Measuring children motor skills with MOBACK-1: descriptive data and critical analysis

Introduction
The development of motor skills competencies is critical during childhood should be considered as the central learning outcome in physical education. Assessing motor competencies of the children make sense for teachers, trainers and researchers. The MOBAK-1 testing battery has been recently developed with the aim of assessing a wide panel of motor skills in relationship with locomotion and object-control abilities (1). This battery is complete and easy to use but present a scoring system that is only based on the success or the failure of the task. The aim of the study was to collect descriptive data from Belgian children with MOBAK-1, and to do a critical analysis of the scoring system through the analysis of the failure reasons in the tests.

Methods
The MOBAK-1 testing battery (1) was addressed to 166 primary school pupils (7.2±0.6 YO) coming from the French speaking part of Belgium. For each test, children received a score from 0 to 2, according to the number of success and fails in the task. Additionally, the evaluator took notes of the failure reasons when it occurs.
Results
Results from our subjects were in accordance with a previous study (1) for all tests except rolling and jumping tasks. The analysis of the failure reasons revealed that some criteria were too severe as some children failed while they were almost able to do the test correctly. This appeared especially in the rolling and jumping tests where the score did not really reflect the level of the children.
Conclusion
MOBACK-1 testing battery was successful to assess children motor skills for 6 out of 8 tests. Critical analysis of children failures in the tests revealed that some criteria seemed to be severe. Scoring system should be improved in order to inform about the children level in each test.
References
1. Herrmann, C., Gerlach, E., & Seelig, H. (2015). Development and validation of a test instrument for the assessment of basic motor competencies in primary school. Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 19(2), 80-90.