Who can best report on children's motor competence: Parents, teachers, or the children themselves?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2017.09.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Specific and aligned instruments to study perceived and actual MC should be used.

  • Children seem to present limited ability to report their MC.

  • Parents' and PE Teachers' proxy reports can be seen as good sources of information.

Abstract

Objective

A positive perception of motor competence (MC) is important for children's health trajectory. It is purported that young children's perception is not well aligned with their actual ability. Alternative sources of perceptions are postulated from children's social context such as their parents or teachers. This study aims to analyse the associations among children's, parents' and Physical Education (PE) teachers' perception of children's MC and the children's actual MC, and whether these sources of information can report on children's actual MC.

Design and method

A convenience sample of 139 typically developed children (48.2% girls) from six schools participated in this cross-sectional study. Actual and perceived MC was assessed by using the Test of Gross Motor Development and the Perceived Movement Skill Competence scale, respectively. Spearman's rho correlation and multilevel mixed-effects linear regression models were conducted.

Results

Weak, weak-moderate and moderate positive associations were found between children's, parents' and PE teachers' reports and children's MC (p < 0.05), respectively. Children presented limited capability in explaining their actual MC. Parents' and PE teachers' proxy reports on children’ MC were predictors of children's MC, with PE teachers best able to report on children's MC.

Conclusion

Taking into account the resources needed to objectively assess children's actual MC, this study offers alternative sources of information for educators, researchers and/or therapists to assist in reporting children's actual MC.

Section snippets

Participants

A cross-sectional design was used to study children's MC from 6 to 11 years old. A convenience sample of 139 (consent rate of 79.6%) typically developing children (48.2% girls) from six schools in Spain participated (45 children aged between 6 and 7 years-old; 31 aged between 7 and 8 years-old; 12 aged between 8 and 9 years-old; 36 aged between 9 and 10 years-old; and 15 aged 10 or 11 years-old). Schools were selected based on having a diversity of schools (three public and three private; two

Results

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of children's actual MC and children's, parents' and PE teachers' perception of children's MC. Children's perception was weak or did not correlate with their actual MC (see Table 2). Parents were able to provide weak-moderate proxy report on children's MC. PE teachers' were able to provide moderate proxy report associations on children's MC.

Table 3 shows the results from the mixed effects models for the children's perception. All results presented are for

Discussion

Proficient motor skills allow children to interact with and explore their surrounding environment, and engage in daily occupations and physical activity (Brown & Lane, 2014). So this study aimed to understand the extent to which children's, parents' and PE teachers' can report on children's actual MC. Previous theoretical frameworks suggested the importance of children's and significant others' perception in children's behavioural and cognitive processes (Bandura, 1997, Stodden et al., 2008).

Conclusions

The analysis of different types of FMS (i.e., locomotion and object control) by using specific and directly aligned instruments in relation to perceived and actual MC provide an insight into children's MC. Among the three sources of information, children present limited ability to report their MC; whereas parents and PE teachers can report better on child competence. Taking into account the resources needed to objectively assess children's actual MC, this study offers alternative sources of

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the University of Valencia (grant number UV-INV-AE16-471273). Author 1 is supported by the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (Gobierno de España), Beca José Castillejo para jóvenes doctores (grant number CAS16/00048).

References (55)

  • L.M. Barnett et al.

    Perceived sports competence mediates the relationship between childhood motor skill proficiency and adolescent physical activity and fitness: A longitudinal assessment

    The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

    (2008)
  • L.M. Barnett et al.

    More active pre-school children have better motor competence at school starting age: An observational cohort study

    BMC Public Health

    (2016)
  • L.M. Barnett et al.

    Gender differences in motor skill proficiency from childhood to adolescence: A longitudinal study

    Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport

    (2010)
  • M. Basto et al.

    An SPSS R-menu for ordinal factor analysis

    Journal of Statistical Software

    (2012)
  • G. Breslin et al.

    The effect of teachers trained in a fundamental movement skills programme on children's self-perceptions and motor competence

    European Physical Education Review

    (2012)
  • S.L. Britner et al.

    Sources of science self-efficacy beliefs of middle school students

    Journal of Research in Science Teaching

    (2006)
  • T. Brown et al.

    Comparing a parent-report and a performance-based measure of children's motor skill abilities: Are they associated?

    Occupational Therapy in Health Care

    (2014)
  • J.E. Clark

    From the beginning: A developmental perspective on movement and mobility

    Quest

    (2005)
  • J.E. Clark et al.

    The mountain of motor development: A metaphor

  • J. Cohen

    Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences

    (1988)
  • I. Estevan et al.

    Evidence of reliability and validity for the pictorial scale of Perceived Movement Skill Competence in Spanish children

    Journal of Motor Learning and Development

    (2017)
  • I. Estevan et al.

    Validity and reliability of the Spanish version of the test of gross motor Development-3

    Journal of Motor Learning and Development

    (2017)
  • R.J. Fisher et al.

    Social-desirability bias and the validity of self-reported values

    Psychology & Marketing

    (2000)
  • A.M. Gadermann et al.

    Estimating ordinal reliability for likert-type and ordinal item response data: A conceptual, empirical, and practical guide

    Practical assessment, Research & Evaluation

    (2012)
  • D.L. Gallahue et al.

    Understanding motor Development: Infants, children, adolescents, adults

    (2012)
  • S. Harter

    The construction of the self: a development perspective

    (1999)
  • S. Harter et al.

    The pictorial scale of perceived competence and social acceptance for young children

    Child Development

    (1984)
  • Cited by (31)

    • Self and proxy (parents and teachers’) reports of child motor competence: A three-year longitudinal study

      2023, Psychology of Sport and Exercise
      Citation Excerpt :

      For instance, due to parents’ role in child development, parents were identified as key in reporting on children’s AMC; however, their capability was not confirmed (Estevan, Molina-García, Bowe, et al., 2018). Cross-sectional evidence shows inconclusive results, with parents’ proxy report, either not associated with child skill (Lalor et al., 2016), weakly associated (Estevan, Molina-García, Bowe, et al., 2018) or moderately associated (Estevan, Molina-García, Bowe, et al., 2018; Liong et al., 2015) - and this depends on the type of FMS domain. Indeed, parents’ perception of children’s AMC might be largely influenced by the socio-cultural environment (e.g., cultural and gender role stereotypes, values, attitudes) with important ramifications to their expectations (Horn, 2018).

    • A hitchhiker's guide to assessing young people's motor competence: Deciding what method to use

      2019, Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
      Citation Excerpt :

      In contrast, Lalor et al.59 found that, among children aged 8–12 years, self-report scores showed higher correlations with actual motor competence scores compared to teacher and parent report scores. The studies by Liong et al.42 and Estevan et al.58 both used a proxy report instrument that matched the skill items being assessed in the actual motor skill assessment (TGMD-2) whereas the study by Lalor et al.59 completed a questionnaire specifically developed for the purpose of distinguishing children with DCD (i.e., the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire, DCDQ; Wilson et al.).60 These questionnaires may not have been sensitive enough to detect motor competence in a typically developing sample.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text