5 Gustav Bala (1999). Some problems and suggestions in measuring motor behaviour of pre-school children. KinSI, 5(1–2) : 5–10
SOME PROBLEMS AND SUGGESTIONS IN
MEASURING MOTOR BEHAVIOUR 
OF PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN
NEKATERE TE@AVE IN NAPOTKI 
ZA MERJENJE MOTORI^NEGA OBNA[ANJA
PRED[OLSKIH OTROK
Gustav Bala
ABSTRACT
A battery of tests for evaluation of motor behaviour
of adults has been modified and applied to a group
of pre-school children. The analysis proved good re-
liability of the composite tests. Suggestions for appl-
ying the battery in practice and in future research of
motor behaviour of pre-school children are provi-
ded.
Key words: pre-school age/ motor behaviour/ motor
test/ reliability
IZVLE^EK
Skupina merskih in{trumentov za ugotavljanje mo-
tori~nega obna{anja odraslih je bila prirejena za
merjenje pred{olskih otrok. Analiza podatkov zbra-
nih na izmerjeni skupini otrok je pokazala dobro za-
nesljivost prilagojenih testov. V {tudiji so podani tu-
di nekateri napotki za uporabe teh testov v praksi in
nadaljnjemu raziskovanju motori~nega obna{anja
pred{olskih otrok.
Klju~ne besede: pred{olski otroci/ motori~no ob-
na{anje/ motori~ni testi/ zanesljivost
Balzakova 8/464, YU-21000 Novi Sad, Yugoslavia
Tel: +381 21 365-889
Fax: +381 21 365-889
E-mail: BalaG@Eunet.YU
Received: 02. 09. 1999 – Accepted: 07. 12. 1999

INTRODUCTION
When discussing the motor skills of young children,
motor behaviour is a much more appropriate term.
Motor behaviour of young children includes motor
activity of children at play, during sport or recreation,
and during everyday activities at home or in the kin-
dergarten. Motor behaviour of young children is qui-
te broad (general type), without clear sex differen-
tiation (Bala, 1981; Ni}in, J. Kalajd`i}, Bala, 1997;
Bala, Ni}in, 1997; Strel, [turm, 1981; Rajtmajer,
1997). It can be seen as a resultant of: a) develop-
ment of potential motor skills, b) development and
number of motor habits.
The space of motor abilities of young children is ar-
ranged differently than the spacethat of the older
children or adults. The research evidence for this is
mostly quantitative, with very little qualitative data
which could point to the real structure of the space
of motor behaviour at of young children (Bala, 1981;
Strel, [turm, 1981; Ni}in, J. Kalajd`i}, Bala, 1997;
Bala, Ni}in, 1997; Rajtmajer, 1997; Bala, 1999). Ne-
vertheless, there is plenty of evidence from the ex-
perts who work with young children and also from
everyday experience. They all point to the fact that
young children react with their entire bodies and
minds, as well as with all their motor abilities. This
agrees with the theory of »integrated development«
of young children (Ismail and Gruber, 1971) which
points to the low correlation between motor, intel-
lectual and emotional development of young chil-
dren. The correlation decreases with age, which in-
dicates an enormous possibility to positively influen-
ce a child’s intellectual and emotional behaviour
through the development and enhancement of their
motor behaviour.
There are a number of problems in researching hu-
man motor behaviour. There are even more prob-
lems when researching motor behaviour of young
children. There will be no discussion of such prob-
lems in this paper. The accent will be on the possibi-
lity of analogue use of motor tests for older children
on pre-school subjects. This possibility is directly
connected with the problem of reliability of the tests
for young children.
To solve this problem, we first have to select the tests
on the basis of their validity and reliability in the mo-
tor space of older children and then modify the con-
ditions in which they are performed, therefore mo-
difying the standardisation of the tests. Secondly, it
is necessary to make these tests composite, so their
reliability can be logically and simply defined. In
most research, the motor tests consisted of only sin-
gular tasks, which, according to psychometric be-
liefs, applied corresponded to the items. In order to
consider such tests composite, it is necessary to re-
peat the activity two, three or more times, with an
appropriate rest time between each performance.
It is quite important to emphasise that a reliable test
for a certain motor ability of adults can not be used to
measure the same ability for small children. One
such example is the »Standing broad jump« test,
used to measure an adult’s explosive strength of the
legs. In the case of young children, the main prob-
lem in performing this task is connecting the simple
movements of arms and legs for take take-off. Ho-
wever, this test can be used for measuring co-ordi-
nation of young children. Another such test is »Arm
plate tapping«, which estimates an adult’s speed of
alternate hand movements (speed frequency of
hand movement). In the case of small children, this
test should be used to measure also co-ordination.
