This is the authors ’ final peered reviewed ( post print )

The validity and reliability of an instrument to assess children's outdoor play in various locations, Journal of science and medicine in sport, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 579‐582. 1 Introduction The activities performed by children in their free time after school and on the weekends may make a major contribution to children's physical activity. While several measures have been developed to assess children's overall physical activity [1], there is a lack of reliable and valid measures to assess children's outdoor playtime and the locations in which they play. Previous studies have developed and tested the validity of a parental proxy report measure of the time preschool aged children spend playing outdoors; however, that measure has not been validated in primary-school aged children, amongst whom opportunities to engage in outdoor play are likely to be quite different [2]. Other studies have assessed use of recreational time in school aged-children; however, the actual outdoor locations in which children play have not been measured [1]. The aim of this study was to develop and test the reliability and validity of survey items that examine the frequency with which primary school-aged children play in particular outdoor locations. Methods Proxy-report survey Information obtained from earlier studies [3] in conjunction with a review of the relevant literature was used to formulate a number of proxy-report survey items. These items required parents to report the number of days their child spent playing in eight specified locations (yard at home, friends'/neighbour's yard, own street/court/footpath, nearby streets/courts/footpaths, park/playground, facilities or sports ovals, school grounds, and other places) out-of-school hours on weekdays and weekend days during a typical week. Weekday responses were based on a five-point scale ranging from never/rarely to five days per week, and weekend day responses were on a six-point scale ranging from never/rarely to every Saturday and Sunday. Parents were asked to count only the days where their child spent at 2 least 10 minutes in a specific location. Ten minutes was considered an appropriate minimum cutpoint, as according to adult physical activity recommendations bouts of ten minutes or more are considered beneficial to health [4]. Log book The log book presented parents with a seven-day diary where they were asked to indicate on each of the nominated seven days whether their child had played in specified outdoor locations after-school hours for at least 10 minutes. The locations were the same as those included in the …