Relationship between children's performance‐based motor skills and child, parent, and teacher perceptions of children's motor abilities using self/informant‐report questionnaires

Abstract

The findings support the use of top-down assessment methods from a variety of sources when evaluating children's motor abilities.

A comparison of parent report and actual motor competence in young children

“…It is plausible though that this correlation value might be higher because the physical education teachers might be more aware of their students’ motor skill level than parents’. This idea is supported by a past study, which found that classroom teacher report using the DCDQ gross motor subscale did not significantly correlate with the BOT‐2, whereas parent report did (Lalor et al …”

“…Interestingly, Lalor et al . () generated a very similar correlation ( r = 0.32), in 55 typically developing Victorian children, using the ‘Control during Movement’ scale of The Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (Wilson, Kaplan, Crawford, Campbell & Dewey, ) and the BOT‐2 assessment (Bruininks & Bruininks, ) for actual motor skills. The DCDQ scale has five gross motor skills (run, jump, catch, strike and throw) and one item on motor planning; the BOT‐2 does not specifically measure FMS (fine motor, manual coordination, body coordination and strength and agility).…”

“…It is clear from our findings that even though parent report was associated with children's actual skill, there was still much variance that was not explained by parent report. Lalor et al (2016), in attempting to understand what parent reports were predictive of actual skill, also found that the one instrument which made the greatest contribution in a regression model to manual coordination did not explain much variance (contributed 6.2% of the explained variance). However, this finding may be viewed with caution, as it is questionable whether it was reasonable to put eight predictors in each model given the sample size (n = 55), and the fact that the predictors were probably likely to be correlated with one another.…”

“…It is important to recognise that while the children in the current study are described as typically developing, we did not identify whether any children were receiving health services or had a pre-existing motor condition. Further, the sample size was appropriate for this study and research questions, allowing a number of comparisons to similar studies (Lalor et al, 2016;Liong et al, 2015). However, we were limited in terms of statistical power to explore how parent report might differ according to the sex of the child.…”

“…When using the objective 'Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency' (BOT-2; Bruininks & Bruininks, 2005) assessment in 38 children and comparing it to a parent report using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children -2nd edition (MABC-2) parent check list, Kennedy, Brown and Chien (2012) found moderate to large correlations with three of the four BOT-2 gross motor domains. Similarly, another study found that parent report using the 'Developmental Profile III' (Alpern, 2006) was a significant predictor of the BOT-2 manual coordination composite score when assessed in 55 typically developing 8-12-year-old children (Lalor, Brown & Murdolo, 2016). However, the BOT-2 does not specifically measure FMS but rather a broad construct of gross motor skills (e.g.…”