These claims are the result of this author’s work with
young children over a number of years.
There is also no evidence that the abilities in que-
stion are »motor abilities« (the term used as in the
previous research papers discussing the motor abili-
ties of other ages). Thompson’s sampling theory ap-
plies well when discussing motor behaviour of young
children. It indicates that there is one general ability
that is a combination of elementary abilities. In the
case of young children these elementary motor abi-
lities should be seen as potential abilities. Therefore
the author uses the more appropriate term when dis-
cussing young children - motor behaviour.
METHODS
The sample of motor tests
The motor behaviour of small children has a general
character but we are familiar with the names of mo-
tor abilities which we use for older children and
adults. For this reason in this research the sample of
motor tests is selected based on the model of motor
abilities of youth (Kureli}, Momirovi}, Stojanovi},
[turm, Radojevi} and Viski}-[talec, 1975; Gredelj,
Metiko{, Ho{ek and Momirovi}, 1975), even though
this model is not suitable for pre-school children. 
A) MECHANISM FOR MOVEMENT STRUCTUR-
ING
I Functional co-ordination of primary motor
abilities
1) Test »Obstacle course backwards« 
B) MECHANISM FOR TONUS AND SYNERGETIC
REGULATION
II Frequency of simple movements
2) Test »Arm plate tapping« 
6 Gustav Bala (1999). Some problems and suggestions in measuring motor behaviour of pre-school children. KinSI, 5(1–2) : 5–10

III Flexibility
3) Test »Forward bend and touch on a
bench« 
C) MECHANISM FOR REGULATION OF EXCITA-
TION INTENSITY
IV Explosive strength
4) Test »Standing broad jump« 
D) MECHANISM FOR REGULATION OF EXCITA-
TION DURATION
V Repetitive strength of the trunk
5) Test »Crossed-arm sit-ups« 
VI Static strength of arms
6) Test »Bent arm hang«.
These motor tests are routinely used on older chil-
dren, but they need to be modified before they can
be applied to young children. The modifications oc-
curred in the following tests:
1. Arm plate tapping. The height of the table and the
chair is adjusted for comfortable seating of young
children (if the seat is not made for children, this is
accomplished by putting an additional layer on
the chair as well as under the child’s feet). The in-
side distance between the spaces that hands
touch is 51 cm (61 cm for adults), although that
distance should be even smaller.
2. Forward bend and touch on a bench. The children
perform the deep bow to a large straight-angle ru-
ler, so that it doesn’t hurt the child.
3. Bent arm hang. The bar has a smaller radius than
the regular bar, so the child can grip the bar firm-
ly when holding a pull-up.
A short description of the motor tests follows, with
the appropriate numbers and codes that occur later
in the tables. A more detailed description with the
entire standardisation of tests can be found in the
book »Sport School For Children – the development
of motor behaviour of children« (Bala, 1996).
1.Obstacle course backwards(OBSTACLE)
The child has to walk backwards on all fours and co-
ver the distance of 10m, climb the top of Swedish
bench and go through the frame of the bench. The
task is measured in tens of a second and is repeated
twice, with an appropriate rest time in between.
2.Arm plate tapping (TAPPING)
For fifteen seconds the child has to tap alternately
two plates on the tapping board with his dominant
hand, while holding the other hand in between the
two plates. The result is the number of alternate
double hits. The task is performed twice, with an ap-
propriate rest in between.
3.Forward bend and touch on a bench (FORW-
BEND)
The child stands on a bench and bows as deep as
possible. A straight-angle ruler which points down
with the 40 cm mark at the child’s feet, and 40 cm
below it, is next to him/her. The result is the depth of
the reach measured in cm. The task is performed
three times without any rest.
4.Standing broad jump (STANJUMP)
The child jumps with both feet from the reversed
side of Reuter bounce board onto a carpet which is
marked in cm. The result is the length of the jump in
cm. The task is performed three times without rest.
5.Crossed-arm sit-ups (SIT-UPS)
The child lies on his/her back with his/knees bent
and arms crossed on the opposite shoulders. He/she
raises into a seated position and returns into the star-
ting position. The instructor’s assistant holds the
child’s feet. The result is the number of correctly exe-
cuted raises to the seated position (no longer than
60 seconds). The task is repeated twice, with a rest in
between. 
