Development and validation of a tool to assess knowledge of healthy lifestyles in early grade school children.

OBJECTIVE: Healthy habits during childhood has been of prime importance. We aimed to gather baseline information about health habits from children in kindergarten and first grade (typically ages 5-7). Our objectives were to validate the questionnaire in assessing health habits, as well as the electronic audience response system, iClicker (MPS, Gordonsville, VA), in this age group.

RESULTS: The questionnaire completed by 75 kindergarteners and 66 first graders. For the first graders, questions involving healthy choices were answered correctly 78% of the time (range 8-94%) and had 84% agreement on repeat testing (range 64-93%). Questions on diabetes were answered correctly 79% of the time (range 65-94%) and had 85% agreement on repeat testing. Crohnbach's alpha was calculated to determine the reliability of the questionnaire: on the revised kindergarten questionnaire, this ranged from 0.79 to 0.81 on Day 1 and 0.84-0.97 on Day 5; for the first graders, this ranged 0.79-0.81 on Day 1 and 0.84-0.97 on Day 5. Both kindergarteners and first graders answered the simplest of the basic knowledge questions correctly > 80% of the time, with acceptable test-retest agreement. Additionally, these children demonstrated acceptable understanding of the use of the iClicker classroom response system.