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

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.