Original researchSetting them up for lifetime activity: Play competence perceptions and physical activity in young children
Introduction
Being movement skill competent is associated with physical activity, fitness and healthy weight status.1, 2, 3 Positive physical self-perception may also be important to children’s health behaviours, specifically physical activity. Physical self-perception has been described as hierarchical with perceptions of strength, fitness, body, and sports all falling under the broader domain of physical self-perception.4 Perceptions of sport competence (i.e. how good an individual perceives their sport competence to be) is therefore one sub-domain of physical self-perception. A recent systematic review in children and adolescents found perceived physical sport competence had the strongest relationship with physical activity compared to other aspects of self-perception, e.g. perceived strength or fitness.5 There is also recent evidence in around 1500 children from grade 3 to grade 12 that perceived competence (toward games and sports) has a direct positive effect on physical activity.6
The Stodden model7 hypothesises that children with better skills develop enhanced physical self-perceptions and this enables further physical activity engagement, leading to greater motor competence.7 Evidence confirms that perceptions of physical sport competence positively mediate the association between actual competence and physical activity.8, 9 These reciprocal mediated relationships are seen to increase in strength as children age, with relationships weaker in preschool age children and stronger as children move into adolescence.10
Most research investigating perceived physical sport competence and its association with physical activity has been performed in adolescents, with less known about the influence in younger children (i.e. = <8 years old).5 In young children, perceived physical competence is typically assessed using a broad assessment. For example, the Harter and Pike pictorial scale11 has six items which relate to children’s perceptions of physical competence; including fundamental movement skills (i.e. running, dribbling a basketball, skipping), fine motor skills (i.e. shoelace tying) and play skills (swinging on a swing, climbing).11 Studies investigating associations between perceived physical competence and physical activity in preschool/kindergarten children have generally shown no, or very small associations.10, 12, 13
It is possible though, that children can distinguish between aspects of perceived physical sport competence. Therefore, perceived sport competence could be seen as another level in a hierarchy which encompasses the subdomains of perceived fundamental movement skill separate to active play perceptions.14 It is important that the aspect of physical self-perception that is being assessed is clearly identified so we can understand which types of self-perception are associated with physical activity and to which degree. For example, in Iranian girls of school age (8 and 9-years), perceived competence was defined as the perceived ability to do motor tasks and assessed using the physical ability subscale of the Self-Description Questionnaire. There was a moderate association in this study between perceived ability to do motor tasks and physical activity (i.e. correlation of 0.33).15
Play activities in young children contribute a significant proportion of physical activity towards a child’s daily physical activity levels.16 Furthermore, King et al.,17 found that parent perception of their 7-year-old child’s interest in physically active play, was significantly positively associated with physical activity and negatively associated with sedentary behaviour. It is possible then, that child play skill perception might be an important positive influence on children’s physical activity levels. To date, there has been little emphasis in the research literature specifically on the unique contribution of perceived competence in play activities (i.e. swinging on a swing, riding a bike) to physical activity. If positive play skill perception is important to children’s physical activity, then targeting positive changes in children’s perceived competence in active play may be a strategy for promoting physical activity in children. The study purpose was to therefore assess whether active play perceptions were associated with physical activity in children. Two different age samples were recruited in order to see if the relationship between play perception and physical activity was different according to the age group. The hypotheses, based on the work of Stodden et al.,7 was that play skill competence perception would be more important to physical activity in the older children.
Section snippets
Methods
Data were drawn from two samples from the same Australian city (Melbourne). Both studies were approved by the University Human Ethics Advisory Group-Health. Sample 1 was drawn from the Melbourne Infant Feeding, Activity and Nutrition Trial (InFANT) Program, which commenced in 2008 and was a 15-month obesity prevention intervention targeted to first-time parents from when their infants were approximately 4 months of age, with post intervention follow up at 3.5 and 5 years of age.18 Data for this
Results
The first sample consisted of 152 children (75 boys, 49.3%) aged 4–5 years (M = 4.7, SD = 0.47) and the second, 78 children (43 boys, 55.1%) aged 5–8 years (M = 6.6, SD = 0.93). Table 1 presents the sample demographics. In both samples, children with valid physical activity data were no different to those without such data in terms of their perceptions of play competence (all ns).
Table 2 presents the descriptive results for perceived play skills and MVPA for both samples. There were significant sex
Discussion
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived active play skills and physical activity in a younger and older sample of children. Young children are primarily physically active through play-based behaviour rather than through organised sports and activities, so understanding how play perceptions might influence physical activity behaviour is important. We found active play perceptions were associated with MVPA in 7-year-old children, but not in the 5-year-old children. The
Conclusion
Positive findings in the older sample show school-aged children need exposure to play based activities in order to develop the positive self-perception needed to engage in MVPA every day. It has been suggested that physical activity promotion in young children might be more successful if physical activity was encouraged through use of the term ‘play’ rather than physical activity, and if child well-being outcomes were emphasised, not just physical health.32 It has also been advised that
Practical implications
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Play skill perception can be assessed in young children.
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School age children who think they are ‘good’ at active play skills are likely to be participating in more minutes of daily MVPA.
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Many types of active play (e.g. cycling) can be continued for life and thus may be important to develop from an intervention standpoint.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Bill Mezzetti the artist who provided the pictorial illustrations and the school, parents and children who were involved. Author 1 is supported by an Early Career Fellowship Award. We also acknowledge Eoin O’Connell for the development of the customised Excel macro. Author 3 is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Principal Research Fellowship (APP1026216). Author 4 is supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT130100637).
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