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Methods

Development and reliability of an audit tool to assess the school physical activity environment across 12 countries

International Journal of Obesity Supplements volume 5, pages S36–S42 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objectives:

Schools are an important setting to enable and promote physical activity. Researchers have created a variety of tools to perform objective environmental assessments (or ‘audits’) of other settings, such as neighborhoods and parks; yet, methods to assess the school physical activity environment are less common. The purpose of this study is to describe the approach used to objectively measure the school physical activity environment across 12 countries representing all inhabited continents, and to report on the reliability and feasibility of this methodology across these diverse settings.

Methods:

The International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE) school audit tool (ISAT) data collection required an in-depth training (including field practice and certification) and was facilitated by various supporting materials. Certified data collectors used the ISAT to assess the environment of all schools enrolled in ISCOLE. Sites completed a reliability audit (simultaneous audits by two independent, certified data collectors) for a minimum of two schools or at least 5% of their school sample. Item-level agreement between data collectors was assessed with both the kappa statistic and percent agreement. Inter-rater reliability of school summary scores was measured using the intraclass correlation coefficient.

Results:

Across the 12 sites, 256 schools participated in ISCOLE. Reliability audits were conducted at 53 schools (20.7% of the sample). For the assessed environmental features, inter-rater reliability (kappa) ranged from 0.37 to 0.96; 18 items (42%) were assessed with almost perfect reliability (κ=0.80–0.96), and a further 24 items (56%) were assessed with substantial reliability (κ=0.61–0.79). Likewise, scores that summarized a school’s support for physical activity were highly reliable, with the exception of scores assessing aesthetics and perceived suitability of the school grounds for sport, informal games and general play.

Conclusions:

This study suggests that the ISAT can be used to conduct reliable objective audits of the school physical activity environment across diverse, international school settings.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the ISCOLE External Advisory Board and the ISCOLE participants and their families who made this study possible. A membership list of the ISCOLE Research Group and External Advisory Board is included in Katzmarzyk et al. (this Issue). ISCOLE was funded by The Coca-Cola Company. MF has received a research grant from Fazer Finland. AK has been a member of the Advisory Boards of Dupont and McCain Foods. RK has received a research grant from Abbott Nutrition Research and Development. VM is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Actigraph.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    S T Broyles, K T Drazba, T S Church, G Hu, C Tudor-Locke & P T Katzmarzyk

  2. Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    J-P Chaput & M S Tremblay

  3. Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    M Fogelholm

  4. St Johns Research Institute, Bangalore, India

    R Kuriyan & A Kurpad

  5. Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    E V Lambert

  6. Alliance for Research in Exercise Nutrition and Activity (ARENA), School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    C Maher & T Olds

  7. CIFI2D, Faculdade de Desporto, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    J Maia

  8. Centro de Estudos do Laboratório de Aptidão Física de São Caetano do Sul, Sao Paulo, Brazil

    V Matsudo

  9. Department of Recreation Management and Exercise Science, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

    V Onywera

  10. School of Medicine, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia

    O L Sarmiento

  11. Department for Health, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    M Standage

  12. Department of Kinesiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    C Tudor-Locke

  13. Tianjin Women’s and Children’s Health Center, Tianjin, China

    P Zhao

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  1. S T Broyles
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  19. P Zhao
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  20. P T Katzmarzyk
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for the ISCOLE Research Group

Corresponding author

Correspondence to S T Broyles.

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Competing interests

MF has received an honorarium for speaking for Merck. VM has received an honorarium for speaking for The Coca-Cola Company. TO has received an honorarium for speaking for The Coca-Cola Company. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on International Journal of Obesity Supplements website

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Broyles, S., Drazba, K., Church, T. et al. Development and reliability of an audit tool to assess the school physical activity environment across 12 countries. Int J Obes Supp 5 (Suppl 2), S36–S42 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijosup.2015.17

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