Data analysis (trial)
RECRUITMENT
Data are presented descriptively as this trial focussed on the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention to assess progression to a definitive RCT. Where data were missing or not clear, they were treated as missing data. Recruitment was quantitively measured by calculating the percentage of children whose parents/caregivers opted them into the study out of all eligible children (i.e., children who ate breakfast at nursery at least once a week and met all inclusion criteria).Acceptability of the study to nursery staff was measured by the percentage of blank cells on the data collection sheets out of all cells where this data should have been recorded by nursery staff across all days/weeks of the intervention phase (i.e., missing data).Children’s willingness to eat vegetables at breakfast was measured by the number of vegetables eaten (or parts of a vegetable) on all days/weeks of the intervention phase and this data was tabulated by coding the amount of vegetables eaten as recorded on the data collection sheets. As data collection was recorded according to segmented amount (in thirds of a vegetable), the amount of vegetables eaten was coded as having a maximum value of 9 counts per vegetable type (and a minimum of 0 where none of the vegetable was eaten). For example, if nursery staff indicated that a child ate all three carrot batons and all three cucumber batons offered to them, this would be coded as 9 counts of carrot and 9 counts of cucumber consumed. It was decided that counts of vegetable consumed would be determined at a precision of 0.5 counts (i.e., when half a segment of a vegetable baton/stick was circled by nursery staff) to ensure that the extent to which children were willing to try a vegetable was accurately recorded. This coding procedure was duplicated for the photograph data of leftover food (process outcome), with the first author determining counts of vegetables eaten directly from the photographs.