Physical literacy (PL) has become a major focus of physical education, physical activity and sports promotion worldwide. PL is a multifaceted conceptualisation of the skills required to fully realise potentials through embodied experience. Substantial financial investments in PL education by governments are underpinned by a wide range of anticipated benefits, including expectations of significant future savings to healthcare, improved physical and psychological well-being of the population, increased work-force productivity and raised levels of expertise in sport and exercise participation. However, disappointingly, scientific evidence showing the efficacy of PL interventions to successfully meet such high expectation is limited. We suggest that contradictions in research findings are due largely to limitations in movement assessment batteries and consequent discrepancies between measurements used to assess the immediate outcomes of PL programmes. Notably, there is no robust empirical tool for evidencing skill learning in the physical movement component of PL, education and this presents a serious limitation to the design of, and claims that can be made for, such interventions. Considering the parameters of proficient PL skills and the limitations of current evaluation instruments, possible future directions for developing empirical measures of PL movement skills are presented.

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Background: There is a substantial amount of scientific research suggesting the physical and

Validated assessment tools for movement competence typically involve the isolation and reproduction of specific movement forms, which arguably neglects individuals’ ability to combine and adapt movements to overcome constraints within a dynamic environment. A new movement assessment tool, the General Movement Competence Assessment (GMCA), was developed for this study using Microsoft Kinect. Movement competence of 83 children (36 boys and 47 girls), aged 8–10 years (9.06 ± 0.75 years) was measured using the GMCA. An exploratory approach was undertaken to examine the internal consistency reliability (McDonald’s omega coefficient) and factorial structure of the GMCA for the study sample. Factorial structure was determined using exploratory factor analysis by principal component analysis with varimax rotation. For the sample data, reliability for the GMCA games were acceptable (ω = 0.53–0.89) and indicated that combinations of movement attributes were measured by GMCA games. Factorial analysis extracted four movement constructs accounting for 71.31% of variance. Dexterity was tentatively identified as a new independent construct alongside currently accepted movement constructs (i.e., locomotion, object-control, stability). While further development of the GMCA is still required, initial results are encouraging in view of an objective and theoretically informed approach to assess general movement competence in children.

Marker-less motion capture systems can provide online recordings of human biomechanics during rapid dynamic exercises such as countermovement jump (CMJ) which could indicate an athlete's risk of injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). However, without additional postprocessing the localisation accuracy of the joints can be insufficient. Subsequently, biomechanics measurements, e.g. knee flexion angles, can be severely corrupted. We propose a calibration algorithm to correct for deviations in the bone length during CMJ as recorded by a low cost marker-less motion capture system (i.e. Kinect, version 2). Results were compared to gold standard VICON measurements. In this single subject study of three CMJs the accuracy of the measured knee flexion angle during stabilisation (post jump) was significantly improved from -9.6° to -3.8° (p<0.05) for the left knee, and from -5.0° to 1.7° (p<0.05) for the right knee. In conclusion, bone-length calibration and correction may enhance the joint localisation accuracy for low cost marker-less motion capture to the extend where clinically-relevant decisions can be facilitated.