The Comparison of School-Age Children's Performance on Two Motor Assessments: The Test of Gross Motor Development and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children

Background: Competence in the motor domain is associated with positive, health-related outcomes. Physical education teachers often administer assessments into their programs to measure motor competence for a variety of reasons. Recently, researchers have questioned the relatedness of performance on different assessments. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare motor assessment outcomes of the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (TGMD-2) and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2) in school-age children. Method: Sixty-five children (M?=?6.7 years) completed the TGMD-2 and the MABC-2. The TGMD-2 includes two subscales: object control and locomotor skills. The MABC-2 includes three subscales: manual dexterity, aiming and catching, and balance. Standard scores and percentile rankings were used for analysis. Findings: Although 10 of the possible 12 Pearson correlations were significant, the range of r² values was 0.07-0.27 indicating low practical significance. A paired samples t-test revealed that participants scored higher on the MABC-2 (M?=?42.2 percentile) compared to the TGMD-2 (M?=?17.2 percentile, p?<?0.01). A 2 (sex) × 3 (grade) MANOVA revealed no significant sex differences on total performance of the TGMD-2 (F?=?0.85, p?=?0.36) or the MABC-2 (F?=?0.2, p?=?0.66), indicating that boys and girls performed similarly on each assessment. Results also revealed no significant differences on total performance on the MABC-2 (F?=?0.93, p?=?0.4) based on the grade level. However, a grade difference was found on the TGMD-2 (F?=?4.3, p?=?0.02; ?²?=?0.128). Tukey's post hoc analysis revealed a significantly higher TGMD-2 performance for first graders compared to second graders (p?=?0.03). No significant interaction effect was found for either assessment (p?>?0.05). Results indicate that both assessments agreed on 9 out of 11 possible children as at-risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder (81.8% agreement) and 27 out of 29 children as delayed in the motor domain (93.1% agreement). Conclusions: The TGMD-2 and MABC-2 measure different aspects and/or levels of motor competence and should not be used interchangeably. Each assessment may be used to complement each other. Given the level of agreement between the TGMD-2 and the MABC-2 to identify children as at-risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder and developmentally delayed in the motor domain, it may be recommended that physical education teachers administer the TGMD-2 as part of annual testing. Physical educators can act as the first line of defense in early identification of motor delay and can make the appropriate referral based on TGMD-2 performance.