Validity of Pedometers to Measure Step Counts during Dance

Purpose: To obtain validity evidence for the measurement of step counts by spring-levered and piezoelectric pedometers during dance. Methods: Thirty-five adults in a college dance class participated in this study. Participants completed trials of 3- and 5-min of different styles of dance wearing Walk4life MVP and Omron HJ-303 pedometers, while their steps were visually counted. Pearson correlation, paired t-test, mean absolute percent error (MAPE), and mean bias were calculated between actual step and pedometer step counts for the 3- and 5-min dances separately. Results: For the Walk4life trials the correlations were .92 and .77 for the 3- and 5-min dances. No significant differences were shown by t-test for the 3- (P = .16) and 5-min dances (P = .60). However, MAPE was high, 17.7 ± 17.7% and 19.4 ± 18.3% for the 2 dance durations, respectively. For the Omron, the correlations were .44 and .58 for the 3- and 5-min dances, respectively. No significant differences were shown by t-test for the 3-min (P = .38) and for the 5-min (P = .88) dances. However, MAPE was high, 19.3 ± 16.4% and 26.6 ± 15.2% for the 2 dance durations, respectively. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that pedometers can be used to estimate the number of steps taken by a group of college students while dancing, however caution is necessary with individual values.