Developing and validating a school-based screening tool of Fundamental Movement Skills (FUNMOVES) using Rasch analysis

Validity and reliability of Meu Educativo®: A new tool to assess fundamental movement skills in school-aged children

OBJECTIVES

There is evidence showing that children's proficiency in fundamental movement skills (FMS) is positively related to weight status, physical activity, fitness levels, cognitive development, as well as academic performance. Yet, the feasibility of FMS assessment is challenging, especially with relatively large samples of children. This article presents a new tool named Meu Educativo® to assess children's FMS levels, including its validity and reliability.

METHODS

We relied on the validity evidence approach based on test content to develop the FMS assessment checklist and the rating system with a team of experts. In this article, we used five FMS (stationary dribbling, kick, overhand throw, catch the ball, and underhand roll). Further, we conducted a series of reliability studies and used percent agreement and Cohen's kappa (κ) as statistics.

RESULTS

Experts agreed highly on the checklist's components in the five FMS. Inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.63 for stationary dribbling to 0.93 for overhand throw, and the intra-rater reliability ranged from 0.46 to 0.94.

CONCLUSION

Based on the first results, Meu Educativo® was not only easy to use, but was also a reliable tool for FMS assessments. Notwithstanding the need for future studies, Meu Educativo® is a new tool that can be used by teachers, coaches, and motor development specialists dealing with school-aged children and researchers working with large samples.

Development of Basic Motor Skills from 3 to 10 Years of Age: Comparison by Sex and Age Range in Chilean Children

Basic motor skills are recognized as fundamental movements that allow children to interact with their environment and are identified as the basic structure on which more complex movements are built.

OBJECTIVE

to identify the level of motor development of children from 3 to 10 years of age according to sex and age group.

METHODOLOGY

We studied a sample with a total of 328 participants (girls = 170; boys = 158) at preschool (n = 154) and school levels (n = 174). The ages of the students ranged from 3 to 10 years, with a mean of 5.94 years (±2.53). TGMD2 was applied to identify motor development.

RESULTS

boys and girls present low levels of physical activity, with most of them in the very poor, poor, and low-average categories (n = 182, 55.5%). Levels of motor development in locomotion, manipulation, and general development by age show significant differences (p = 0.000). However, levels of development by sex are not significant in manipulation, locomotion, and gross motor skills tests, respectively (p = 0.150, p = 0.208, and p = 0.210), and in relation to chronological age and motor development age show significant differences (p = 0.000).

Measurement properties of the Body Awareness Scale Movement Quality (BAS MQ) in persons on the autism spectrum: A preliminary Rasch analysis

BACKGROUND

Persons on the autism spectrum exhibit poorer body awareness than neurotypical persons. Since movement quality may be regarded as an expression of body awareness, assessment of movement quality is important. Sound assessments of measurement properties are essential if reliable decisions about body awareness interventions for persons on the autism spectrum are to be made, but there is insufficient research.

OBJECTIVE

To assess measurement properties of the Body Awareness Scale Movement Quality (BAS MQ) in an autism and a neurotypical reference group.

METHODS

Persons on the autism spectrum (n=108) and neurotypical references (n=32) were included. All were assessed with BAS MQ. Data were analyzed according to the Rasch model.

RESULTS

BAS MQ was found to have acceptable unidimensionality, supported by the fit statistics. The hierarchical ordering showed that coordination ability was the most difficult, followed by stability and relating. Response category functioning worked as intended for 19 out of 23 items. There were few difficult items, which decreased targeting. Reliability measures were good. BAS MQ discriminated between the autism and the reference groups, with the autism group exhibiting poorer movement quality, reflecting clinical observations and previous research.

CONCLUSIONS

BAS MQ was found to have acceptable measurement properties, though suffering from problems with targeting item difficulty to person ability for persons on the autism spectrum. The BAS MQ may, along with experienced movement quality, contribute to clinically relevant information of persons on the autism spectrum, although we encourage refinements and further analyses to improve its measurement properties.

The Role of Fundamental Movement Skills and Spatial Abilities in the Relationship between Physical Activity and Mathematics Achievement in Primary School Children

Research has demonstrated positive relationships between fundamental movement skills (FMS) and mathematics achievement in children, and this relationship may be mediated by spatial ability. Engaging in physical activity (PA) may also have positive outcomes on mathematics achievement; however, no study has investigated this network of relationships together. This study aimed to examine the relationship between PA and mathematics achievement, and the mediating effects of FMS and spatial abilities, in primary school children. Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 182 children (aged 7 to 8 years old) across four schools in England. Objective moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) levels and subjective parental reports of their children's PA participation were collected. Children's FMS were assessed, along with their performance on four spatial ability tasks and a mathematics test. Mediation analyses revealed no significant mediation effects of FMS and spatial abilities on the positive significant relationship between MVPA and mathematics achievement; however, spatial ability partially mediated the relationship between FMS and mathematics achievement. These results suggest that FMS and spatial ability may not be related to MVPA in this network of relationships, but children with more mature FMS perform better in mathematics due to them performing better on specific spatial ability tasks.

