Poor agreement between teacher perceived and objective measures of weather conditions for school-based physical...

To examine the level of agreement between teachers' perceptions of weather conditions within the National Safe Routes to School (SRTS) tally method with objective weather conditions.

Secondary data analysis of the Safe Travel Environment Evaluation in Texas Schools (STREETS) study from January to April 2024 included 47 elementary schools in Central Texas. The third, fourth, and fifth-grade teachers reported perceived weather conditions (sunny, rainy, overcast, snow) in the morning and afternoon of each school day on the SRTS tally. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Local Climatological data were used to calculate objective weather conditions (sunny, rainy, overcast) at the time closest to the start (7:10) and end (15:25) of school for the same days of SRTS tally measures. Kappa statistics and percent agreement assessed the level of agreement between perceived and objective weather conditions in the morning and afternoon for each tally day per grade.

For third-grade teachers, percent agreement between perceived and objective weather ranged from 0 to 14.3 % for sunny, 2.9-10.3 % for rainy, and 0-20 % for overcast. For fourth-grade teachers, the percent agreement ranged from 2.4 to 7.9 % for sunny, 2.6-12.2 % for rainy, and 0-13.2 % for overcast. For fifth-grade teachers, the percent agreement ranged from 2.5 to 8.1 % for sunny, 2.5-12.8 % for rainy, and 2.6-25 % for overcast. Kappa statistics ranged from -0.06 to 0.15, -0.10 to 0.07, and - 0.04 to 0.07 for grades three, four, and five.

We found poor agreement between teachers' perceptions and objective measures of weather conditions.