The Impact of Non-Labeled Response Categories of Rating Scales: An Example with Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Two Self-Regulation Scales for Exercise

As part of a validation study of the Exercise Planning and Scheduling (EPS), and Goal-Setting (EGS) Scales, which were translated from English to Brazilian Portuguese, we aim to: present evidence of reliability and validity for the translated scale; and, explore the effects of non-labeled response categories of rating scales. The sample comprised 446 Brazilians, 82.5% female with a mean age of 32.89 (±12.21) years. The McDonald’s ω was 0.883 and 0.899 for EPS and EGS, respectively. Descriptive data and the Rasch Models confirmed that participants tended to endorse labeled categories on 5-point Likert-type scales. The model tested with the revised response scale presented better fit indices and lower values of residual statistics than the original one. These findings contribute psychometric evidence on a translated scale that could be used in future health promotion initiatives, and suggest a psychometric characteristic–response category labeling–that warrants future attention in measurement development.