Tese Doutoramento Versão Definitiva FSF

Ass:_________________
Data:________________
G.D.nº_______________
Requerimento de Entrega de Teses/Relatórios Definitivos de Doutoramento
Fábio Saraiva Flôres

Eu _______________________________________________________________________________________
969959099
com o Telefone nº___________________ flores.saraiva@gmail.com
e-mail _________________________________________________
procedi à submissão neste dia da tese definitiva relativas à defesa pública do Curso de Doutoramento:
Motricidade Humana
Ramo:____________________________________________________________________________________
Comportamento Motor
Especialidade:______________________________________________________________________________
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence

Título:_____________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Procedi também, à entrega da Declaração referente à disponibilização para consulta digital através do
Repositório Digital da Universidade de Lisboa.
Autorizo que a FMH me comunique por telefone ou por correio eletrónico os despachos, editais e outras informações
relacionadas com a minha atividade académica.
Não autorizo que a FMH me comunique por telefone ou por correio eletrónico os despachos, editais e outras informações
relacionadas com a minha atividade académica, devendo a mesma ser exclusivamente estabelecida sob a forma de ofício
(registado e com aviso de recção).
29
Cruz Quebrada, ________ OUTUBRO
de ____________________ 20
de 20____
ass: ____________________________________________________________________________________
Faculdade de Motricidade Humana • Estrada da Costa • 1499 - 002 Cruz Quebrada • Lisboa • Portugal
Tel.: 351 21 414 91 00 • FAX: 351 21 415 12 48 • E-mail: fmh@fmh.ulisboa.pt
DECLARAÇÃO

Nome: ______________________________________________________________________________________
flores.saraiva@gmail.com
Correio eletrónico: ____________________________________________Telefone: 969959099
________________________
0k806p544
Número do Documento de Identificação: _________________________
Título da tese: _______________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Profª. Drª. Rita Cordovil - FMH/ULisboa
Orientador (es): ______________________________________________________________________________
Profº. Drº. Luis Paulo Rodrigues (coorientador) - Escola Superior Desporto e Lazer de Melgaço,
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo
_________________________________________________Ano 2020
de conclusão (defesa da tese): ______________
Faculdade de Motricidade Humana
Faculdade /Instituto: ___________________________________________________________________________
Comportamento Motor
Designação do Ramo de Conhecimento do Doutoramento:_____________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Declaro sob compromisso de honra que a tese agora entregue corresponde à versão final apresentada ao júri.
Declaro que concedo à Universidade de Lisboa e aos seus agentes uma licença não-exclusiva para arquivar e
tornar acessível, nomeadamente através do seu repositório institucional, nas condições abaixo indicadas, a minha
tese, no todo ou em parte, em suporte digital.
Declaro que autorizo a Universidade de Lisboa a arquivar e, sem alterar o conteúdo, converter a tese entregue,
para qualquer formato de ficheiro, meio ou suporte, nomeadamente através da sua digitalização, para efeitos de
preservação e acesso.
Concordo que a minha tese seja colocada no Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa com o seguinte estatuto
(assinale apenas uma das hipóteses):
1.  Disponibilização imediata do conjunto do trabalho para acesso mundial;

2.  Disponibilização do conjunto do trabalho para acesso exclusivo na Universidade de Lisboa durante o período
de  1 ano,  2 anos ou  3 anos - após o período assinalado autorizo o acesso mundial (anexo justificação do
embargo devidamente assinada pelo orientador);
3.  Disponibilização apenas dos metadados descritivos (autor, título e resumo, entre outros) sendo que anexo
justificação da não disponibilização do texto integral, assinada pelo orientador).
Retenho todos os direitos de autor relativos à tese e o direito de a usar em trabalhos futuros.
29 10 2020
Lisboa, ___/___/______
Assinatura: _______________________________________________________________________________
Faculdade de Motricidade Humana • Estrada da Costa • 1499 - 002 Cruz Quebrada • Lisboa • Portugal
Tel.: 351 21 414 91 00 • FAX: 351 21 415 12 48 • E-mail: fmh@fmh.ulisboa.pt
Universidade de Lisboa
Orientadores: Professora Doutora Rita Cordovil de Matos e Professor Doutor

