Translation, cultural adaptation and validation of the basic psychological needs satisfaction in active commuting to and from school (BPNS-ACS) scale in Polish students

Over the last few years, there has been an alarming decline in physical activity among adolescents described as insufficient for maintaining health [1]. Physical activity is an essential component of a physical and mental health of children and adolescents. As evidenced by the results of a survey of 171,000 adolescents from 37 countries, adolescents who have active and healthy lifestyles are less likely to experience psychosomatic disorders [2]. Further, physical activity is an important component of efforts to maintain psychosocial well-being among the adolescents [3]. It has also been proven that physical activity at an adequate level is a key component of prevention, helping to reduce the incidence of non-communicable diseases throughout life [4].

The level of physical activity is mainly determined by the individual's motivation, the level of satisfaction of his/her basic psychological needs (BPN), causing commitment [5]. In the light of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) by Deci and Ryan [6], there is an opportunity for an in-depth analysis of motivation and personal development components in different contexts of an individual's daily functioning. One of the core concepts in the SDT is the concept of BPN, defined as innate, universal and indispensable to human psychological well-being [7]. BPNs are natural stimuli that influence an individual's type of motivation regulation. Within the BPN theory, three components are distinguished: 1) autonomy, 2) competence and 3) relatedness. The satisfaction of BPN leads to an increase in sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness, which in turn affects a higher level of autonomous motivation, self-control and activity understood as taking action [8]. Therewith, their satisfaction also provides the basis for maintaining mental health. This is of particular importance in the context of school health, which consists of the promotion of active commuting to school (ACS) among the younger generation.

Motivation plays an important role among students when deciding to actively commute to and from school. Active commuting, which involves primarily walking and cycling, is one component of an active lifestyle that can easily be incorporated into daily routines among students [9, 10, 11]. Each of these modes has been identified as a potential way to increase physical activity levels, providing an alternative to more traditional ways of being physically active [12, 13]. Active modes of commuting to and from school were identified as a potential opportunity to increase physical activity in students [14]. In addition, active commuting to and from school as cycling or walking may contribute to meeting physical activity recommendations for the younger generation and thus may increase physical activity in students at the population level [15].

BPN satisfaction, self-determined motivation and engagement occur among students who make the decision to actively commute to school [16]. In order to be able to consciously promote active commuting among the younger generation, it is useful to understand the motivational factors that facilitate or hinder their choices [17].

The main goal of the study was the translation, cultural adaptation and analysis of the factor structure and psychometric properties of the BPNS-ACS scale in a sample of Polish students. The distribution of BPNS-ACS scale scores by gender and measures related to active commuting to and from school were also examined. The evaluation of the BPNS-ACS scale in Polish students also provided an opportunity to discuss the practical use of this instrument in planning intervention activities.

Table 1 shows the basic descriptive statistics for the analysed items as well as a floor and ceiling effects. The distribution of analysed items was observed to differ significantly from a normal distribution. The ceiling effect was high on all studied items, and the floor effect was particularly visible in items 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Model fit assessment

The χ2 test was statistically significant (χ²(51)=195.424 (p ˂ 0.001); χ²/df=3.832), but the value of χ²/df was equal to 3.83, which indicates good adjustment of the model. Moreover, the absolute fit and incremental fit parameters of the model indicated a good fit (CFI=0.944, TLI=0.927, RMSEA=0.077 (90%CI 0.066-0.089), AIC=249.424, BIC=361.833, GFI=0.937, AGFI=0.904). The values of standardised regression coefficients ranged from 0.56 to 0.84 (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Assessing students’ BPNs satisfaction may be an important component of efforts aimed at understanding students’ behaviour regarding ACS. This scope should play a significant role around diagnosis of primordial factors associated with students' autonomous choice of active commuting. Active commuting including walking and cycling to and from school are important modes of engagement in daily physical activity [27]. There is ample evidence that walking and cycling are associated with positive health outcomes, which include mental well-being, healthy body weight, reduced risk of chronic disease, and better overall health [28, 11, 29]. Motivation, a key factor supporting engagement in physical activity, simultaneously implies positive health outcomes [30]. This is particularly relevant to the implementation of activities aimed at increasing awareness and potential involvement of students in active modes of commuting to and from school as part of health promotion [31].

