The Effect of Awareness of Physical Activity on the Characteristics of Motor Ability Among Five-Year-Old Children

We examined the relationship between the types of awareness about physical activity and motor ability among Japanese 5-year-old children. Data were collected from 169 five-year-old children (85 boys and 84 girls). We found that children's awareness of their own physical activity (liking, enjoyment, and the confidence in physical activity as their physical competence) and actual motor ability (20-m sprint, standing broad jump, throwing a tennis ball) were weakly associated. Moreover, in classifying children's awareness of physical activity, we extracted four clusters of awareness characteristics. Notably, we found that some children with negative awareness did not have poor motor ability, whereas some children with positive awareness did not have good motor ability. Understanding these phenomena would be essential for building exciting environments that help all children view physical activity as play.