General motivation to be active and general perceived barriers
to activity may help to explain the overall activity patterns of
older persons in the second half of the life course. We report
on a project designed to develop and refine measures of
motivation and perceived barriers that can be used to examine
the relationships between activity motivation, activity
barriers, and several forms of actual activities. Four specific
activities were considered: working, volunteering, exercising,
and taking classes. An opportunity sample of 192 middle-aged and
older persons from eastern Massachusetts responded to a
questionnaire concerned with motivation, perceived barriers, and
activities. Reliable measures of both general and activity-
specific motivation and perceived barriers to activity were
developed. The measures were examined for construct validity
purposes. This analysis demonstrates that general activity
motivation and perceived barriers are helpful in understanding
patterns of activity among older people. Car