Conceptualising and testing the relationship between actual and perceived motor performance: A cross-cultural comparison in children from Australia and Germany

ABSTRACT

Previous studies investigating the relationship between motor skill, physical activity and fitness in children have not thoroughly considered the role of self-perception. Therefore, the study aim was to test a theoretical framework, which considered both actual and perceived motor skill as well as actual and perceived fitness. Potential moderating effects of sex and country were considered. Data on motor skill, fitness, as well as self-perception of motor skill and fitness were collected from 145 Australian children and 214 German children (age range 7 to 10 years). For actual motor skill and fitness, mean differences for sex, age and country were found. For perceived motor performance (perceived motor skill and perceived fitness) no mean differences were found for age. Path analyses were performed. The final model showed significant relations between actual performance (object control skill, fitness) and perceived performance (object control skill, fitness). All model paths had low to moderate regression weights with the lowest relationship reported between actual and perceived fitness. Sex and country showed no effects. This integrated approach has led to a better understanding of the relationship between children’s perceived and objective performance, and cultural differences within them.

KEYWORDS:

• Motor skills
• physical fitness
• physical self-perception
• children
• cultural comparison

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all children, parents, schools and students for their cooperation. We owe special thanks to our student assistants Theresa Heering, Leonie Kienz and Emiliano Mazzoli.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Availability of data and materials

All relevant data are presented in the manuscript. Our raw data are coded, and the key is only available to the responsible researchers. Please contact the corresponding author Maike Tietjens, who can give more information, if requested, concerning the background of results.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

¹ Model 1 (Figure S5) tested the full model with actual and perceived motor performance (locomotion, ballistic and manipulative object control) and actual and perceived fitness. As this model was not satisfactory (see Table S14), additional analyses were performed without locomotion. This reduction of the number of skills contributed to the overall better fit indices.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service [57216707]. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and may not be shared by the funding bodies;Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst [57216707].