Development of the Home Cooking EnviRonment and Equipment Inventory Observation form (Home-CookERITM): An Assessment of Content Validity, Face Validity, and Inter-Rater Agreement

Sonja Schönberg; Roberta Asher; Samantha Stewart; Matthew J Fenwick; Lee Ashton; Tamara Bucher; Klazine Van der Horst; Christopher Oldmeadow; Clare E Collins; Vanessa A Shrewsbury

doi:10.3390/nu12061853

Development of the Home Cooking EnviRonment and Equipment Inventory Observation form (Home-CookERI^TM): An Assessment of Content Validity, Face Validity, and Inter-Rater Agreement

Nutrients. 2020 Jun 21;12(6):1853. doi: 10.3390/nu12061853.

Authors

Sonja Schönberg¹, Roberta Asher^{2

3}, Samantha Stewart², Matthew J Fenwick^{2

3}, Lee Ashton^{2

3}, Tamara Bucher^{2

4}, Klazine Van der Horst¹, Christopher Oldmeadow^{5

6}, Clare E Collins^{2

3}, Vanessa A Shrewsbury^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Professions, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Murtenstrasse 10, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
² Priority Research Centre for Physical Activity & Nutrition (PRCPAN), The University of Newcastle, 1 University Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
³ School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medicine, The University of Newcastle, 1 University Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
⁴ School of Environmental and Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Newcastle, 10 Chittaway Road, Ourimbah, NSW 2258, Australia.
⁵ School of Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medicine, The University of Newcastle, 1 University Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
⁶ Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), New Lambton Heights, NSW 2305, Australia.

Abstract

Introduction: Quantifying Home Cooking EnviRonments has applications in nutrition epidemiology, health promotion, and nutrition interventions. This study aimed to develop a tool to quantify household cooking environments and establish its content validity, face validity, and inter-rater agreement.

Methods: The Home Cooking EnviRonment and equipment Inventory observation form (Home-CookERI™) was developed as a 24-question (91-item) online survey. Items included domestic spaces and resources for storage, disposal, preparation, and cooking of food or non-alcoholic beverages. Home-CookERI^TM was piloted to assess content validity, face validity, and usability with six Australian experts (i.e., dietitians, nutrition researchers, chefs, a food technology teacher, and a kitchen designer) and 13 laypersons. Pilot participants provided feedback in a 10 min telephone interview. Home-CookERI™ was modified to an 89-item survey in line with the pilot findings. Inter-rater agreement was examined between two trained raters in 33 unique Australian households. Raters were required to observe each item before recording a response. Home occupants were instructed to only assist with locating items if asked. Raters were blinded to each other's responses. Inter-rater agreement was calculated by Cohen's Kappa coefficient (κ) for each item. To optimize κ, similar items were grouped together reducing the number of items to 81.

Results: Home-CookERI^TM had excellent content and face validity with responding participants; all 24 questions were both clear and relevant (X² (1, n = 19; 19.0, p = 0.392)). Inter-rater agreement for the modified 81-item Home-CookERI™ was almost-perfect to perfect for 46% of kitchen items (n = 37 items, κ = 0.81-1), moderate to substantial for 28% (n = 23, κ = 0.51-0.8), slight to fair for 15% (n = 12, κ = 0.01-0.5), and chance or worse for 11% of items (n = 9, κ ≤ 0.0). Home-CookERI^TM was further optimized by reduction to a 77-item version, which is now available to researchers.

Conclusion: Home-CookERI™ is a comprehensive tool for quantifying Australian household cooking environments. It has excellent face and content validity and moderate to perfect inter-rater agreement for almost three-quarters of included kitchen items. To expand Home-CookERI™ applications, a home occupant self-completion version is planned for validation.

Keywords: cooking environment; inter-rater agreement; online survey; reproducibility; validity.

Publication types

Validation Study

MeSH terms

Australia
Cooking*
Environment*
Family Characteristics
Humans
Observer Variation
Reproducibility of Results
Surveys and Questionnaires*