Children's enjoyment of play during school lunchtime breaks: an examination of intraday and interday reliability.
BACKGROUND
Enjoyment and play during school lunchtime are correlated with children's physical activity. Despite this, there is an absence of studies reporting children's enjoyment of play during school lunchtime breaks. The purpose of this study was to examine the intraday and interday reliability of children's enjoyment of school lunchtime play.


METHODS
Surveys used to assess children's enjoyment of lunchtime play were distributed to and completed by 197 children (112 males, 85 females), aged 8-12 years attending an elementary school in Victoria, Australia. Children completed the surveys during class before lunch (expected enjoyment) and after lunch (actual enjoyment) for 5 days. The intra- and interday enjoyment of school lunchtime play reliability were determined using a weighted kappa.


RESULTS
Intraday kappa values ranged from fair (0.31) to substantial (0.75) within each of the 5 days (median kappa = 0.41). In comparison, "expected" (0.09-0.40; median 0.30) and "actual" (0.05-0.46; median 0.28) interday enjoyment of lunchtime play displayed low reliability.


CONCLUSIONS
Children's enjoyment of lunchtime play appears to be more consistent within days than across days. The findings suggest that assessment of children's enjoyment of lunchtime play once on a single day would be representative of a particular day but not necessarily that particular school week.
School of Medical Sciences, Discipline of Exercise Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Brendon P
BP
Hyndman
Amanda C
AC
Benson
Shahid
S
Ullah
Caroline F
CF
Finch
Amanda
A
Telford
D002648:Child; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D062409:Lunch / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011998:Recreation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012574:Schools / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors; D014739:Victoria