect greater self-perceived or participant-rated instructional action competence.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 2023.
• Commercial Status: Non-commercial; developed strictly for scientific research, academic education, and non-profit sports instructor qualification.
• Usage Fee: Free of charge for academic, educational, and research applications.
• Permissions & Access: The official instrument and copyright are managed by the authors and Hogrefe Verlag. Researchers and practitioners seeking permission to administer the full official questionnaire, translate the measure, or use it for coach assessment should contact the corresponding author:
  
  Ulrich Georg Strauch
  
  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Sports and Sports Science (IfSS)
  
  Address: Fontanestr. 64, 15569 Woltersdorf, Germany
  
  Email: [email protected]

References

• Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(3), 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.84.3.261
• Brand, R., & Ekkekakis, P. (2018). Affective-reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise: Foundations and preliminary evidence. German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research, 48(1), 48–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-017-0477-9
• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
• Ekkekakis, P. (2003). Pleasure and displeasure from the body: Perspectives from exercise. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 213–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302292
• Jekauc, D., & Brand, R. (2015). How do emotions influence physical activity? Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 864. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00864
• Kendzierski, D., & DeCarlo, K. J. (1991). Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale: Two validation studies. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13(1), 50–64. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.13.1.50
• Motl, R. W., Dishman, R. K., Saunders, R., Dowda, M., Felton, G., & Pate, R. R. (2001). Measuring enjoyment of physical activity in adolescent youth: Validation of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale. Journal of Applied Measurement, 2(1), 20–33.
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications. https://doi.org/10.1521/978.14625/28768
• Strauch, U. G., Fritsch, J., Weyland, S., Wäsche, H., Vorgic, S., & Jekauc, D. (2023). Erfassung der Handlungskompetenzen von Übungsleitenden: Entwicklung und Analyse der Reliabilität und Validität eines Fragebogens [Assessment of the competencies of coaches: Development and analysis of the reliability and validity of a questionnaire]. Zeitschrift für Sportpsychologie, 30(2), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1026/1612-5010/a000376
• Strauch, U. G., Wäsche, H., & Jekauc, D. (2018). Kompetenzen von Übungsleitenden im gesundheitsorientierten Sport [Competencies of exercise leaders in health-enhancing physical activity]. Bewegungstherapie und Gesundheitssport, 34(05), 214–221. https://doi.org/10.1055/a-0668-8097
• Strauch, U. G., Wäsche, H., & Jekauc, D. (2019). Handlungskompetenzen von Übungsleitenden – Eine qualitative Studie zur Perspektive von Teilnehmenden [Action competencies of exercise instructors – A qualitative study on participants’ perspectives]. Zeitschrift für Sportpsychologie, 26(4), 164–174. https://doi.org/10.1026/1612-5010/a000282
• Weinert, F. E. (2001). Concept of competence: A conceptual clarification. In D. S. Rychen & L. H. Salganik (Eds.), Defining and selecting key competencies (pp. 45–65). Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

Items of the Scale