Interrater Reliability of a Field-Based Preschool Movement Skills Assessment

Area of Science:

• Pediatric movement science
• Early childhood education assessment
• Motor development research

Background:

• Early childhood professionals require reliable tools to assess children's motor skills.
• Field-based assessments are crucial for practical application in preschool settings.
• The Preschool Movement Assessment (PMA) is a novel tool designed for this purpose.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the interrater reliability of the Preschool Movement Assessment (PMA).
• To establish the consistency of the PMA when used by different early childhood professionals.
• To validate the PMA as a dependable tool for preschool environments.

Main Methods:

• 123 preschool children (aged 3-5 years) participated in the study.
• Six trained raters administered the PMA during an intervention.
• Interrater agreement was statistically analyzed using kappa (κ) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

Main Results:

• Weighted kappa (κ) values ranged from 0.82 to 0.96, signifying excellent agreement for all PMA constructs.
• All weighted kappa values were statistically significant, confirmed by 95% confidence intervals.
• The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for the total PMA score was 0.97, indicating high reliability.

Conclusions:

• The Preschool Movement Assessment (PMA) demonstrates excellent interrater reliability.
• The PMA is a dependable tool for early childhood professionals to assess motor skills.
• Further research may support the PMA's use in establishing developmental benchmarks for school readiness.