Measuring the Psychometric Properties of Adolescent Pedestrian Behavior Questionnaire

Abstract

Background: Road traffic injuries are among the main causes of mortality in adolescents. The aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of an adjusted adolescent pedestrian behavior questionnaire (APBQ). Materials and Methods: Using the 29-item self-report pedestrian behavior questionnaire designed by Sadeghi-Bazargani et al. for all age groups as the framework, some of the items were removed depending on the type of behaviors among adolescents and some new questions were added. Eventually, the primary questionnaire was developed with 26 items, including 19 questions from Sadeghi-Bazargani et al.'s questionnaire and seven new questions. The tool was adjusted for adolescents and the psychometric properties were determined among a randomly selected group of 300 Junior high school students in Rasht City, Iran. After determining face validity, content validity and construct validity of the tool by experts, the reliability of the tool was examined based on explorative factor analysis (EFA) with Promax rotation and confirmatory factor analysis in AMOS. Eventually, a self-report questionnaire with 14 items was developed to assess the self-report behavior of adolescent pedestrians. Results: The mean age of the participants was 13.59 (±0.92) years. The Kasier-Meyer-Olkin value was 0.828, which confirmed the EFA. The analysis by the maximum likelihood method with Promax rotation identified four factors with eigenvalues >1 and factor loading ≥0.5. Therefore, pedestrian behaviors were categorized into four groups (unsafe road crossing behavior, distraction, positive behavior, and playing on the road). Conclusion: The APBQ can be a proper tool for self-reporting adolescent pedestrians' behaviors. It can also be used for studies on safe behaviors in adolescent pedestrians.