aquatic literacy; children; motor competence; parents; perceived competence; pictorial scale; proxy report; self-perception; swimming; water safety; Child; Female; Humans; Male; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Swimming; Drowning; Motor Skills; Child, Preschool; Experimental and Cognitive Psychology; Sensory Systems
Abstract :
[en] As drowning is a leading cause of unintentional injury/death in children worldwide, perceptions of their actual aquatic skills are of critical importance. Children's self-perceptions may influence the risks they take, and parental perceptions may influence the degree of supervision deemed to be necessary for children in and around water. Accordingly, we examined the differences between young children's actual, self-perceived and parent-perceived aquatic skills. Using a three-way repeated measures ANCOVA, we analyzed data from 134 child-parent dyads (56.0% boys; M age = 7.1, SD = 1.1 years; and 71.6% mothers). We measured self and parental perceptions of the child's aquatic skills with the 'Pictorial Scale of Perceived Water Competence' (PSPWC), and we applied the exact same 17 test items of the PSPWC to assess the child's actual aquatic skill level in the water. Controlling for years of swimming school experience, within-subject differences between the total scores on the 'Actual Aquatic Skills Test' (AAST) and both the child- and parent-completed PSPWC indicated lower than actual estimates of the children's aquatic skill level. The degree of disagreement against the AAST was more pronounced in parents than in 6-7 year-old children but was similar between parents and 8-9 year-old children, with these patterns being evident regardless of the children's sex. Our study contributes to an ongoing validation of the PSPWC and represents a key advance in assessing and comparing children's actual and perceived aquatic skill competence, using perfectly aligned instruments. Future research and practice might explore children's actual aquatic skills in different contexts (e.g., open water), include perspectives of non-parent caregivers and assess perceived and actual water competence across development.
Disciplines :
Education & instruction
Author, co-author :
D'Hondt, Eva ; Research Unit on Movement and Nutrition for Health and Performance, Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Buelens, Lise; Research Unit on Movement and Nutrition for Health and Performance, Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Barnett, Lisa M; Institute of Physical Activity and Nutrition, School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia
Howells, Kristy ; School of Psychology and Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Social Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK
Sääkslahti, Arja; Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
Costa, Aldo M; Research Centre in Sports, Health and Human Development, Department of Sports Sciences, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
Jidovtseff, Boris ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences de la motricité > Déterminants de la performance et aspects généraux de l'entraînement - Aspects spécifiques de l'entraînement y compris de haut niveau
Mertens, Lisa; Research Unit on Movement and Nutrition for Health and Performance, Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Martelaer, Kristine De ; Research Unit on Movement and Nutrition for Health and Performance, Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Language :
English
Title :
Differences between Young Children's Actual, Self-perceived and Parent-perceived Aquatic Skills.
The authors would like to thank all participating children and their parent(s)/guardian as well as the swimming schools for their contribution to the present study. Special thanks also goes to the university students involved in organizing and completing the data collection as well as to the members of the international expert group (which started as an Early Years Special Interest Group of the International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education (AIESEP) in 2016) for developing the Pictorial Scale for Perceived Water Competence (PSPWC) testing manual and making it freely available at http://hdl.handle.net/2268/246746. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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