AN N ALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 10 • 2000 • 1 (19) 
original scientific paper UD C 612.76-053.4-055.2 
STRUCTURE OF MOTOR ABILITIES OF FIVE AND 
A HALF YEARS OLD GIRLS 

Oolfe RAJTMAjER 
University of Maribor, Pedagogical Faculty, Sl-2000 Maribor 
ABSTRACT 
The subject sample encompassed 189 girls, five and half years old (+/- 3 days). The test battery consisted of 28 composite motor tasks. The results were analysed with The SPSS-x statistical programme at the Computing Centre of Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Maribor (Slovenia). The Kaiser-Cuttman criterion was used for factor extraction and the initial structure rotated to an Oblimin solution. The extraction of significant factor gave an eight factor model of basic motor abilities: realisation of rhythmic motor structures, balance, agility, whole-body coordination, explosive power, manipulative ability of the hands, kinaesthetic solving of spatial problems and factor x (provisionally-motor intelligence). 
Key words: children, motor abilities, tests 
STRUTTURA DELLE CAPACITÁ MOTORI E DI BAMBIN E Dl CINQU E ANN ! 
E MEZZ O D'ETÁ 

SINTESI 

All'Universitá di Maribor é in corso un progetto di ricerca pluriennale, intitolato Struttura e relazioni di capacita psicomotorie e caratteristiche morfologiche, psicosociali e sanitarie di bambini in tenera etá. L'esperimento ha preso in considerazione piu di 1400 bambini di entrambi i sessi, ira i cinque ed i sei anni e mezzo. L'articolo presenta la struttura motoria latente di bambine di cinque anni e mezzo. In Slovenia ricerche simili sono state condotte da Planinsec 0995), PiSot (1998), Rajtmajer (1994, 1997), Strel & Sturm (1981) e Videmsek & Cemic (1991). 11 campione analizzato ha compreso 189 bambine di 5 anni e mezzo (piu/meno 3 giorni). L'esperimento e stato effettuato mediante 28 cornpiti motori compositi. 1 dati sono stati elaborad con i I programma SPSS-x. Per I'estrazione delle component principaIi é stato utilizzato il criterio di Cuttman-Kaiser X>1, mentre la rotazione dei fattori é stata effettuata nella posizione di Oblimin. L'estrazione dei fattori significativi ha portato ad un modello delle capacita motorie di queste bambine a 8 fattori: la realizzazione delle strutture ritmiche del movimento, /'equilibrio, !'agilita, la coordinazione del corpo, la forza esplosiva, la capacita manipolativa delle mani, la soluzione cinestetica dei problemi spaziali ed il fattore x, che gli autori hanno condizionatamente chiamato intelligenza motoria. 
Parole chiave: bambini, capacitó motorie, esperimenti 
INTRODUCTIO N dren since 1988. The object of this study is the structure of motor abilities of 5.5 years old girls. Analysis is based At the University of Maribor, w e have been studying on the results of studies by Strel & Sturm (1981), Zimmer latent and manifest motor abilities and anthropometric, & Volkamer (1984), Kiphard (1987, 1989), Cetin (1991), psychosocial and health characteristics of young chil-Videmsek & Cemic. (1991), Rajtmajer (1994, 1997), 
AN N ALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 10 • 2000 • 1 (19) 
Dolie KAJTMAJER: STRUCTUR E O F MOTO R ABILITIES O F FIVE AN D A HALF YEARS OL D GIRLS, 143-! 46 
Planinsec (1995) and Pisot (1997). The above-stated authors studied motor structure of children between five and seven years of age. in setting the model of motorics of five-and-a-half years old girls we of course took into account also the findings of basic studies of motorics by Chaidze (1965), Berstein (1967), Agre2 (1975), Gredel (1975), Kureiic ef a/. (1975), Sturm (1975), Hosek (1976), Mueller (1978), Boes & Mechiing (1983), Luria (1983), Singer (1985) and many more. In order to define the motor status of the children as objectively as possi­ble, it was necessary to study numerous researches, where the authors studied motorics of young children, from schooling children and youth to adults. It is a fact ­and this is also the working hypothesis of the entire project, which encompasses four sub-populations aged 5, 5.5, 6 and 6.5 years old children of both genders ­that motorics of a child is in some segments very similar or even identical to motorics of other populations, but that it also differs from them. This study also bases on a part of Gardner's (1995) theory of multiple intelligences, where the author defines physical-motor and partly spa­tial intelligence. 
METHOD S 

