Citation

Herrador-Colmenero M, Pérez-García M, Ruiz J, Chillón P. Pediatr. Exerc. Sci. 2014; 26(3): 291-341.

Affiliation

Department of Physical Education and Sport, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Human Kinetics Publishers)

DOI

10.1123/pes.2013-0120

PMID

24722834

Abstract

The first objective was to review and analyse self-reported measures used for assessing mode and frequency of commuting to and from school in youngsters (4 to 18.5 years old). The secondary objective was to conduct a qualitative appraisal of the identified studies. We searched five online databases: PubMed, SportDiscus, ProQuest, National Transportation Library and Web of Knowledge. Four categories of search terms were identified: self-report, active transportation, school-aged children and school. Titles and abstracts were reviewed to determine whether the studies met the inclusion criteria. The quality of the reporting of the measures was assessed using a tailored list. The electronic search strategy produced 5,898 studies. After applying the inclusion criteria, we identified 158 studies. Sixty-three studies (39.8%) specified the question about modes of commuting to school. One hundred seven studies (67.7%) directly questioned the study subjects (i.e. children and/or adolescents). Twenty studies (12.7%) posed a valid and reliable question. The quality assessment of the self-report measures was medium. The self-report measures used in the literature for assessing commuting to school tend to be heterogeneous and make difficult inter-studies comparisons. Therefore we put forward the idea of a standard question designed to elicit reliable, comparable information on commuting to school.

Language: en