The relationship of process and product performance of the two-handed sidearm strike

Background: Many researchers are concerned with the proficiency of children in movement education. They are expressing this concern through the assessment of fundamental motor skills, owing to the established links between the proficiency of fundamental motor skills and subsequent involvement in sport and physical activity. The assessment of fundamental motor skills has predominantly employed a qualitative approach. Another form of assessment involves quantitative measurement; however, the relationship between process and product assessment paradigms is largely unexplored. Purpose: To investigate the relationship between the movement process and product measures of fundamental motor skill performances for primary school-aged children. The relationship between process and product assessment of fundamental motor skills is at the centre of this research. Participants: included 161 six to ten year-old children including 86 girls and 75 boys. The primary school-aged children participated in the study after parental permission and university ethics approval for the research were granted. Research design: involved a cross-sectional design which involved collecting data in an ‘ecologically valid’ environment—a school playground. Children were withdrawn from class three at a time and individually asked to strike the ball from a batting tee for three warm-up trials. Six trials for each child were measured in terms of process and product performance. Data collection: occurred in the school. The students were video recorded as they performed six trials of tee-ball striking, responding to the task goal of ‘hit the ball as far as you can into the batting V’. These recordings were later coded using a (process) amalgamated striking instrument that is comprised of three levels of efficiency for 10 components of the strike. The components of the process instrument were derived from both the Component Approach and the Total Body Configuration models. The distance or product scores were measured from the batting tee to the resting place of the ball. Data analysis: The six trials for the 161 children were analysed by firstly taking the process observations and coding them using the amalgamated striking instrument. These process codes were analysed using the partial credit form of Rasch (Quest) analysis. Subsequently, Quest provided case estimates, transforming ordinal observations to interval data. These process data were then compared to other interval measures—the distance measured in metres represented the product of the performance. Process scores (case estimates) were compared to product (metres) data to find the relationship. Findings: A significant correlation between the process and product measures for each of the six trials (r = .51 − .66, p < .0001) indicated there is a positive relationship between the process and product measures of the fundamental motor skill performance of the strike for each of the six trials. Conclusion: The application of the Rasch model allows for investigation of two different forms of data (ordinal and interval). The exploration of the relationship between process and product performance indicates the significant correlation between the two performances for these data. Choice of assessment technique now is more open, with some confidence in the association established for these two techniques. With considerable variance still unaccounted for, further exploration of this type of investigation would be prudent.