Feasibility and Reliability of an Adolescent Social Cognitive Theory Tool

Objective: The PAWS (Peer-education About Weight Steadiness) Club program, grounded in Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), is an adolescent healthy lifestyle afterschool program. In this study, our objective was to assess the feasibility and reliability of the modified version of the PAWS Club SCT questionnaire in adolescents, compared to its original version. Methods: Overall, 21 youth aged 11-14 years participated in this study for PAWS Club SCT questionnaire, assessing psychosocial mediators of healthy dietary behaviors. Adolescents were randomly assigned to completing the initial 18-page questionnaire first, followed by the modified 9-page questionnaire or vice versa. At the end, participants completed a brief form indicating which survey they preferred and why. A paired sample t-test assessed the difference in completion time between the 2 tools. Cronbach’s alpha and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to measure inter-nal and inter-survey reliability. Results: About 71.4% participants indicated preference for the newly formatted questionnaire. The new form reduced completion time by half (p < .05). An 85% concordance was achieved between the scores on the initial and modified tool. Conclusion: The revised questionnaire is a shorter, quicker, and reliable tool to assess psychosocial mediators of dietary behaviors.