Inter- and intra-rater reliability of two aquatic safety skill assessment tools

Learning to swim is recommended as an important layer of protection in drowning prevention. However, identifying what aquatic skill(s) are essential, and the absence of a gold or industry standard makes establishing the reliability of learn to swim assessment difficult.

Five aquatic skills aligned with water safety and survival, from the Australian Water Safety Council's 2016 benchmark, were included in a cross-sectional study designed to test the reliability of two assessment tools: 1. competent/not yet competent and 2. RAEE (Refuse, Assisted, Effective, Efficient) assessment tool. Twelve participants (raters) from a single Gold Level AUSTSWIM recognised swim centre completed the assessment across three sessions and inter- (weighted kappa) and intra-rater (Chi squares) reliability was calculated.

There was limited/poor inter and intra rater reliability for both assessment methods and this increased across sessions for three of the five chosen skills (crouch dive, sidestroke and compact jump). RAEE assessment tool demonstrated lower inter- and intra-rater reliability (poor to fair) when compared to use of the C/NYC assessment method (fair to moderate) across five water safety skills.

Regardless of the assessment approach taken, both inter and intra - rater reliability was limited when assessing water safety skills. A lack of consensus was found relating to proficiency in performance and raters lacked a clear understanding of the complexities involved in assessment, including an established foundation of what proficient motor skills performance looks like.