A measure of outcome expectations for fruit and vegetable consumption among fourth and fifth grade children: reliability and validity

An outcome expectations questionnaire for fruit and vegetable(F&V) consumption among fourth and fifth grade studentswas developed, pilot-tested at one school and field-tested attwo schools. Seventeen questions generated from focus groupswere listed for fruits and repeated for vegetables. Principalcomponents analysis indicated two subscales ‘social’and ‘health and physical ability’ accounting for37.3% of the total variance; items loaded on the same subscaleswhen applied to fruits or vegetables. Internal consistenciesand test-retest reliabilities for the subscales were acceptable.Mean scores for the ‘health and physical ability’subscale were almost twice as large as the ‘social’subscale regardless of gender, grade and ethnicity. Pearsoncorrelations between F&V outcome expectation subscales andconsumption of F&V (from daily food records) were low, similarto patterns of correlations with preferences for F&V. Furtherresearch regarding outcome expectations is needed to clarifythe extent of their impact on F&V consumption specifically,and perhaps on consumption in general, among pre-adolescentchildren.