Young adolescents’ engagement in dietary behaviour – the impact of gender, socio-economic status, self-efficacy and scientific literacy. Methodological aspects of constructing measures in nutrition literacy research using the Rasch model

ObjectiveThe present study validates a revised scale measuring individuals’ level of the ‘engagement in dietary behaviour’ aspect of ‘critical nutrition literacy’ and describes how background factors affect this aspect of Norwegian tenth-grade students’ nutrition literacy.DesignData were gathered electronically during a field trial of a standardised sample test in science. Test items and questionnaire constructs were distributed evenly across four electronic field-test booklets. Data management and analysis were performed using the RUMM2030 item analysis package and the IBM SPSS Statistics 20 statistical software package.SettingStudents responded on computers at school.SubjectsSeven hundred and forty tenth-grade students at twenty-seven randomly sampled public schools were enrolled in the field-test study. The engagement in dietary behaviour scale and the self-efficacy in science scale were distributed to 178 of these students.ResultsThe dietary behaviour scale and the self-efficacy in science scale came out as valid, reliable and well-targeted instruments usable for the construction of measurements.ConclusionsGirls and students with high self-efficacy reported higher engagement in dietary behaviour than other students. Socio-economic status and scientific literacy – measured as ability in science by applying an achievement test – did not correlate significantly different from zero with students’ engagement in dietary behaviour.