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Validity and reliability of the medicine ball throw for kindergarten children
Kathryn L Davis1, Minsoo Kang, Boni B Boswell
1Department of Exercise and Sport Science, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. daviska@ecu.edu
Insights
The medicine ball throw test is a reliable and valid measure of upper-body strength for young children. This study provides evidence supporting its use in kindergarten students.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric physical assessment
- Motor development research
- Childhood kinesiology
Background:
- Kindergarten students are an underrepresented group in physical assessment literature.
- Establishing reliable and valid tests for this age group is crucial for monitoring development.
- Existing upper-body strength tests may not be suitable for young children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To establish validity and reliability evidence for the medicine ball throw test.
- To assess the medicine ball throw test's suitability for kindergarten students (ages 5-7).
- To address the lack of literature on physical assessments for this demographic.
Main Methods:
- 105 kindergarten students (ages 5-7) participated.
- The medicine ball throw test was administered twice on separate days.
- The modified pull-up test served as the criterion measure for validity.
- Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) assessed reliability.
- Pearson correlation coefficients and paired t-tests examined validity.
Main Results:
- High reliability was found for the medicine ball throw test (ICCs ranging from 0.88 to 0.94).
- Scores positively correlated with height and weight (r = 0.34).
- Significant differences were observed between age groups, supporting known-groups validity (t = -3.23, p = 0.002).
- No significant correlation was found with the modified pull-up test (r = -0.04).
Conclusions:
- The medicine ball throw test demonstrates strong reliability and validity for kindergarten children.
- The test is a suitable measure of upper-body strength in this population.
- Further research could explore correlations with other strength-related measures.
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to establish validity and reliability evidence for the medicine ball throw test for kindergarten students, an underrepresented group in the literature. The subjects were 105 students, 5-7 years old, BMI 17.44 +/- 3.17 kg x m(-2), 43% female and 57% male. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were used to examine reliability, and Pearson correlation coefficients and a paired t-test were used to examine validity. To accomplish this, the kindergarten students completed the medicine ball throw test on two different days and the modified pull-up test, the "criterion" measure, on another day. For the medicine ball throw, each student sat on the floor before throwing the medicine ball forward like a chest pass three times. The medicine ball throw was highly reliable both within 1 day (ICCs = 0.93 and 0.94 for day 1 and day 2, respectively) and across 2 days (ICC = 0.88), with all reliability estimates over the acceptable level of 0.80. The medicine ball throw scores were positively related with height (r = 0.34) and weight (r = 0.34), and there was a significant difference between the 5-year-old group (mean +/- SD; 111.78 +/- 34.93) and the 6-year-old group (135.60 +/- 39.77), t = -3.23, p = 0.002, which supports correlational and known-difference evidence of validity for the medicine ball throw test. Even though no correlation was found between the medicine ball throw test and the modified pull-up test, r = -0.04, other forms of validity evidence (i.e., known-difference and correlational) were apparent. In conclusion, the medicine ball throw test seems to be a valid and reliable measure of upper-body strength for kindergarten children.