in this study 189 girls five and a half years old (± 3 days) were tested, sampled from a population of about 900 girls entered into the register at the Paediatric War d of the Health Clinic in Maribor, Slovenia. The testing battery consisted of twenty-eight composite motor tests, covering the following hypothetical sub-spaces of mo­torics: explosive and repetitive strength, speed of fre­quency of simple movements, balance, manipulative ability of arms, motor intelligence, reorganisation of stereotypes, whole-body co-ordination, agility. Choice of tests was made on the basis of the already mentioned authors, our own multi-year experiences and the re­quirement that the tests are sufficiently simple to be used by pedagogues in actual praxis. The data was ana­lysed with the SPSS-X statistical package at the Univer­sity of Maribor. The Kaiser-Guttman criterion was used for extraction of factors, deeming as significant all fac­tors with an eigen value over one, representing the up­per bound of the number of extracted factors. 
RESULTS 

The extraction of factors gave an eight-factor model of basic motorics of 5.5 year-old girls (Tab. 1). A weak­ness of the Kaiser-Guttman criterion (X>\) is in the hy­per-production of factors, the good side is that all infor­mation is preserved. Because of the same reason we used the structure matrix, i.e. perpendicular projections of variable vectors on the factors, as the interpretation base, since they give somewhat higher coefficients than 
•parallel.projections (pattern matrix). 
The first factor is defined by rather different tests ac­cording to their structure, but they do have a common object of measurement in cyclic motor actions for the same period of time (20 s): various tapping, lateral hops, bench stepping and bail circling around the body. These are simple repetitive movements, which can be named as the ability for realisation of rhythmic motor structures (F1). The second and the third factor have a simple structure; according to the classic terminology we can recognise them as the ability of balance on one leg (F2) and the ability for quick direction changes - agility (F3). The fourth factor is defined by the motor task running after rolling, which is for children this age a demanding movement from the co-ordination point of view, where the entire body co-operates in its realisation. In accord with this, we shall name it the ability of whole body co­ordination (F4). The fifth factor can be clearly recog­nised as explosive power (F5), the sixth as the ability for manipulation with the arms (F6), the seventh - with sali­ent projections from the walking backwards through loops tests - is the well known ability of kinaesthetic solving of spatial problems (F7). The eighth factor is characterised by the test block building and throwing the ball at the floor. The execution of these two tests do not require cortical control of movement, since the ac­tion can be performed at this age only through "trial and error". W e shall name it as the ability of motor intelli­gence (F8). 
DISCUSSIO N 