Luis Paulo Lopes Brandão Areosa Rodrigues (coorientador)
Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor em

Motricidade Humana, na especialidade Comportamento Motor
2020
Universidade de Lisboa
Orientadores: Professora Doutora Rita Cordovil de Matos e Professor Doutor

Luis Paulo Lopes Brandão Areosa Rodrigues (coorientador)
Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor em

Motricidade Humana, na especialidade Comportamento Motor
Júri:
Presidente:
Professor Doutor Francisco José Bessone Ferreira Alves
Vogais:
Professor Doutor Carlos Alberto Ferreira Neto
Professora Doutora Rita Cordovil de Matos
Professora Doutora Maria Olga Fernandes Vasconcelos
Professor Doutor Rui Manuel Sousa Mendes
Professora Doutora Guida Filipa Veiga Moutinho
2020
“O que dá o verdadeiro sentido ao encontro é a busca, e é preciso andar muito
para se alcançar o que está perto.”
José Saramago, 1997.
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence i

Acknowledgements in Portuguese
Agradecimentos
Gostaria de agradecer a todos que fizeram parte desse momento tão especial
para mim. Meu agradecimento às várias pessoas que participaram e se
envolveram na elaboração dessa tese, as quais foram essenciais durante todo
esse longo percurso.
Aos meus pais, João Rodolpho e Ecilda, pela sabedoria, esforço, dedicação,
apoio, paciência e amor nessa jornada. À minha irmã Caroline por sempre
acreditar no meu potencial. Sem vocês eu não conseguiria.
À Mariana, que me apoia em todos os momentos, não me deixa desistir e faz

com que eu cresça como profissional e ser humano, desde o dia que nos
conhecemos. Sem a tua presença, força, carinho, amor e incentivo eu não seria
metade do que eu sou hoje.
Aos amigos, colegas e alunos, do Brasil e de Portugal, que fizeram parte dessa
jornada. Vocês sempre serão lembrados pela dedicação ao que fazem.
Aos pais, crianças, professores e funcionários das escolas, pela disponibilidade

em ajudar. Sem o vosso auxílio essa tese não existiria.
Aos meus professores do doutoramento. As conversas, debates, e

conhecimentos trocados nesse período foram fundamentais para o meu
crescimento enquanto professor e pesquisador.
Aos colegas Dr. Frederico Lopes e Dr. Carlos Luz, pelas excelentes
contribuições nos artigos que compõem essa tese.
Ao meu amigo, Prof. Dr. Fernando Copetti. Muito obrigado pela contribuição,
orientações e conselhos, os quais levo comigo desde 2007.
Finalmente, aos meus orientadores, Profª. Drª. Rita Cordovil e Prof. Dr. Luis
Paulo Rodrigues. O processo foi longo e cansativo, mas sem a vossa imensa
ajuda, respeito e paciência, a tese não teria sentido. Muito obrigado!
A todos vocês, meu eterno agradecimento!
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence ii

Abstract
ABSTRACT
This thesis addresses the importance of assessing children's regular contexts in
order to better understand their influence on motor competence. School-aged
children regularly attend different contexts, such as the home, school, sport
contexts, and other settings, which might have characteristics that promote or
hinder the development of motor competence providing different opportunities or
affordances for action that are fundamental in this life stage. As a starting point,
a wide literature review was conducted to investigate how other studies have
assessed the availability of affordances in the school-aged children's
microsystems (Chapter 2). This review showed a gap in the literature regarding
the existence of a valid instrument to assess the opportunities for action available
to children in their regular environments. To fill this gap, a valid instrument was
proposed. The following chapters (Chapter 3 and 4) were designed to present the
Affordance for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS). This parent report
questionnaire assesses the interdependent systems, such as the home, school,
and sports activities, that can influence 6 to 10-year-old children's motor
competence. Chapter 5 examines the affordances provided to children using the
AMBS estimating its association with children’s motor competence. Better
context conditions were associated with a better development of schoolchildren’s
motor competence. Chapter 6 aimed to compare the motor competence levels of
Brazilian and Portuguese children, trying to better understand differences in
cultural contexts and how regular environments can influence children. This
thesis's main results showed that contexts that children regularly attend to are
associated with their motor competence. In addition, our findings showed that
motor competence increases with age, and boys outperform girls. Also, Brazilian
boys performed above Portuguese normative values in 4 of the 6 motor
competence tasks, and Brazilian girls perform below those values in all tasks,
except for the standing long jump. This thesis contributes to present a new tool
to assess the quantity and quality of the affordances in children's microsystems,
and to a better understand how children can be influenced by the different
contexts.
Keywords: affordances; environment; motor competence; children; assessment
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence iii

