Content Validity Index and Intra- and Inter-Rater Reliability of a New Muscle Strength/Endurance Test Battery for Swedish Soldiers Show others and affiliations
2015 (English) In: PLOS ONE, E-ISSN 1932-6203, Vol. 10, no 7, article id e0132185Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The objective of this study was to examine the content validity of commonly used muscle performance tests in military personnel and to investigate the reliability of a proposed test battery. For the content validity investigation, thirty selected tests were those described in the literature and/or commonly used in the Nordic and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. Nine selected experts rated, on a four-point Likert scale, the relevance of these tests in relation to five different work tasks: lifting, carrying equipment on the body or in the hands, climbing, and digging. Thereafter, a content validity index (CVI) was calculated for each work task. The result showed excellent CVI (>= 0.78) for sixteen tests, which comprised of one or more of the military work tasks. Three of the tests; the functional lower-limb loading test (the Ranger test), dead-lift with kettlebells, and back extension, showed excellent content validity for four of the work tasks. For the development of a new muscle strength/endurance test battery, these three tests were further supplemented with two other tests, namely, the chins and side-bridge test. The inter-rater reliability was high (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC2,1 0.99) for all five tests. The intra-rater reliability was good to high (ICC3,1 0.82-0.96) with an acceptable standard error of mean (SEM), except for the side-bridge test (SEM%>15). Thus, the final suggested test battery for a valid and reliable evaluation of soldiers' muscle performance comprised the following four tests; the Ranger test, dead-lift with kettlebells, chins, and back extension test. The criterion-related validity of the test battery should be further evaluated for soldiers exposed to varying physical workload.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages Public library science , 2015. Vol. 10, no 7, article id e0132185
National Category
Sport and Fitness Sciences
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-107299 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0132185 ISI: 000358197600087 PubMedID: 26177030 Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84941351004 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-107299 DiVA, id: diva2:848324
2015-08-242015-08-212025-02-11 Bibliographically approved