Agreement between Student-Reported and Proxy-Reported Physical Activity Questionnaires

Parents and 531 students (46% males, 78% white) completed equivalent questionnaires. Agreement between student and parent responses to questions about hypothesized physical activity (PA) correlates was assessed. Relationships between hypothesized correlates and an objective measure of student's moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in a subset of 177 students were also investigated. Agreement between student and parent ranged from r = .34 to .64 for PA correlates. Spearman correlations between MVPA and PA correlates ranged from--.04 to .21 for student report and--.14 to .32 for parent report, and there were no statistical differences for 8 out of 9 correlations between parent and student. Parents can provide useful data on PA correlates for students in Grades 7-12.