Motor Competence Among Irish Adolescents: An Investigation of Sex Differences and Relatedness Between Fundamental Movement Skills and Functional Movement

Abstract

In prior research, Irish youth displayed poor motor competence across fundamental movement skills (FMS) and functional movements (FM). Our purpose in this study was to compare FMS and FM across male and female Irish adolescents and to determine whether there are associations between these movement domains. We collected data on 373 adolescents (178 females; M age = 14.38, SD = 0.87 years) from six Irish secondary schools, including motor competence testing of 10 FMS, and 7 FM. Overall levels of motor competence of both FMS and FM were low, and certain levels of dysfunctional movement were high. We observed significant sex-based differences in both FMS and FM, and there was a moderate association between FMS and FM that warrants further investigation. There is a need for societal intervention and policy changes to address low levels of motor competence among adolescent youth.

Associations between motor competence and the risk of obesity in Brazilian adolescents

“…Aligned with our results, a previous study found that the prevalence of delays and borderline impaired motor performance was high among Brazilian children (Valentini et al, 2022). Furthermore, the high prevalence of young people with low levels of motor competence has been reported in previous studies from different regions, including WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic) countries, such as the United States (Goodway et al, 2010), Ireland (Philpott et al, 2023) and Australia (Hardy et al, 2013). More dramatically, a negative decline of motor competence in children has been observed over the last decades (Bardid et al, 2015;Koeppel et al, 2022).…”

Assessment Tools Measuring Fundamental Movement Skills of Primary School Children: A Narrative Review in Methodological Perspective

“…In investigating object control movement skills, it turned out that boys are performing better in one-handed overarm throws, ball catching, and ball kicking. However, girls performed better in locomotion movement and positional changing skills (i.e., dynamic balance, jumping) [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ].…”