Abstract in Portuguese
RESUMO
Esta tese aborda a importância de avaliar os contextos que as crianças

frequentam regularmente, com o objetivo de entender melhor sua influência na
competência motora. Crianças em idade escolar frequentam regularmente
microssistemas diferentes, como a casa, a escola, os contextos desportivos e
outros ambientes, os quais podem ter características que promovem ou
dificultam o desenvolvimento da competência motora, ao oferecer diferentes
oportunidades de ação que são fundamentais nesta etapa da vida. Como ponto
de partida, foi realizada uma ampla revisão da literatura para investigar como
outros estudos avaliaram a disponibilidade de affordances nos microssistemas
das crianças em idade escolar (capítulo 2). Esta revisão mostrou uma lacuna na
literatura em relação à existência de um instrumento válido para avaliar as
oportunidades de ação disponíveis para crianças nos ambientes que frequentam
regularmente. Para preencher esta lacuna, foi proposto um instrumento válido.
Os capítulos a seguir (capítulos 3 e 4) foram elaborados para apresentar o
instrumento Affordance for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS). Este
questionário de relato dos pais avalia os sistemas interdependentes, como a
casa, a escola e as atividades desportivas, que podem influenciar a competência
motora das crianças de 6 a 10 anos. O capítulo 5 avalia as affordances
oferecidas às crianças usando o questionário AMBS, estimando a sua
associação com a competência motora. Ambientes com melhores condições
foram associados a um melhor desenvolvimento da competência motora dos
alunos. O capítulo 6 teve como objetivo comparar os níveis de competência
motora de crianças brasileiras e portuguesas, tentando entender melhor as
diferenças nos contextos culturais e de que forma podem influenciá-las. Os
principais resultados desta tese mostraram que os contextos que as crianças
frequentam regularmente estão associados à sua competência motora. Além
disso, os nossos resultados indicam que a competência motora aumenta com a
idade e os rapazes apresentam maiores níveis comparados às raparigas. Além
disso, os rapazes brasileiros apresentam melhores resultados do que os valores
normativos portugueses em 4 das 6 tarefas de competência motora. Por outro
lado, as raparigas brasileiras estão abaixo desses valores em todas as tarefas,
exceto no salto em comprimento. Esta tese contribui para apresentar uma nova
ferramenta para avaliar a quantidade e a qualidade das affordances nos
microssistemas infantis e para entender melhor como as crianças podem ser
influenciadas pelos diferentes contextos.
Palavras-chave: affordances; competência motora; crianças; avaliação
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence iv

Publications
Parts of this thesis have been or will be submitted for publication in high-
quality peer journals:
Published Articles:
Flôres, Fábio Saraiva; Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; Copetti, Fernando; Lopes,
Frederico; & Cordovil, Rita. (2019). Affordances for Motor Skill
Development in Home, School, and Sport Environments: A Narrative
Review. Perceptual and Motor Skills,
https://doi.org/10.1177/0031512519829271
Submmited Articles:
Flôres, Fábio Saraiva; Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; Cordovil, Rita. Development and
construct validation of a questionnaire for measuring affordances for
motor behavior of schoolchildren. Child:Care, Health & Development,
2020.
Flôres, Fábio Saraiva; Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; Luz, Carlos; Cordovil, Rita. Cross-
cultural comparisons of motor competence in Brazilian and Portuguese
children. Journal of School Health, 2020.
Some parts of this thesis have been published in book chapters:
Book Chapter:
Flôres, Fábio Saraiva; Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; & Cordovil; Rita. (2020).
Affordances para o comportamento motor em crianças de idade escolar,
in: Estudos em Desenvolvimento Motor da Criança XIV. UBI Edições:
Universidade da Beira Interior, p.137-145, ISBN:978-989-654-606-9
Some parts of this thesis have been presented in congresses:
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence v

