Fundamental movement skill competency in children has been declining in recent years. Early childhood is a sensitive period for the development of fundamental movement skills ; the mastery of certain of these skills is a prerequisite for daily functioning and participation in later physical or sport-specific activities. Although quantitative methods have been developed for assessing movement development in children, it is also important to qualitatively evaluate such skills in developing children.
In this study, we investigated children's proficiency in fundamental movement skills from a qualitative perspective. Furthermore, validation of observational criteria was discussed.
This study evaluated fundamental movement skills (25-m run, zigzag run, standing long jump, overarm throwing, and ball bouncing) in 144 preschool children from four to six years of age. Movements were videotaped and evaluated on observational evaluation criteria of "whole-body movement sequence image" and "several movement components." Participants' movements were videotaped and assessed according to those observational criteria; then, their level of movement skill development was evaluated. In order to evaluate the validity of the observational criteria, the relationship between the simultaneously measured qualitative and quantitative measures was analyzed.
All fundamental movement skills were more advanced in the older preschool children, as measured by the whole-body movement sequence image ; this suggests that fundamental movement skills generally improve during the preschool years. However, some movement components were not yet evident in the preschool children (e.g., trunk rotation in overarm throw, lesser takeoff angle in standing long jump). There was a statistically significant relationship between the whole-body movement sequence image and quantitative data for each movement, indicating that observational data are valid assessment tools for fundamental movement skill assessment in preschool children.