Validity and reliability of a short questionnaire for assessing impact of cooking skills interventions (follow up work to project N09011)

Tuesday 15 February 2005

This is follow up work to project N09011.

Background

The CookWell programme was developed by the University of Dundee as a transferable, community-based food skills (cookery) programme aimed at increasing consumption of starchy foods, fish, vegetables and fruit, and decreasing consumption of fat in adults living in areas of deprivation. Although the programme was extensively evaluated, there is no evaluation tool which is transferable to the community setting where the programme is being rolled out.

Rationale and Objectives

It is recognised that there is a need for a short assessment tool that will assess the impact of programmes such as CookWell (and other similar community based cooking skills interventions), on food knowledge, attitude and behaviour. The assessment tool should meet the following criteria:

• be easy to administer
• be short in length - should be completed in 10-15 minutes
• have simple questions allowing self-completion
• include questions about topics where in-depth evaluations demonstrated changes
• be easy to check for completion
• be easy to analyse
• be able to pool multi-centre data
• be capable of use in 'pre' and 'post' intervention (to avoid use of retrospective questions)

The aim of the project was to undertake an assessment of validity and reliability of a short questionnaire designed to measure the impact of cooking skills interventions on knowledge, attitude and food choice. The specific objectives were:

1. To assess the internal reliability and repeatability of the instrument

2. To assess content and face validity of the instrument

3.To apply and test modifications as required to produce a validated instrument for use in local communities