Acceptability, internal consistency and test–retest reliability of scales to assess parental and nursery staff’s self-efficacy, motivation and knowledge in relation to pre-school children’s nutrition, oral health and physical activity

OBJECTIVE: To determine the acceptability, internal consistency and test–retest reliability of self-efficacy, motivation and knowledge scales relating to pre-school children’s nutrition, oral health and physical activity. DESIGN: An online questionnaire was completed twice with an interval of 7–11d. SETTING: Online questionnaires were sent to participants via email from nursery managers. The parent questionnaire was also available on the parenting website www.netmums.com. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-two parents and sixty-nine nursery staff from Bristol, UK who had and worked with 2–4-year-olds, respectively. RESULTS: Response rates were 86·3 and 86·0 % and missing data 15·9 and 14·5 % for the second administration of the parent and nursery staff questionnaires, respectively. Weighted κ coefficients for individual items mostly fell under the ‘moderate’ agreement category for the parental (75·0 %) and nursery staff (55·8 %) items. All self-efficacy and motivation scales had acceptable levels of internal consistency (Cronbach’s α coefficients>0·7). The intraclass correlation coefficients for the self-efficacy, motivation and knowledge scales ranged between 0·48 and 0·82. Paired t tests found an increase between test and retest knowledge scores for the Nutrition Motivation (t=−2·91, df=81, P=0·00) and Knowledge (t=−3·22, df=81, P=0·00) scales in the parent questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that the items and scales show good acceptability, internal consistency and test–retest reliability.