engleski

Factor structure of motor abilities of 6.5-year- old Boys and girls

Taking into consideration the current theoretical knowledge as well as the experiences acquired through practical work with pre-school children, it can be concluded that the structure of latent motor ability dimensions differ a lot both among school children and adults. Unfortunately, the knowledge of latent motor ability dimensions of pre-school children is still insufficient, which can primarily be attributed to development features, as well as to the specific ways of working with this particular population. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better definition of latent motor ability structure of both boys and girls. The sample contained of 106 6.5-year-old boys and 121 girls, tested with a batch of 18 composite tests for evaluation of six hypothetical latent motor dimensions, three for each of them (coordination, flexibility, power, agility, accuracy and balance). Having performed the rotation of initial coordinate system according to Varimax criterion six factors extracted among boys were defined as: general motor ability factor, coordination, balance, undefined factor x, undefined factor y, flexibility. The total of 65% of latent space variance was explained. 64% of variance was explained for girls. Latent motor ability structure consists of seven factors as follows: general motor ability factor, coordination, balance, undefined factor x, undefined factor y, accuracy and undefined factor z. From everything above mentioned it can be seen that the latent structure of boys and girls differs according to the number of extracted factors and their possible interpretation.This research confirms that in this period of development certain latent dimensions were defined, but they can be expected to a greater extent among school children. It was also confirmed that the latent dimension structure of the children of this age also varies according to gender.

motor abilities; children; boys; girls

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