Background: The assessment of perschoolers’ motor skills is essential to know young children’s motor development and evaluate the intervention effects of promotion in children’s sport activities. The purpose of this study was to review the motor skills assessment tools in Chinese preschool-aged children, compare them in the international context, and provide guidelines to find appropriate motor skill assessment tool in China.
Methods: The comprehensive literature search was carried out in WANGFAGN, CNKI, VIP, ERIC, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Ovid PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus and BIOSIS previews databases. Relevant articles published between January 2000 and May 2020 were retrieved. Studies that described the discriminative and evaluative measures of motor skills among the population aged 3-6 years in China were included.
Results: A total of 17 studies were included in this review describing 7 tools including 4 self-developed tools and 3 international tools used in China. TGMD-2 appeared in a large proportion of studies, international tools used in China were incomplete in terms of translation, verification of reliability and validity, item selection and the implementation. Regarding the self-constructed tools, the CDCC was the most utilized self-developed tool, but it was mainly applied in intellectual development assessment. Through the comparison between Chinese self-constructed and international tools, the construction of the CDCC and the Gross Motor Development Assessment Scale contained relatively complete development steps. The test content, validity and reliability, implementation instruction, and generalizability of self-constructed tools are still lacking.
Conclusions: Both international and self-developed motor skills assessment tools have been rarely applied in China, available tools lack enough validation and appropriate adjustments. Cultural differences in motor development between Chinese and Western populations should be considered when constructing a Chinese localized MSAT.