Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Human Performance

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Motor competence assessment (MCA) scoring method

Publication . Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; Luz, Carlos J.; Cordovil, Rita; Pombo, André; Lopes, Vitor P.

The Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) is a quantitative test battery that assesses motor competence across the whole lifespan. It is composed of three sub-scales: locomotor, stability, and manipulative, each of them assessed by two different objectively measured tests. The MCA construct validity for children and adolescents, having normative values from 3 to 23 years of age, and the configural invariance between age groups, were recently established. The aim of this study is to expand the MCA’s development and validation by defining the best and leanest method to score and classify MCA sub-scales and total score. One thousand participants from 3 to 22 years of age, randomly selected from the Portuguese database on MC, participated in the study. Three different procedures to calculate the sub-scales and total MCA values were tested according to alternative models. Results were compared to the reference method, and Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, Cronbach’s Alpha, and Bland–Altman statistics were used to describe agreement between the three methods. The analysis showed no substantial differences between the three methods. Reliability values were perfect (0.999 to 1.000) for all models, implying that all the methods were able to classify everyone in the same way. We recommend implementing the most economic and efficient algorithm, i.e., the configural model algorithm, averaging the percentile scores of the two tests to assess each MCA sub-scale and total scores

2022Journal article

Open access

Model invariance of the Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) from early childhood to young adulthood

Publication . Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; Cordovil, Rita; Luz, Carlos J.; Lopes, Vitor P.

The Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) is an innovative instrument to assess motor competence along the lifespan. The MCA model and normative values were recently established from the age of 3-to-23 years old. The purpose of this study was to validate MCA from early childhood to young adulthood. One thousand participants representing four age groups (3–6, 7–10, 11–16, 17–22 years) with 250 participants each, were assessed. Invariance of the MCA model along the age groups–configural, metric and structural–was tested using multigroup CFA. The MCA model showed to fit well all age groups. The multigroup unconstrained model showed a very good fit (NFI=0.99; TLI=0.99; CFI=0.99; RMSEA=0.03). A formal test for the invariance of loading coefficients returned a non-satisfactory goodness-of-fit adjustment and a significant difference with the unconstrained model (Δχ2 = 539.57; Δdf = 18; p= .00). The structural invariance testing did not show formal invariance between factor correlations (Δχ2 = 73.04; Δdf = 9; p= .00) but the fit of the model was acceptable (above 0.96 and a RMSEA of 0.05), indicating that correlation values inter factors are stable. This study adds information for the validation of the MCA as a useful instrument for assessing motor competence throughout the life cycle.

2021Journal article

Restricted access

Estimation of the Best Method for the Calculation of the Subscales and Total Scores of the Motor Competence Assessment (MCA)

Publication . Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; Cordovil, Rita; Luz, Carlos J.; Lopes, Vitor P.; Pombo, André

The MCA (Motor Competence Assessment) is an instrument to assess motor competence (MC). along the lifespan. For the first time, we can assess MC from childhood to old age using the same instrument, without an age ceiling effect and of feasible and objective execution. After establishing the MCA construct validity, the six tests’ normative values from childhood to young adulthood were published, and recently, the invariance of the MCA across age groups was assessed. The aim of this study is now to find the best method for the calculation of the subscales and total MCA scores. One thousand participants representing four age group subsamples (3-to-6, 7-to-10, 11-to-16, and 17-to-22 years) with 250 participants each, were assessed on the MCA, and their results on the sub-scales were calculated according to three different methods: (1) a general factor score index, where each item’s weight is derived from its factor loading of the MCA model; (2) an age-group factor score index, where each item’s weight is derived from its factor loading of the respective age-group MCA model; and (3) an equal score index with a non-weighed participation of each test for the subscale calculation. Each subscale was calculated using the three tested methods, and the results compared using bivariate correlations and intraclass correlations for the all sample and for each agegroup sub-sample. Results showed a very high agreement between the three methods tested with intraclass correlations and bivariate correlations values higher than 0.99. These results allow to conclude for the use of the simpler method for calculating the MCA subscales, there is to use equal weights for each test. In conclusion we suggest that, after being transformed into age and sex normative values (percentiles), an average of the two tests of each MCA subscale can be used to adequately represent the individual motor competence on that category (locomotor, stability, or manipulative), and a total MCA score can be found by the average of all six tests

2022Conference object

Open access