Establishing the Convergent Validity of the Travel Habit Questions in the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Questionnaire by Quantifying Active Travel in Norwegian Adolescents

Abstract

BackgroundActive travel (cycling or walking to school) can be a substantial part of adolescents' daily physical activity. Research on transport activities primarily relies on self-reported indices of travel mode and travel time. However, many researchers do not report the psychometric properties of their instruments. The Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) questionnaire is a commonly used instrument, but the items in this questionnaire on travel habits have not yet been validated. The present study was conducted to investigate the convergent validity and agreement between the HBSC items and a travel diary on (1) transport mode to and from school and (2) travel time to school.MethodsThe study sample consisted of 50 participants in the 9th grade (15 ± 0.3 years, 62% girls) from seven Norwegian schools. Outcome variables included transport mode and travel time derived from the HBSC items and a five-day travel diary. Convergent validity was assessed by evaluating Cohen's kappa for travel mode and the correlation coefficient (Spearman Rho) for travel time. Simple agreement calculations between the two measurement methods were also conducted.ResultsThe association between the HBSC questionnaire and the diary for travel mode to and from school was κ = 0.63 (P < 0.001) and κ = 0.77 (P < 0.001), respectively. The total agreement between the HBSC questionnaire and the diary for was 78%. However, the agreement was higher for walking (88%) and cycling (91%) than for motorized transport (67%). For travel time, the Spearman correlation coefficient was ρ = 0.60 (P < 0.001) between the HBSC questionnaire and the diary. The total agreement on travel time was 67%; however, active commuters (86%) seemed to more accurately estimated travel time than motorized commuters (55%).ConclusionAlthough the overall agreement between the HBSC questionnaire and the diary for mode of transport was 78%, the HBSC questionnaire may underestimate the prevalence of motorized transport compared to walking and cycling.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT03817047.

Investigating factors Impacting Discord and Snapchat Use Behavior: Perspective from Swedish users

“…Habits are hard to change or eliminate since they are so strong. Past studies have indicated that the effect of habit on attitude toward communication application is important (D'Elia et al, 2019;Ersche et al, 2017;Holdack et al, 2020;Malnes et al, 2022). Several researches have objectively proven this association and demonstrated that habits comes, which the researchers intend to use in this research as well (Dickinger et al, 2008;Ersche et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2021;Rozgonjuk et al, 2021).…”

“…Habits are patterns of behavior that a person exhibits repeatedly in a specific situation (Malnes et al, 2022). These reflexes are acquired and quickly engaged when the person enters the related scenario.…”

“…Research procedures that modify the significance or consequences of the result to find behavioral traits that persist despite such changes can be used to analyze habitual behavior. Habits are reaction characteristics that a person displays frequently in a given scenario (Ersche et al, 2017;Malnes et al, 2022). When the person enters the linked situation, these reactions are acquired and immediately engaged.…”

“…The Smartphones have had a significant impact on human existence in recent years, with the global popularity of smartphone phones reaching 4.6 billion and continuing to rise (Malnes et al, 2022;Rozgonjuk et al, 2021). As its features evolve rapidly, it appears that the smartphone will eventually replace other gadgets such as smartwatches, calculators, alarm clocks, Navigation, photographers, and even laptops (Kim et al, 2021).…”

“…Habits are behavioral characteristics that a person shows frequently in a given scenario (Malnes et al, 2022). When the person enters the linked situation, these reactions are acquired and immediately engaged.…”