6.Bent arm hang (ARMHANG)
The child under-grips the bar and holds the pull-up
as long as he/she can (chin above the bar). The result
is the time of the hold measured in tens of a second.
The task is repeated twice with a rest in between. 
This battery of tests has been using used for several
years in the training process at »Munchkin Sport
School« in Novi Sad (Vojvodina) and it is very similar
to the battery of tests in the expert system »Talent« in
Slovenia (Lesko{ek, Bohanec, Kapus and Rajkovi~,
1997).
The validity of these tests were obtained in another
research on very similar sample of subject (Bala,
1999). The entire analysis was made on the basis of
these procedures of result registration in motor te-
sting of the same test: 1) in every test the result was
the first one of two or three repetitions, 2) the best
result of two or three repetitions, 3) the sum of the
results of two or three repetitions, 4) the factor sco-
res of the principal component of the correlation
matrix of every repetition result. In all four analyses,
promax transformation of the principal components
of the corresponding correlation matrix was applied.
7 Gustav Bala (1999). Some problems and suggestions in measuring motor behaviour of pre-school children. KinSI, 5(1–2) : 5–10

The correlations between promax factors were not
statistically significant, so it was concluded that the
two factors obtained for small children (general mo-
tor factor and flexibility) were independent.
Sample of the subjects
The subjects were 54 pre-school boys and 30 girls
with ages between 4-7 (average 5.83 years). The
children attended a special training program on the
development of motor behaviour in »Munchkin
Sport School« in Novi Sad. The sample was consi-
sted of all 84 children, because additional analyses of
subgroups of boys and girls showed that there were
no significant differences in the reliability of the tests,
according to age or gender, therefore the children
were all analysed together.
Data analysis
In the case of true composite tests (consisting of at
least three items), and the two item tests, the follo-
wing procedure was applied:
1) means (AS) and standard deviations (SD) were
calculated for each item (repetition);
2) range of the results was measured (minimum
(MIN) and maximum (MAX));
3) symmetry (skewness – SKEW) and homogeneity
(kurtosis – KURT) of distribution for each item;
4) correlation coefficients between the items was
calculated. In the case of the three item tests, ave-
rage correlation of each items with the other two
(R) was calculated;
5) correlation coefficients of each item with the first
principal component (common object of measu-
rement) with the appropriate motor test (H1);
6) Cronbach coefficient of the generalisation of the
first principal component item re-scaled to anti-
image metrics (α) was calculated.
RESULTS
The results are presented in tables 2 and 3. The first
table shows the number of the items in every test (n),
results of the reliability, based on the average corre-
lation coefficients among the items in every test (R)
and Cronbach’s coefficient of reliability (α).
Table 2. RELIABILITY OF COMPOSITE MOTOR
TESTS ON PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN
Table 3 shows the following for every item in each
test: mean (AS), standard deviation (SD), minimal
(MIN) and maximal (MAX) results of testing, skew-
ness (SKEW), kurtosis (KURT) and correlation coeffi-
cients of composite motor tests with the first main
object of the test measurements (H1).
DISCUSSION
The real indicators of reliability of motor tests (table
2) are results which are above those usually regar-
ded as acceptable in psychometrics. Therefore, it is
8 Gustav Bala (1999). Some problems and suggestions in measuring motor behaviour of pre-school children. KinSI, 5(1–2) : 5–10
Table 1. PATTERN MATRICES OF THE MOTOR FACTORS
Variable First Repetition Best Repetition Sum of repetitions Principal components
F1 F2 F1 F2 F1 F2 F1 F2
OBSTACLE –.85 –.01 –.82 –.04 –.85 –.03 –.85 –.03
TAPPING .85 –.07 .82 .00 .86 –.04 .85 –.02
FORWBEND –.10 .96 –.08 .97 –.11 .97 –.10 .97
STANJUMP .76 –.00 .82 –.07 .84 –.07 .84 –.08
SIT-UPS .77 –.11 .81 –.15 .81 –.11 .81 –.11
ARMHANG .55 .40 .58 .36 .58 .40 .57 .40
TEST N R α
1. OBSTACLE 2 .91 .947
2. TAPPING 2 .85 .915
3. FORWBEND 3 .97 .988
4. STANJUMP 3 .87 .951
5. SIT-UPS 2 .83 .907
6. ARMHANG 2 .85 .921

safe to conclude that all analysis of reliability of mo-
tor tests are quite reliable.
