Related Experiment Videos
Children's Social Desirability and Dietary Reports
Suzanne Domel Baxter1, Albert F Smith, Mark S Litaker
1Arnold School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Center for Research in Nutrition and Health Disparities, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29204, USA. sbaxter@gwn.sc.edu
Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior
|April 8, 2004
Summary
A 14-item subset of the Children's Social Desirability (CSD) scale shows reliable results for telephone interviews. This subset may improve understanding of inaccuracies in children's dietary reports.
Area of Science:
- Psychological assessment
- Child psychology
- Measurement in research
Background:
- Social desirability bias can influence self-reported data in children.
- Assessing this bias is crucial for accurate dietary reporting.
- Telephone administration offers a feasible method for data collection.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the telephone administration of the Children's Social Desirability (CSD) scale.
- To assess an adapted scale for children's social desirability for food (C-SDF).
- To identify reliable measures for understanding reporting errors in children.
Main Methods:
- 100 4th-graders completed two telephone interviews 28 days apart.
- Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the CSD and C-SDF scales were analyzed.
- Factor analysis was used to examine the structure of the C-SDF scale.
Main Results:
- The CSD scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability.
- A 14-item subset of the CSD scale was identified as a reliable measure.
- The C-SDF scale showed lower reliability; factor analysis revealed two factors, one moderately related to CSD.
Conclusions:
- A 14-item subset of the CSD scale is a reliable telephone-administered tool.
- This subset can aid researchers in identifying and understanding errors in children's dietary reports.
- The C-SDF scale requires further refinement for reliable use in research.