Validation process and use of the pictorial scale of perceived water competence (PSPWC): past and future challenges

Background: In 2017 a collective of international experts decided to develop a new tool able to measure perceived water competence in children aged 4 to 8: the pictorial scale of perceived water competence (PSPWC)(1). This project arose from a growing scientific interest in measuring perceived motor skills in children. Water competence is a highly specific context that was not included into existing perceived motor competence tools and the PSPWC fill this gap. The aim of this work is to evaluate the tool and identify what remains to be done to improve.
Methods-Results: All studies on PSPWC were analyzed for the purpose of this report. The tool was developed using a Delphi method, resulting in a pictorial scale of 17 situations of increasing difficulty. The situations focus on fundamental aquatic skills with 3 levels of aptitude for each item. The PSPWC psychometric analysis process explored facial validation by children, content validation by experts, internal consistency of items and test-retest reliability. Several studies have also examined the relationship between perceived and actual aquatic skills. These preliminary studies show that, overall, the tool has good psychometric qualities, but could benefit from a few improvements. The relevance of certain situations is questionable, while new dimensions could be added. The existence of a ceiling effect for children well familiar with water demonstrates the need to extend the tool to more complex skills. A modified, shorter version of the test was developed in Australia, adding a 4th level to reduce the ceiling effect. The tool remains focused on aquatic skills and has other limitations that could be the subject of future development. The situations are still specific to the swimming pool and make no reference to the open water situations encountered by a large number of children. The identification of potentially dangerous situations could also be developed in the context of work on water safety. It might also be interesting to see how the tool could further integrate the dimensions of aquatic literacy.
Conclusions: The analysis shows the relevance of the PSPWC as a whole, but also highlights the need to improve its discriminating nature and extend the dimensions covered to the context of water safety and aquatic literacy.
1. Morgado LDS et al. Pictorial scale of perceived water competence (PSPWC) testing manual -. Belgium: University of Liege; 2020