Publications
Conference presentation:
Fábio Saraiva Flôres (2019). Affordances para o comportamento motor em

crianças de idade escolar. 14º Seminário de Desenvolvimento Motor da
Criança, Universidade Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal.
Articles to be submitted:
Flôres, Fábio Saraiva; Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; & Cordovil; Rita. Further
development of the affordances for motor behavior of schoolchildren:
standardized version and scoring system.
Flôres, Fábio Saraiva; Rodrigues, Luis Paulo; & Cordovil; Rita. Examining the
relationship of the Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren
(AMBS) to motor competence in Brazilian schoolchildren.
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence vi

Contents
Contents
CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Thesis general and specific goals ........................................................................... 2
1.3 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................ 3
1.4 References ..................................................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................ 7
Affordances for motor behavior in home, school, and sport environments: a
review .......................................................................................................................................... 7
2.1 Abstract........................................................................................................................... 7
2.2 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 7
2.3 Method........................................................................................................................... 10
2.3.1 Search Strategy ........................................................................................................ 10
2.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 11
2.4.1 Home Environment Affordances ............................................................................ 11
2.4.1.1 Household conditions ........................................................................................... 11
2.4.1.2 Family SES ............................................................................................................ 13
2.4.1.3 Neighborhood and outdoor play ......................................................................... 14
2.4.2 School Environment Affordances ........................................................................... 15
2.4.2.1 PE Classes ............................................................................................................ 16
2.4.2.2 Recess, schoolyards, and playgrounds ............................................................ 18
2.4.3 Affordances in Sport Environments ....................................................................... 21
2.5 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 22
2.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 24
2.7 References ................................................................................................................... 25
CHAPTER 3 .............................................................................................................................. 30
Development and construct validation of a questionnaire for measuring
affordances for motor behavior of schoolchildren ....................................................... 30
3.1 Abstract......................................................................................................................... 30
3.2 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 30
3.3 Method........................................................................................................................... 33
3.3.1 Initial Development of the Instrument .................................................................... 33
3.3.2 Participants ................................................................................................................ 36
3.3.3 Procedures ................................................................................................................ 36
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence vii

Contents
3.3.4 Initial Exploratory Analysis ...................................................................................... 36

3.3.5 Examination of the Structural Validity.................................................................... 37
3.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 37
3.5 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 40
3.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 43
3.7 References ................................................................................................................... 44
CHAPTER 4 .............................................................................................................................. 49
Further development of the affordances for motor behavior of schoolchildren:
standardized version and scoring system ...................................................................... 49
4.1 Abstract......................................................................................................................... 49
4.2 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 49
4.3 Method........................................................................................................................... 50
4.3.1 Participants ................................................................................................................ 50
4.3.2 Procedures ................................................................................................................ 50
4.3.3 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 51
4.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 51
4.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 53
4.6 References ................................................................................................................... 54
CHAPTER 5 .............................................................................................................................. 55
Examining the relationship of the Affordances for Motor Behavior of
Schoolchildren (AMBS) to motor competence in Brazilian schoolchildren ........... 55
5.1 Abstract......................................................................................................................... 55
5.2 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 55
5.3 Method........................................................................................................................... 57
5.3.1 Participants ................................................................................................................ 57
5.3.2 Procedures ................................................................................................................ 57
5.3.3 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 59
5.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 59
5.5 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 62
5.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 64
5.7 References ................................................................................................................... 65
CHAPTER 6 .............................................................................................................................. 68
Cross-cultural comparisons of motor competence in Brazilian and Portuguese
children ..................................................................................................................................... 68
6.1 Abstract......................................................................................................................... 68
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence viii

Contents
6.2 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 68

6.3 Method........................................................................................................................... 71
6.3.1 Participants ................................................................................................................ 71
6.3.2 Procedures ................................................................................................................ 71
6.3.3 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 72
6.4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 72
6.5 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 76
6.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 81
6.7 References ................................................................................................................... 82
CHAPTER 7 .............................................................................................................................. 88
7.1 General findings ......................................................................................................... 88
7.2 Limitations ................................................................................................................... 89
7.3 Theoretical and practical implications ................................................................. 90
7.4 Future research .......................................................................................................... 91
7.5 General Conclusion ................................................................................................... 91
7.6 References ................................................................................................................... 92
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence ix

