MEASUREMENT OF SELF-EFFICACY FOR DIET-RELATED BEHAVIORS AMONG ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL-CHILDREN

Health promotion interventions intended to improve dietary behavior fr equently incorporate self-efficacy as a construct to enhance behavior change. This paper presents results from a study to establish psychome tric properties of a scale to measure children's self-efficacy for sel ecting healthful food. As part of a series of pilot studies to develop instrumentation for the Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH), data were collected on third and fourth grade student s (n = 1,127). Data analyses were conducted to estimate internal consi stency, test-retest reliability, factorial validity, and criterion rel ated validity. Results revealed acceptable estimates of internal consi stency for the dietary self-efficacy scale (coefficient alpha = .84). Self-efficacy was strong associated with the children's usual food cho ices, accounting for about 34% of variance (Multiple R = .58). Finding s support using such an instrument for evaluating intervention program s addressing nutrition behavior and for studies to determine the assoc iation of self-efficacy to dietary behavior or related constructs.