Test-retest reliability and agreement between children's and parents' reports of a computerized food preferences tool.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate test-retest reliability of primary-school children's reports of food preferences and to investigate agreement with parental reports.


METHODS
Children completed an online test and retest, one to two weeks later, during school hours; parents completed a paper-and-pencil or an online questionnaire at home. The children's preferences questionnaire contained 148 food items, reduced to twelve scales; the parental questionnaire contained seventy-eight items reduced to nine scales.


METHODS
Children of fourteen primary schools in Belgium-Flanders.


METHODS
In total 572 children participated; test-retest data were available for 354 children, children's tests could be matched to 362 parental reports.


RESULTS
Test-retest intraclass correlations were on average 0.73, ranging between 0.62 and 0.86; correlations between children's and parents' reports were on average 0.50, ranging between 0.32 and 0.62. Retest preferences were significantly higher for more than half of the scales. Children reported higher preferences than their parents for milk & milk products, fruit and soft drinks, while parents reported higher preferences for bread & breakfast cereals, meat, snacks and sauces.


CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that the test-retest stability was good; however, agreement between parents and children was rather low to moderate.
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO - Vlaanderen), Brussels, Belgium. carine.vereecken@ugent.be
Carine
C
Vereecken
Marc
M
Covents
Julie
J
Parmentier
Lea
L
Maes
D000328:Adult; D001530:Belgium; D002648:Child; D003201:Computers; D004032:Diet; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*