The inclusion of assessing the satisfaction of BPNs in the context of active modes of commuting to school among students is a relatively new research approach, and as a result, the number of validated tools for assessing the satisfaction of BPNs in this context is small. In 2012, the validation of a similar scale, being in the context of physical activity, was carried out by researchers whose aim was to determine the level of activity around physical exercise among a population of Spanish adults, considering the satisfaction of their BPNs. The results obtained after the analysis of psychometric properties confirmed the adequacy of the tool [32]. With reference to the current study on the validation of the BPNS-ACS scale and its psychometric properties among 675 Spanish students (318 boys and 357 girls) aged between 10 and 18 years, the results clearly confirmed the validity of the three-factor CFA model and the predictive accuracy of the present tool. Furthermore, no specification errors were found for this factor model. The validation of the BPN-ACS scale in Spanish students in 2020 proved that it is a tool providing temporal stability, measurement invariance for gender and age, and internal consistency [10]. Our analyses of Polish students led to similar conclusions, and the results suggest that the Polish version of the scale can be used as a reliable measure to assess each of the three BPNs, i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness, in the context of ACS.

It is worth noting that the BPNS-ACS contains many similar-sounding questions. These are questions that form further dimensions of the scale: autonomy need satisfaction, competence need satisfaction and relatedness need satisfaction. This may not be distinguishable by the respondents and may influence the answer choices to become random. To avoid overlaps in the items, attention should be paid to the proper ordering of questions in the questionnaire, consistent with the order proposed in the appendix of this work, so that questions included in successive dimensions of the scale do not occur immediately after each other, but along to questions from other dimensions.

Studies based on the SDT confirm that students who evaluate their BPNs of autonomy, competence and relatedness as satisfied are more committed and motivated to engage in physical activity [33]. The development of a comprehensive conceptual framework for intervention programs that integrates work on BPNs could support the development of appropriate strategies to promote students’ health, including modelling modes of active commuting in students. Future research efforts should therefore be directed towards analyses concerning the influence of individual elements of the students’ life environment, by what the satisfaction of these three key BPNs has an impact on the formation of motivation to act [3]. This is particularly important from the perspective of projecting the actions taken by educational and health professionals and enabling them to practically implement strategies based on the motivation of students by, among other things, providing a conducive school environment for the promotion of physical activity [34, 27]. The thesis on the effectiveness of interventions considering working on needs in relation to improving physical activity is supported by research findings [35]. In addition to physical education classes, it is also important to ensure that components of the school environment are adequately prepared to meet the needs of students in terms of active commuting as an additional opportunity of physical activity. Especially since adolescence is an important time for structured actions oriented towards the promotion of physical activity as a long-term investment for health [36]. When analysing international ACS indicators, researchers describe them as still insufficient, especially when combined with high rates of passive modes of commuting to/from school, including the widespread use of private vehicles for this purpose [37, 38].

An interesting area for further research using the BPNS-ACS scale seems to be determining what BPNs are most important in the context of ACS. Our findings suggest that the distribution of individual scale scores corresponding to factors in the BPNs-ACS scale differ by gender as well as with respect to active commuting to and from school. Significantly higher scores on the autonomy scale were recorded for boys. In addition, active commuters had higher scores on the competence scale than passive commuters. Furthermore, the frequency of cycling to school was important. Students who cycle to school obtain higher scores on the scale of autonomy and competence compared with their peers who do not actively commute.

In conclusion, research exploring the interrelationship between BPNs and ACS is important for new designs and implementations of strategies to support the promotion of active commuting to and from school. A further exploration of this issue can be conducted in Polish students using the version of the BPNS-ACS scale adapted in this study.