Measurement Pilot Study of the Meditative Movement Inventory (MMI)

Background and Purpose: Mind–body practices that blend physical movement or postures with a focus on the breath and a meditative state to achieve deep states of relaxation have recently been characterized as a category of exercise called meditative movement and include practices such as Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong. Critical components of such practices have not been adequately assessed in research, leaving the fidelity of interventions in question; however, there is currently no set of relevant instruments. This article describes the development and preliminary validation of two subscales of the meditative movement inventory (MMI). Methods: Questionnaire items were generated with input from expert practitioners, and tested in the context of an intervention study (N = 87) comparing Qigong/Tai Chi Easy (QG/TCE) to sham Qigong (SQG). Results: Principal components analysis produced three substantively meaningful factors: breath focus (BF; e.g., “I was using my breathing to go into a relaxed state”; five items, α = .86), meditative connection (MC; e.g., “I was connected to something greater than myself”; four items, α = .90), and flowing motion (FM; e.g., “I moved in relaxed, fluid movements”; two items, α = .61, dropped from further analysis). Confirmatory factor analyses of the first two factors (BF and MC) to examine item reliabilities fit the data well providing positive results for construct composition and item reliabilities. Conclusions: The BF and MC subscales demonstrated initial strong properties for assessing the presence and strength of these factors in meditative movement intervention studies, whereas additional work is needed to further develop the FM subscale.