Gender and motor competence affects perceived likelihood and importance of physical activity outcomes among 14 year olds

Abstract

Little is understood about the impact of level of motor competence on self-perceptions in adolescence, in particular how this may differentially affect girls and boys. A sample of 1,568 14-year-old participants (766 girls and 802 boys) were grouped into four motor competence levels (very low to high) based on the McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (MAND). Selfperceptions were assessed using the Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents. Boys had higher selfperceptions of global self-worth, athletic competence, and physical appearance, whereas girls had higher scores for close friendships and behavioral conduct. Main effects in the predicted direction were found for motor competence for self-perceptions of global self-worth, athletic competence, physical appearance, close friendships, social acceptance, and romantic appeal. These findings indicate that level of motor competence is important in many aspects of self-perceptions, affecting girls and boys differently. Higher motor competence has a protective effect on psychosocial health, particularly for girls.

Adolescents' self-reported motor assessments may be more realistic than those of their parents

“…This outcome could be due to a number of factors. Girls are less motivated to participate in team sports (Fredricks and Eccles, 2005;Labbrozzi et al, 2013), prefer cooperative activities (Hands et al, 2015;Rose et al, 2011) or place greater importance on ADL. Consequently, their poor motor skills may be less apparent or concerning to their parents.…”

“…Assessing motor competence reliably can be challenging given developmental fluctuations (improvements during adolescence and poorer coordination during adulthood (Hands et al, 2015)), the range of skills (locomotion, object control and balance) considered to assess motor competence accurately and the tendency to include gender-biased items in tests of motor skill (Hands and Larkin, 1997). This could be due the type of items typically included in motor assessments which focus on tasks preferred by males, such as ball skills or females being less skilled in these activities (Hands and Larkin, 1997).…”

The effects of perceived competence and self-controlled goal setting on motor learning

“…Perceived competence is a motivational component defined as a multidimensional construct that indicates how competent an individual feels to be in relation to the cognitive, social, emotional, and/or physical aspects of their life [6]. It has also been related to the individuals' ability to be proficient on a large array of motor skills [7][8][9]. the point here is that the ability to perform motor skills efficiently is a learned ability, that is, it results from practice [10].…”

“…We hypothesized that (a) perceived competence would influence motor learning, that is, the higher the perceived competence, the better the performance in the learning test [7][8][9]; (b) motor learning would lead to changes in perceived competence, i.e., as a learner gained mastery on a task, they would feel more and more competent [12]; (c) having control of a task (selfcontrolled goal setting) would result in higher perceived competence than not having control [11,16]; and (d) having control of a task would make better performance possible in the learning test than not having control, regardless of the level of perceived competence [12].…”

Las estrategias cognitivo-conductuales y expectativas sobre sus beneficios median la relación entre apoyo social parental y frecuencia de actividad física de los adolescentes

“…Además de factores personales como la competencia percibida (Bai, Chen, Vazou, Welk, & Schaben, 2015;Hands, Parker, Rose, & Larkin, 2016), el nivel de habilidad motora (Khodaverdi, Bahram, Stodden, & Kazemnejad, 2015) o la diversión experimentada (Yli-Piipari, Watt, Jaakkola, Liukkonen, & Nurmi, 2009), los ambientes físicos y sociales actúan como determinantes de interés en la práctica de actividad física de niños y adolescentes (Lawman & Wilson, 2014). Los modelos ecológicos representan una alternativa teórica útil en la que integrar las relaciones que mantienen entre sí todos estos factores (Silva, Lott, Mota, & Welk, 2014;Verloigne, Cardon, De Craemer, D'Haese, & De Bourdeaudhuij, 2016;Welk, 1999).…”