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

BackgroundEnvironmental 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.MethodsBased 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.ResultsThere 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).ConclusionFindings suggest this questionnaire is reliable and acceptable to children for assessing environmental perceptions relevant to physical activity among 11-year-old children.

[1]  J. R. Landis,et al.  The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. , 1977, Biometrics.

[2]  P. Burney,et al.  On measuring repeatability of data from self-administered questionnaires. , 1987, International journal of epidemiology.

[3]  T. Baranowski,et al.  Development of questionnaires to measure psychosocial influences on children's physical activity. , 1997, Preventive medicine.

[4]  J. Prochaska,et al.  A review of correlates of physical activity of children and adolescents. , 2000, Medicine and science in sports and exercise.

[5]  C. Burton Research in Health Care: Concepts, Designs and Methods , 2002 .

[6]  N. Owen,et al.  Environmental factors associated with adults' participation in physical activity: a review. , 2002, American journal of preventive medicine.

[7]  J. Salmon,et al.  Assessment of physical activity among primary school aged children: the Children's Leisure Activities Study (CLASS) , 2002 .

[8]  J. Sallis,et al.  Neighborhood-based differences in physical activity: an environment scale evaluation. , 2003, American journal of public health.

[9]  S. Biddle,et al.  Health-enhancing physical activity and sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents , 2004, Journal of sports sciences.

[10]  Tim Olds,et al.  Physical Activity: Patterns of active transport in 11–12 year old Australian children , 2004, Australian and New Zealand journal of public health.

[11]  Jo Salmon,et al.  How Do Perceptions of Local Neighborhood Relate to Adolescents' Walking and Cycling? , 2005, American journal of health promotion : AJHP.