RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE AND DIET-HEALTH AWARENESS TESTS DEVELOPED FROM THE 1989-1991 DIET AND HEALTH KNOWLEDGE SURVEYS

The purpose of this study was to develop tests for measuring nutrition knowledge and diet-health awareness using items appearing in the 1989 -1991 Diet and Health Knowledge Surveys. The development and evaluatio n of these tests relied upon estimates of their reliability and their discriminant, convergent, correspondence, and representative validity. The reliability estimates for the 23-item nutrition knowledge test we re less than 0.70 for all three surveys. The reliability estimates for the 27-item diet-health awareness test were greater than 0.70 for all three surveys. Both tests received support for discriminant and conve rgent validity. The correspondence validity of both tests with three m easures of dietary quality was low. Implications are made for further research on tests of nutrition knowledge and knowledge structures and for the relationships of these constructs to dietary behavior.