Deriving and validating a short version of the Physical Literacy in Children Questionnaire

Physical literacy encompasses individual capabilities for lifelong physical activity. The Physical Literacy in Children Questionnaire (PL-C Quest) is a 30-item pictorial tool designed to measure children's physical literacy across four domains (physical, psychological, social, cognitive). However, a shorter version may be desirable for research and practice. Therefore, the study goal was to derive a short version of the PL-C Quest.

Observational/cross-sectional.

The PL-C Quest was completed by children aged 8-12 years (N = 620) via digital tablet. To select the most indicative items, we calculated a self-developed aggregate score consisting of nine indicators: factor loading, internal consistency, item difficulty, item-total correlation, univariate and multivariate associations with proxy-reported physical activity, eligibility for boys and for girls (test fairness/subgroup validity), and cross-cultural generalisability. Items with the highest scores in each domain (points [pts]) were selected for the short version. We analysed the association between the sum scores of the short and long version.

The items 'speed' (22pts), 'cardiovascular endurance' (20pts), 'muscular endurance' (20pts), and 'movement skills' (5pts) were selected for the physical domain; 'motivation' (20pts), 'engagement/enjoyment' (19pts), and 'confidence' (14pts) for the psychological; 'relationships' (15pts) and 'society/culture' (14pts) for the social; 'strategy/planning' (20 pts), 'tactics' (18pts), and 'content knowledge' (17pts) for the cognitive domain. The domain-specific aggregate scores of the short version were strongly related to the respective scores of the long version (0.74 ≤ r ≤ 0.84).

The 12 items cover diverse yet central elements of children's physical literacy and empirically informed a short version of the PL-C Quest.