Motor structure of 5.5 year-old girls is much more complicated than the one of boys of the same age (Ratmajer, 1997). In the psychomotor co-ordination sub-space there are several unusual correlations. It is obvi­ous that one cannot use the same criteria in analysis of motorics for girls this age. The differences are evident; the most outstanding is the roie of cyclic motor actions, 
i.e. characteristic rhythm. This hypothesis can be con­firmed already with an analysis of the first factor, where the 20 s repetitive action requires rhythm of execution, rather than the energy part of repetitive strength. 
W e cannot confirm the hypothetical model of motor abilities of 5.5 year-old girls, especially significant are the differences in the tests that Gardner (1995) classifies with motor intelligence into the sub-space of skilful manipulation of objects: tests with a ball and tests with blocks do not have a common object of measurement for boys. For girls, the differentiation is much more de­manding and manifests itself in the division by rhythm, simple manipulation and cortical control on the basis of trial and error. The test stepping on a bench, whose in­tentional object of measurement is repetitive strength, is completely irrelevant for girls this age - it does not have a measurement object of its own and therefore acts as a polygon test. 
AN N ALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 10 • 2000 • 1 (19) 
Doife f?A|TMAJER. STRUCTURE O F MOTO R ABILITIES O F FIVE AN D A HALF YEARS OL D GIRLS, 143-1 <!6 
Tab. 1: Structure of the obtained factors Tab. 1: Struktura izoliranih faktorjev 
M Variable F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 
1. Standing broad jump .81 
2. Triple jump .76 
3. High jump .66 
4. Stepping on a bench .49 .45 .41 -.46 
5. Lateral hops .78 
6. Lateral hops - frontal support on arms .75 .41 
7. Tapping - arm 1 -.47 
8. Tapping - leg .66 
9. Tapping - arm 2 .75 
10. Lateral stance on lying block .84 
11. Frontal stance on lying block .86 
12. Stance on standing block .68 
13. Circling ball around body .61 -.44 
14. Rolling ball standing up .58 
15. Rolling ball around hoop .49 .51 
16. Building with hollow blocks .64 
17. Building with wooden blocks .77 
18. Building with plastic blocks .86 
19. Walking on ladder backwards .67 
20. Walking through hoops backward .83 
21. Walking backward - polygon .81 
22. jumping over and crawling under a bench .55 .40 
23 Crawling with a ball .50 

24. Running after rolling .62 
25. Shuttle runs -.83 
26. Lateral running -.90 
27. Zigzag running .41 
28. Throwing ball at floor -.62 
CONCLUSION S since it is possible to quickly and easily identify repre­sentative tests with which sport pedagogues can test Factor analysis of motor space of five-and-a-haif children in praxis. An already constructed system of years old girls, defined by 28 composite motor tasks, centile norms of manifest motor abilities (Rajtmajer, gave an eight-factor model of basic motorics of girls this 1997) enables the use of findings of this study in actual age. The first four factors are relatively simple, the other praxis for diagnostic-prognostic purposes: an analysis of four construct very complex latent dimensions. The the motor status of a child and the construction of an factors are inter-correlated relatively weakly, or not at operative exercise programme. all. The results of this study are important also for praxis, 
STRUKTURA MOTORIČNI H SPOSOBNOSTI PET iN POLLETNIH DEKLIC 
Doife RAjTMAJER 
Univerza v Mariboru, Pedagoška fakulteta, S!~2GOO Maribor 
POVZETEK 

Na Univerzi v Mariboru izvajamo večletni raziskovalni projekt z naslovom Struktura in relacije psihomotoričnih sposobnostimorfoloških, psihosocialnih in zdravstvenih karakteristik mlajših otrok. Podatke smo zbrali s pomočjo 
AN N ALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 10 • 2000 • 1 (19) 
Doife RAJTMA)ER: STRUCTURE OE MOTO R AEIUTIESQ F AV E AN D A HALF YEAfiS OL D CIRLS. 143-146 
testiranja preko 1400 od pet do šest in polletnih otrok obeh spolov. V tej študiji predstavljamo latentno motorično strukturo pet in polletnih deklic. Podobne raziskave so v Sloveniji izvedli še Stre! & Šturm (1981), Videmšek & Cemič (1991), Rajtmajer (1994, 1997), Planinšec (1995) in Pišot (1997). Vzorec merjenk je zajel 189 deklic, starih pet let in pol (plus/minus 3 dni). Testni instrumentarij je obsegal 28 kompozitnih motoričnih nalog. Rezultati so bili obdelani s programom SPSS-x. Za ekstrakcijo glavnih komponent je bi! uporabljen Guttman-Kaiserjev kriterij X>1, rotacija faktorjev pa je bila izvedena v oblimin poziciji. Ekstrakcija značinih faktorjev je dala 8-faktorski mode! motoričnih sposobnosti deklic te starosti: realizacijo ritmičnih struktur gibanja, ravnotežje, agilnost, koordinacijo vsega telesa, eksplozivno moč, manipulativno sposobnost rok, kinestetično reševanje prostorskih problemov in faktor x, ki smo ga pogojno poimenovali kot motorično inteligenco. 
Ključne besede: otroci, motorične sposobnosti, testi 
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