HortEnsiA: Cross-cultural adaptation of the Garden Resource, Education, and Environment Nexus and factorial validation study

Abstract

School gardens is an educational environment and made important changes in children and adolescents’ attitudes. However, although the positive aspects of the implementation of school gardens are recognized, there is no instrument in Brazil to assess school adherence to school garden proposals. This study aimed to carry out the cross-cultural adaptation of the Garden Resource, Education, and Environment Nexus (“GREEN”) tool, and to validating it for the Brazilian reality. The process of operationalizing cross-cultural adaptation was based on the procedures suggested by the WHO. The psychometric study was carried out by exploratory factor analysis. The translated and cross-culturally adapted tool was applied to 125 civil servant respondents from 93 schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Throughout the process of cross-cultural adaptation of the original English “GREEN” tool, the “HortEnsiA” construct was created and properly adapted to Portuguese. The psychometric assessment points to a better organization of management and social activities related to the school garden at school. It was observed that the participation of agricultural technicians in the construction and application of the “HortEnsiA” tool can contribute to optimize the use of the school garden as an educational environment in the Brazilian reality.