Assessing the capabilities of 11-year-olds for three types of basic physical activities

Before promoting certain types of physical activities, the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Department of Malta wanted to know whether children knew how to perform them in the first place, and if not, what barriers they had encountered. A cross-sectional, self-reported study involved 11-year-old students (boys and girls) from Form 1 classes of six state schools that were equally distributed throughout the northern, middle and southern regions of the island. The sample size (n = 581) represented 18.3% of the whole population of state Form 1s. The analysis involving a one-page questionnaire was conducted anonymously. The investigated motor skills were cycling, rope skipping and swimming. The most common physical activity that was relatively easy to perform was swimming (95% boys; 94% girls), followed by cycling (90% boys; 82% girls). The least popular activity was rope skipping (47% boys; 88% girls). The results showed that in general, these 11-year-olds knew how to perform these basic activities. The reasons for not knowing how to ride a bicycle, skip a rope or swim were also investigated. The children were also allowed to state other reasons that impeded them from doing these activities. Except for rope skipping in boys, the local authorities are in a better position to promote these types of physical activities on a regular basis and to eliminate the barriers which impede other children from performing them.