The test »Forward bend and touch on a bench« is the
most reliable one. It is followed by »Obstacle course
backwards« and »Standing broad jump«. It is intere-
sting that »Arm plate tapping« is the least reliable.
This indicates that the desk for tapping should be
modified, as well as the time allowed for testing, sin-
ce children get tired after the tenth second of testing.
The tests for estimation of repetitive strength of the
trunk (Crossed-arm sit-ups) and static strength of
arms and shoulders (Bent arm hang) are the least re-
liable, yet satisfactory in the whole group of tests.
The analysis of the means and standard deviations
of all items in each test (table 3) shows that the se-
cond and third performance of the task gave better
results, except for the tests for the estimation of du-
ration of excitation (strength). We can conclude that
the children were learning how to perform the task
during the first performance, and actually performed
it during the second and third performance. When
performing the tests of maximal strength (Crossed-
arm sit-ups and Bent arm hang) the children had not
recovered from the previous repetition, although
theoretically there was enough time, and therefore
did not perform to the maximum of their ability. The
children also need to be motivated to perform the
same task again with the maximum strive. Variability
of the second and third performance of each motor
task is practically proportional to the change in the
mean of the first performance. This indicates the re-
lative stability in the performance of these motor
tasks on the entire sample of the young children.
According to the characteristics of distribution of the
results of each performance in every test (table 3), it
could be concluded that all tests had slightly asym-
metric (skewness) and not so homogeneous (kurto-
sis) distribution. The test »Obstacle course back-
wards« was easy for most of the children. However,
there were some children that had a lot of trouble
solving this task. The tests »Arm plate tapping« and
»Forward bend and touch on a bench« had relatively
normal distributions of the results in each perfor-
mance. The difficult tests for the children were
»Crossed-arm sit-ups« and »Bent arm hang«. In the
case of the test «Standing broad jump«, the children
mostly learned the technique of synchronising hand
movements with the take-off in the attempts, and
the distribution of the results relatively stable and
reached a shape closer to the normal distribution.
Based on the correlation coefficient with the first
principal component (the main object of measure-
ment of each test), the second performance gave the
most stable and even results. Therefore, it is neces-
sary and sufficient to perform each test twice when
measuring young children. In practical terms, it is ne-
cessary to create the situation where each child tries
the motor test once or twice in order to understand
and warm up for the performance when the result is
measured. This method of testing is suitable for prac-
9 Gustav Bala (1999). Some problems and suggestions in measuring motor behaviour of pre-school children. KinSI, 5(1–2) : 5–10
Table 3. STATISTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MOTOR TESTS
TEST ITEM AS SD MIN MAX SKEW KURT H1
1. OBSTACLE (0.1s) 1 288.6 101.2 124 595 .85 .50 .98
2 251.8 85.6 116 571 1.04 1.66 .98
2. TAPPING (freq.) 1 13.3 3.7 6 22 .14 -.79 .96
2 15.1 4.4 7 26 .30 -.39 .96
3. FORWBEND (cm) 1 42.4 4.6 27 54 -.10 1.53 .98
2 43.0 4.7 28 55 .15 .89 .99
3 43.4 4.9 28 56 .15 1.04 .99
4. STANJUMP (cm) 1 108.3 18.8 70 149 -.08 -.49 .95
2 109.4 19.2 72 150 -.04 -.78 .97
3 111.7 21.5 58 158 -.12 -.43 .95
5. SIT-UPS 1 15.4 8.9 0 39 .50 -.34 .96
(freq.) 2 13.3 8.8 0 36 .63 -.21 .96
6. ARMHANG 1 99.4 86.9 0 368 1.28 1.14 .96
(0.1s) 2 95.5 82.4 0 332 1.31 1.14 .96

tical use in kindergarten, and only one item then
would be used for analysis.
CONCLUSION
The applied motor tests had very good reliability.
They should be used in the modified form described
above when testing pre-school children. For practi-
cal purposes, it is also necessary to give the children
adequate instructions for the performance of each
test, build up their motivation and give them a prac-
tice run of each test. For further research, it is neces-
sary to try out some more modifications of these
tests, as well as on the tests which proved reliable for
adults. Such research provided on larger samples of
pre-school children divided into age subgroups (3,
4, 5, 6, 7 year). The construction of some new and
reliable motor tests for pre-school children is a spe-
cial problem which should be addressed more when
studying motor behaviour of pre-school children. 
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