Protocol - Sitting-Sedentary Behavior - Adolescent

Administration instructions:

Have a look at the first page. These questions are about things you do while either sitting or lying.

Using a computer for fun includes e-mailing, chat rooms, blogs, surfing the net and e-games. Being tutored means any additional academic tutoring or coaching you may get outside of school hours. Hobbies and crafts also include things like card and board games. Include texting, while sitting around - but only if you are sitting and texting, not walking and texting.

Saturday School means going to community classes for either cultural or religious instruction.

What we would like you to do in a moment is think about a NORMAL school week and write down how much time you spend doing the following activities before and after school each day (Monday to Friday). You can write hours and/or minutes.

The reason we are asking about every day of the week is because you might do different things on different days. What time do you wake up and go to school? What time do you usually get home from school? What time do you usually go to bed? Think about how many hours there are in between these times. It’s what you do during this time that we are asking about in the weekdays’ question.

If you do two activities at the same time, say, doing your homework in front of the TV for an hour, then write down how much time you spent on each of these activities, for example, 45 minutes watching TV and 15 minutes on your homework. Don’t double up the time!

(Researcher to do example question before class starts completing questionnaire.)

Before you start, let’s look at the first question together. The first line of this question looks at how much TV you watch during the week, before and after school. So what you will need to do in a moment is write down the amount of time in numbers in the boxes. We would prefer that you write minutes, but you can write in hours if need be.

For example: if I watch one and a half hours of TV on a Monday night, I would put either 90 (minutes) or 1 ½ if writing in hours. I would then go across the page to the right, and answer the same question for every night of the school week.

The second question (the one underneath) is about watching videos/DVDs. We know that to watch a DVD, for example, you need to have the TV on as well. If I watched a movie on DVD on Tuesday night for 2 hours but didn’t spend any additional time watching TV, I would put 120 (for minutes) or 2 (for hours) in the box under Tuesday, next to watching video/DVDs, but I would leave the boxes under TV on a Tuesday blank. This is because you watched a DVD but not TV.

Go ahead and complete this page on weekday activities. If you do something one night a week but not on the others, that’s fine, just write in the numbers next to that activity (and under that day) and leave the rest of the days on that row blank. If you don’t do a particular activity at all, just leave it blank. Once you finish this page, please put your pencil down and wait for the next instructions.

(Wait until the class has finished the weekday activities, then start the weekend.)

The next set of questions asks you about mostly the same things, but it’s about what you do on the weekend (Saturday and Sunday).

Think about what time you usually get up and what time you usually go to bed. Think about how many hours you spend doing things on a weekend. This is the amount of time we are asking about.

Please go ahead and complete this page in the same way as the last.

Once you have finished, please raise your hand so one of the research team can come and check your questionnaire. Also please raise your hand if you have any questions.

Some tips when administering the Adolescent Sedentary Activity Questionnaire (ASAQ).

• Stress importance of not discussing responses with peers.

• Stress that we are interested in honest responses (doesn’t matter whether they think they do too much or too little of something).

• Try and have at least two field staff administer ASAQ. One to deliver the instructions and the other to wander the classroom to check responses.

• If teachers remain in classroom, try to dissuade them from wandering around and looking over students’ responses. It tends to have a "halo" effect.

• Students should only record an activity if they do it for more than five minutes.

• Remind students that it is likely that they do at least some travel (to school) every day of the school week.

• Ensure that each student questionnaire is thoroughly checked upon completion to ensure that no excessive values or "double-dipping" have been recorded.

Now, some questions about the things you do sitting down.