The validity and reliability of school-based fundamental movement skills screening to identify children with motor difficulties

AIM

Assess whether school-based teacher-led screening is effective at identifying children with motor difficulties.

METHODS

Teachers tested 217 children aged between 5 and 11 years old, after a one hour training session, using a freely available tool (FUNMOVES). Four classes (n = 91) were scored by both researchers and teachers to evaluate inter-rater reliability. Researchers assessed 22 children using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2; considered to be the 'gold standard' in Europe for use as part of the diagnostic process for Developmental Coordination Disorder) to assess concurrent and predictive validity.

RESULTS

Inter-rater reliability for all individual activities within FUNMOVES ranged from 0.85-0.97 (unweighted Kappa; with 95%CI ranging from 0.77-1). For total score this was lower (κ = 0.76, 95%CI = 0.68-0.84), however when incorporating linear weighting, this improved (κ = 0.94, 95%CI = 0.89-0.99). When evaluating FUNMOVES total score against the MABC-2 total score, the specificity (1, 95%CI = 0.63-1) and positive predictive value (1; 95%CI = 0.68-1) of FUNMOVES were high, whereas sensitivity (0.57, 95%CI = 0.29-0.82) and negative predictive values (0.57, 95%CI = 0.42-0.71) were moderate. Evaluating only MABC-2 subscales which are directly related to fundamental movement skills (Aiming & Catching, and Balance) improved these values to 0.89 (95%CI = 0.52-1) and 0.93 (95%CI = 0.67-0.99) respectively.

INTERPRETATION

Teacher-led screening of fundamental movement skills (via FUNMOVES) is an effective method of identifying children with motor difficulties. Such universal screening in schools has the potential to identify movement difficulties and enable earlier intervention than the current norm.

Achievement in Fundamental Movement Skills, Spatial Abilities, and Mathematics among Lower Key Stage 2 Children

Research has demonstrated links between sport and mathematics learning, and their relationship with spatial abilities in children. This study explored the association between the development of fundamental movement skills (FMS) and mathematics achievement, and whether the understanding of specific spatial concepts mediated these relationships. Overall, 154 Year 3 children (69 males, 85 females, aged 7-8 years) from four schools in England completed an FMS assessment involving six skills; four spatial tasks assessing intrinsic-static, intrinsic-dynamic, extrinsic-static, and extrinsic-dynamic spatial abilities; and a mathematics test assessing numerical, geometrical, and arithmetical abilities. Overall FMS ability (a combined score across the six skills) was significantly positively correlated to overall mathematics achievement. This relationship was mediated by children's performance on the intrinsic-static spatial ability test. These findings suggest that children who have more mature FMS perform better in mathematics tasks, and this could be due to more developed intrinsic-static spatial ability. However, further research is necessary to determine the mediation effects of intrinsic-dynamic and extrinsic-static spatial ability.

Examining the criterion validity of two scalable, information technology-based systems designed to measure the quantity and quality of movement behaviours of children from Hong Kong primary schools: a cross-sectional validation study

OBJECTIVES

Research has shown that having adequate quantity and quality of physical activity can contribute to the health and well-being of children. Nonetheless, existing tools to measure these constructs in children have limitations in terms of their objectivity and scalability. In this study, we provide criterion validity evidence of two systems built on commercially available sensors (ie, gyroscopes and infrared cameras), designed to measure children's moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and fundamental movement skill proficiencies.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional.

SETTING

Primary schools in Hong Kong.

PARTICIPANTS

Data from 30 (age=8.55±1.25 years) and 1174 (age=9.15±1.63 years) children were included for the validation of physical activity and fundamental movement skills measures, respectively. Children's outcomes were simultaneously measured using the developed systems and existing, well-established measures (accelerometers and expert ratings).

RESULTS

We found a strong correlation between physical activity outcomes measured using our developed system and accelerometers (Pearson r=0.795). Motor skill proficiency scored using our real-time rating system had strong agreement with expert ratings (percentage agreement=84%-94%, kappa=0.661 to 0.859).

DISCUSSION

Results of the current study supported the application of the respective systems in physical education and large-scale research studies. Collection of such data at mass levels could help researchers depict the complex relation between children's quantity and quality of physical activity.

Relationship between Parents' Physical Activity Level and the Motor Development Level and BMI of Their Children

All the variables that arise in family dynamics can have significant effects on the lives of children concerning their nutritional status and motor development. The objective of this study was to relate the PAL of parents to the level of motor development and the BMI of their children. A total of 198 subjects participated, with the age of the students ranging between 8 and 10 years. To measure the BMI, the norms for the nutritional evaluation of children and teenagers from 5 to 19 years were used; to identify the motor behaviors, the TGMD-2 Test was used; and to identify the level of physical activity of parents, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was used. For the analysis, the independent samples t-test and the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test (Wilcoxon) were used, and for the correlational analysis, Spearman’s rho test was applied. This study found no significant correlation between the activity level of parents and nutritional status variables (p = 0.162), or between the PAL variables of parents and the motor development of their children (p = 0.738). A parent’s level of physical activity does not have a direct relationship with the nutritional status or the motor development of their children.