Participants
Demographic characteristics for the 82 parents and 69 nursery staff are shown in Appendix 9, Table 43. Most parents were in the 31–35 years age group (43.9%) whereas nursery staff were mainly in the 25–30 years age category (31.9%). The highest level of education was a university degree for both parents (41.5%) and nursery staff (37.7%).
Acceptability and missing data
The number of times that individuals gave consent on the questionnaire link was 130 and 103 for parents and nursery staff respectively; it was not possible to distinguish whether or not the same individuals clicked consent multiple times, as they did not have to provide any identifying information (e.g. e-mail addresses). A total of 102 parents completed the first administration of the questionnaire and 88 parents (86.3%) completed it for the second administration. For the nursery staff questionnaire, 86 and 74 (86.0%) participants completed the first and second administrations, respectively. A total of 73 (89.0%) and 70 (85.4%) parents completed all the self-efficacy and motivation questions in the first and second questionnaire, respectively. The number of nursery staff participants completing all the questions was 58 (84.1%) for the first and 61 (88.4%) for the second administration.
Cronbach’s α coefficients
The Cronbach α coefficients of the items within the four scales from the parent questionnaire are presented in Appendix 9, Tables 44 and 45. The final column represents the α coefficients for the test scale if the item is removed. The overall Cronbach’s α for the scale is also presented in the final column. The nutrition self-efficacy scale shows an acceptable level of internal consistency (α = 0.80). The PA self-efficacy scale has the weakest internal consistency in the parent questionnaire but is still at an acceptable level (α = 0.73). The removal of the item 17 relating to the provision of opportunities to walk to/from nursery would noticeably improve the internal consistency of the scale (α = 0.81). The nutrition motivation scale shows a high level of internal consistency (α = 0.86). The PA motivation scale demonstrates the highest overall Cronbach’s α (α = 0.89). Unlike the equivalent item in the PA self-efficacy scale, the removal of the item 37 has less of an effect on the internal consistency (α = 0.92).
Appendix 9, Table 45, shows the Cronbach α coefficients for the nursery staff questionnaire. The nutrition self-efficacy and the nutrition motivation scales both had α coefficients of 0.89, which shows a high level of internal consistency. Both the PA self-efficacy and the PA motivation scales also demonstrated high levels of internal consistency as the Cronbach’s α coefficients were 0.91.
Test–retest analyses
Test–retest analyses found that most of the weighted kappa coefficients for individual items fell under the ‘moderate’ category for the parent (75.0%) questionnaire and for the nursery staff (55.8%) questionnaire (see Appendix 9, Table 46). Paired t-tests found that knowledge scores for parents were higher in the questionnaire’s second administration [t = –3.23, degrees of freedom (df) = 81; p = 0.002] but there was no strong evidence for a substantial increase in the nursery staff’s score in the second administration (t = –0.67, df = 68; p = 0.503).
Summary
Participating nursery managers recruited nursery staff and parents via e-mail, and the respective questionnaires were sent out as a weblink and completed twice, 1 week apart. A small number of parents were recruited online (via www.netmums.com; London, UK). The acceptability of the questionnaires was explored by looking at response rates and missing data. Cronbach’s α coefficients were used to look at the internal consistency of the four scales (i.e. nutrition self-efficacy, PA self-efficacy, nutrition motivation and PA motivation). Test–retest analyses (weighted kappa coefficients and paired t-tests) were used to determine whether or not the items/scales are reliable. We have produced a novel tool that can be used to measure parental and nursery staff’s self-efficacy, motivation and knowledge towards diet, oral health and PA. Overall, these analyses have demonstrated that the scales show good internal consistency and test–retest reliability.