Development and reliability of a self-report questionnaire to examine children's perceptions of the physical activity environment at home and in the neighbourhood
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>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 lit...
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| Format: | Book |
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BMC,
2006-07-01T00:00:00Z.
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| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>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).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Findings suggest this questionnaire is reliable and acceptable to children for assessing environmental perceptions relevant to physical activity among 11-year-old children.</p> |
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| Item Description: | 10.1186/1479-5868-3-16 1479-5868 |