Development and reliability of a self-report questionnaire to examine children's perceptions of the physical activity environment at home and in the neighbourhood


Autoria(s): Hume, Clare; Ball, Kylie; Salmon, Jo
Data(s)

17/07/2006

Resumo

<b>Background:</b> Environmental factors are increasingly being implicated as key influences on children's physical activity. Few studies have comprehensively examined children's perceptions of their environment, and there is a paucity of literature on acceptable and reliable scales for measuring these. This study aimed to develop and test the acceptability and reliability of a scale which examined a broad range of environmental perceptions among children.<br /><b>Methods: </b>Based on constructs from ecological models, a survey incorporating items on children's perceptions of the physical and social environment at home and in the neighbourhood was developed. This was administered on two occasions, nine days apart, to a sample of 39 children aged 11 years (54% boys), attending a metropolitan Australian elementary school. The acceptability of the survey was determined by the proportion of missing responses to each item. The test-retest reliability of individual items, scores and scales were determined using Kappa statistics and percent agreement for categorical variables, and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for continuous variables.<b><br />Results: </b>There were few missing responses to each question, with only 4% of all responses missing. Although some Kappa values were low, all categorical variables showed acceptable reliability when examined for percent agreement between test and retest (range 68%–100% agreement). Continuous variables all showed moderate to good ICC values (range 0.72–0.92).<br /><b>Conclusion: </b>Findings suggest this questionnaire is reliable and acceptable to children for assessing environmental perceptions relevant to physical activity among 11-year-old children.<br /><br /><br />

Identificador

http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30003787

Idioma(s)

eng

Publicador

BioMed Central Ltd.

Relação

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30003787/ball-developmentandreliability-2006.pdf

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30003787/n20060801.pdf

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-3-16

Direitos

2006, Hume et al

Tipo

Journal Article