The Perceived Motor Competence questionnaire in childhood (PMC-C)

Abstract

The perception of one's own motor skills can be an important mediator between motor skills and physical activity in childhood. For early childhood, questionnaires are available to measure the self-perception of motor skills (locomotion and object-control) via pictorial scales with one item representing each skill. During childhood, self-perception develops and becomes more complex and differentiated (the physical self-concept). Therefore, the aim of this study was to create a questionnaire in order to adequately assess children's self-perceptions of fundamental movement skills. A 40-item questionnaire was tested in a pilot study (N = 94) for primary school grades 2-4. Based on the psychometric results, a reduced 24-item questionnaire, Perceived Motor Competence in Childhood (PMC-C), was completed by 197 children between 7 and 13 years of age. The results indicate construct validity (χ2/df = 1.76, N = 197, p < .001, Tucker-Lewis Index = .91, Comparative Fit Index = .90, RMSEA = .06) and internal consistency (object-control .79-.91; locomotion .79-.89) for the 24-item questionnaire. The PMC-C contributes as an extension of the available pictorial scales to assess the skill-oriented physical self-concept in middle and later childhood by covering the perception of multiple aspects of eight different motor skills.