Group environment questionnaire and its applicability in an exercise setting

The Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) has recently been modified by Spink and Carran to assess group cohesion in exercise settings. However, as they point out, fitness classes possess a minimum number of criteria necessary to satisfy the requirements of a group. Therefore, applying an instrument developed to measure cohesion in sport teams to exercise classes may produce potential threats to the validity of the modified scale. Hence, the present study administered the modified GEQ to 307 exercise participants in the 3rd week of classes to test the factorial validity of the scale. The overall model was deemed an inadequate fit, and a modified version was suggested that retained the original four-factor structure. A second study administered the modified GEQ to 43 exercise participants at weeks 3 and 7 of typical aerobics classes and found that group cohesion did not develop over time and was not related to exercise adherence.