Age- and gender-related normative values of the athletic skills track for 5- to 12-year-old spanish children

Although motor competence in children is considered an important component of an active lifestyle, there are not many product-oriented tools to assess it in primary school settings. Therefore, the aim of this cross-sectional study was to provide age- and gender-related normative values for the Athletic Skill Track (AST-1, AST-2 and AST-3) for Spanish children from 5 to 12 years old (M_age = 8.73 ± 2.02). A total of 1,257 children (54% boys and 46% girls) from seven schools in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) participated in the study. All of them were Spanish-speaking, of Caucasian origin and of middle and upper-middle socioeconomic status. Motor competence was tested by the AST. Both descriptive and inferential analyses were performed. Also, age- and gender-related reference centiles were derived per track. The results showed that boys are significantly faster on AST-2 and AST-3, but not on AST-1 compared to girls. In comparison with Dutch children, the norm values of the Spanish children are significantly lower. In conclusion, physical education teachers can quantify the level of motor competence of Spanish 5- to 12-year-old children to identify the progress and compare it with their peers, as well as explore possible effects of interventions or programmes.