Development of a Menu Board Literacy and Self-efficacy Scale for Children.

Objective An instrument to measure menu board literacy (MBL) was developed to capture children's understanding of menu board nutrition information, including abbreviations, serving sizes and calorie ranges, and self-efficacy for using this information. Methods A list of 55 potential items (47 MBL and 8 self-efficacy) was generated. Content validity was established by 29 registered dietitians. Cognitive interviews were conducted with 24 black and Hispanic fourth- and fifth-grade students to assess comprehension and readability. The researchers assessed reliability in 2 fourth- and fifth-grade convenience samples (n = 32 and 141, respectively) of similarly representative students. Results The final instrument included 20 MBL and 7 self-efficacy items. Internal consistency estimates at both pretest and posttest for the first sample were 0.88 for the MBL scale and 0.80 for the self-efficacy scale. Results for the larger sample were similar. Conclusions and Implications This instrument could be used for assessing MBL and self-efficacy among fourth- and fifth-grade children. The MBL scale provides researchers and practitioners with a tool to measure the role of nutrition literacy and numeracy in point-of-purchase dietary decisions of children, with the potential for use with low-literacy adults as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]