Family-based Nutrition Education. Part 6
Fitness Testing
Fitness tests were completed during sessions one and eight and consisted of sit-and-reach and a one-minute curl-up test to measure flexibility, and strength and endurance, respectively. The sit-and-reach and curl-up tests were conducted according to the President’s challenge procedures described elsewhere (The President’s challenge, 2005). Sit-and-reach scores were recorded in inches and converted to centimeters for analysis by multiplying inches by 2.54. The number of curl-ups completed in one minute were recorded for the curl-up test. Prior to testing, participants were given instructions in the proper techniques of each test to reduce risk of injury.
Surveys
Child and parent surveys, previously described, were administered at week one and eight. Children and parents completed the surveys within close proximity of each other and both parents and program staff were available to help the child participants if they had questions. Numbered responses were used for analysis; a change between pre and post was calculated as pre score minus post score.
Statistical Analysis
All available data were used for analysis. Analysis of data was completed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 12.0, 2003, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Descriptive statistics included means and standard deviations. Paired samples t-test was used to test for change in body composition, fitness, and pre-post surveys. Chi square was used to test for differences in categorical demographic variables between boys and girls and Student’s t-tests were used to compare means of continuous variables. A significance level of .05 was used for all analyses.
Qualitative Analysis
In addition to pre and post Likert surveys, 44 adult and 27 child participants completed qualitative exit surveys that consisted of open-ended questions, described earlier. All written responses were transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analyzed to understand how the families assessed their participation in the LEAP program. This study utilized commonly accepted procedures for analyzing qualitative data. The researcher used an inductive technique for finding commonalities among comments, whereby raw data is transformed into units that stand alone and describe content. The subsequent inclusions or exclusions of data into these units are based upon whether or not the new data exhibit the unit’s properties. Thus, the exit survey comments become focused into themes. These themes represent a description of the parental opinions about the program and are illustrated by family anecdotes of their experiences. This same process was used for the feedback from child participants.