A systematic review of the validity, reliability, and feasibility of measurement tools used to assess the physical activity and sedentary behaviour of pre-school aged children

Table 4 Summary table of level 1 validity evidence of the measurement tools

Measurement tools under study	Outcome measures		References
Measurement tools under study	Energy expenditure	VO₂	References
Combined heart rate and accelerometer
Actiheart			[57]
Accelerometers
Actigraph (MTI)			[58, 59]
Actigraph (GT3X)			[60, 61]
Actical			[57, 62, 63]
Actigraph (wGT3X-BT)			[64]
ActivPAL			[60, 65]
GENEActiv			[60]
Triaxial Research Tracker 3 (RT3)			[57]
Actiwatch (AW16)			[66]
Tracmor_D			[67]
Proxy reported measurement tools
Children’s physical activity questionnaire (CPAQ)			[68]

This table shows a summary of the results of studies where they aimed to compare a particular measurement tool (e.g. Actigraph GT3X accelerometer) against calorimetry (including doubly labelled water). The summary ratings were based on the quality of the tools for this specific measurement property. Where the measurement tool was deemed ‘good’ in the majority of the studies, the summary assessment was deemed ‘good’. Where the measurement tool was deemed ‘moderate’ in the majority of the studies, the summary assessment was deemed ‘moderate’. Where the measurement tool was deemed ‘weak’ in the majority of the studies, the summary assessment was deemed ‘weak’. In instances where the measurement tool had mixed evidence in the studies, such as studies with outcomes of ‘weak’ and ‘moderate’, or ‘moderate’ and ‘good’, the overall assessment was deemed to be the most positive of the two outcomes. All tools of reasonable quality where any evidence was available are included in this table, including where only one or two studies reported that result.
Cut points: ¹Ekelund et al. 2001 [69]; ²Puyau et al. 2002 [70]; ³Pate et al. 2006 [58]; ⁴ Evenson et al. 2008 [71]; ⁵Pfeiffer et al. 2006 [63]; ⁶Adolph et al. 2012 [57]
*Methodology used to assess the ability of the tool is detailed in the methods above and is indicated in the summary table as:
Good = Moderate= Weak=
Key for colour of boxes:
= evidence from ≥3 studies
= evidence from <3 studies

ISSN: 1479-5868