The Development of a Novel Questionnaire Approach to the Investigation of Horse Training, Management, and Behaviour

Abstract

The Equine Behaviour Assessment and Research Questionnaire (E-BARQ) is a questionnaire instrument developed to obtain quantitative data on the domestic equine triad of training, management, and behaviour of horses. The E-BARQ was developed to identify how changes in training and management impact behaviour over time, to define normal behaviour in horses, and to discover how to improve rider safety and horse welfare, leading to ethical equitation. During the development of the E-BARQ, we also investigated how best to motivate stakeholders to engage with this citizen science project. The pilot version of the E-BARQ collected qualitative data on respondents’ experience of the questionnaire. The pilot questionnaire was developed with the assistance of an international panel (with professional expertise in horse training, equitation science, veterinary science, equestrian coaching, welfare, animal behaviour, and elite-level riding), and was used to collect data on 1320 horses from approximately 1194 owner/caregiver respondents, with an option for respondents to provide free-text feedback. A Rotated Principal Component Analysis of the 218 behavioural, management, and training questionnaire items extracted a total of 65 rotated components. Thirty-six of the 65 rotated components demonstrated high internal reliability. Of the 218 questionnaire items, 43 items failed to reach the Rotated Principal Component Analysis criteria and were not included in the final version of the E-BARQ. Survey items that failed the Rotated Principal Component Analysis inclusion criteria were discarded if found to have a less than 85% response rate, or a variance of less than 1.3. Of those that survived the Rotated Principal Component Analysis, items were further assigned to horse temperament (17 rotated components), equitation (11 rotated components), and management and equipment (8 rotated components) groups. The feedback from respondents indicated the need for further items to be added to the questionnaire, resulting in a total of 214 items for the final E-BARQ survey. Many of these items were further grouped into question matrices, and the demographic items for horse and handler included, giving a final total of 97 questions on the E-BARQ questionnaire. These results provided content validity, showing that the questionnaire items were an acceptable representation of the entire horse training, management, and behavioural domain for the development of the final E-BARQ questionnaire.

Age-Related Changes in the Behaviour of Domestic Horses as Reported by Owners

“…The questionnaire consisted of 97 matrix-style questions within the E-BARQ [45]. These questions consisted of 42 demographic and behavioural items relating to both horses and their owners/handlers.…”

“…Data were collected using the E-BARQ questionnaire [45], a validated equine behaviour assessment instrument [46]. The questionnaire was built using Qualtrics XM survey software (Qualtrics Labs Inc, Provo, UT, USA) and accessed online by participants via a web link.…”

“…A rotated principal component analysis was conducted on the original E-BARQ pilot [45]. This type of analysis classifies correlated variables, allowing for the discovery of independent latent, not directly measured, variables.…”

“…The goal of the current study was to explore how the traits that reflect boldness and independence in domestic horses change with age, using owner-reported observations. Data were gathered from horse owners and handlers around the world, via the ongoing Equine Behaviour Assessment and Research Questionnaire (E-BARQ) project [45]. The study aimed to address relevant knowledge gaps by exploring associations between attributes that reflect equine boldness and independence and the current age of the horses as well as the age at which ridden horses were started under saddle.…”

Equine Responses to Acceleration and Deceleration Cues May Reflect Their Exposure to Multiple Riders

“…E-BARQ is an ongoing project with ethics approval from the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number: 2012/656). The pilot questionnaire was developed in consultation with an international panel of nine equine professionals [ 30 ] and subjected to a Rotated Principal Component Analysis, resulting in the current survey of 97 validated matrix-style questions [ 31 ]. It includes 42 demographic items concerning the respondent and the focal horse.…”