Method: The short version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ-S) was used to examine the dimensionality of students across different cultures. A convenience sampling method was used to collect data from college students. Each participant was informed about the general description of the study and its potential risks for participation. Participants also had the right to suspend their participation at any time during the study and were guaranteed that the survey remained anonymous. All the data were collected in the spring semester of 2011.
Analysis/Results: A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed a significant main effect for culture F (1, 607) = 11.624 (p = .001). Students in Taiwan showed significantly lower metabolic unit (MET) scores than U.S. students. No significant main effect was found for gender F (1, 607) = .227 (p = .634). The interaction between culture and gender was not significant F (1, 607) = .0001 (p= .992). More than half (54.13%) of the U.S. students reported a “high” level of physical activity participation, the most prevalent among all of the subgroups. Only 7.26% of the U.S. students reported “low” levels of physical activity participation. The data from Taiwan students reflects a different proportion. Data indicated that 39.94% of these students reported a “moderate” level of physical activity participation while 35.06% reported a “high” level of physical activity participation. 25% of the Taiwan students’ reported a “low” level of physical activity participation. 19.07% more of the U.S. participants reported a “high” level of physical activity participation when compared to their Taiwanese peers.
Conclusions: Data from the IPAQ-S indicated that U.S. students met the recommended CDC/ACSM physical activity standards as more than half of the population engaged in vigorous or high amounts of physical activity ( ≥ 3,000 MET), but not moderate exercise levels (600-1,499 MET). None of the students in Taiwan met the recommended moderate or high physical activity levels based on the government imposed 3-3-3 and ten thousand steps physical activity standard. The findings from our study aligned with the national norm of health-related physical fitness research conducted by the ministry of education department (Fang, 1999).