Figures
FIGURES
Figures were numbered following chapter number.
Figure 1. Examples of the three types of questions: dichotomous questions, Likert-type

scales, and description-based queries. ....................................................................... 35
Figure 2. Path diagram of the confirmatory factor analysis with the completely
standardized values. ................................................................................................... 38
Figure 3. AMBS classification groups regarding MCA values. ..................................... 62
Figure 4. Mean t-scores for categories and total Brazilian MCA by sex and age group74
Figure 5. Brazilian mean z-score and 95% confidence intervals for the six Motor
Competence Assessment ........................................................................................... 76
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence x

Tables
TABLES
Tables were numbered following chapter number.
Table 1. Descriptive values of the items. ..................................................................... 38

Table 2. Descriptive values of the sample ................................................................... 52
Table 3. AMBS sub-scales standardization and AMBS total scores. ........................... 53
Table 4. Descriptive values of the sample ................................................................... 60
Table 5. Correlation between the MCA categories, total MCA and AMBS sub-scales
and AMBS total ........................................................................................................... 61
Table 6. Descriptive results for each MCA component and total, according to the AMBS
group classification, and ANOVAS and Post-hoc tests................................................ 61
Table 7. Descriptive values (mean and SD) of Brazilian MCA tests by sex and age
group .......................................................................................................................... 73
Table 8. Distribution of the Brazilian sample within the Portuguese normative quartiles
and Chi-square results ................................................................................................ 75
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence xi

Abbreviations
ABBREVIATIONS
AHEMD-SR – Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development–
Self Report
AHEMD-IS – Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development–
Infant Scale
AMBS – Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren
BKV – Ball Kicking Velocity
BTK – Ball Throwing Velocity
CATCH – Coordinated Approach to Child Health
CFA – Confirmatory Factor Analysis
CFI – Comparative Fit Index
FMS – Fundamental Motor Skills
GFI – Goodness of Fit Index
HOME – Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment inventory
HRF – Health-Related Fitness
JS – Jumping Sideways
MCA – Motor Competence Assessment
MVPA – Moderate to-vigorous physical activity
NAP SACC – Nutrition Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care
PANES – Physical Activity Neighborhood Environment Scale
PE – Physical Education
RMSEA – Root Mean Square Error of Approximation
SES – Socioeconomic Status
SHR – Shuttle Run
SLJ – Standing Long Jump
SOFIT – System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time
SP – Shifting Platforms
SPARK – Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids
SPSS – Statistical Package for Social Sciences
TLI – Tucker Lewis Index
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence xii

Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
1.1 Introduction
Current investigations in child motor behavior suggest that stimulating

contexts can be conducive to optimal levels of motor development, motor
learning, and motor competence (Barnett, Hnatiuk, Salmon, & Hesketh, 2019;
Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Rodrigues, 2005). As children grow, they are
influenced by different environments or microsystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1995).
This means that an extensive social network, ranging from home to school (and
other regular settings) can influence children. Each one of these contexts, has
materials, surfaces, events, and other people that provide different motor
affordances (Gibson, 1979). Thus, the importance of the different microsystems
that the child interacts with during development is widely accepted in the literature
(Abbott, Bartlett, Fanning, & Kramer, 2000; Bronfenbrenner, 2005;
Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993; Valadi & Gabbard, 2018). In fact, some
environments provide richer affordance’s landscapes for children than others,
having better potential to foster child development (Koller, 2004).
Despite that, most studies have focused mainly on the home environment,
providing an incomplete frame of the affordances across other contexts,
especially later in development. This gap, especially concerning the study of
affordances in schoolchildren’s environments, could probably be due to the lack
of an instrument capable of analyzing the different contexts that school-aged
children are engaged. So, the influence of the different contexts in the
development of children motor competence has not been frequently assessed.
The literature showed that motor competence is associated to the
development of fundamental motor skills, comprising locomotor, stability and
manipulative skills (Luz et al., 2017; Rodrigues et al., 2019), relevant for
developing children’s healthy lifestyles (Luz, Almeida, Rodrigues, & Cordovil,
2017; Robinson et al., 2015; Stodden et al., 2008), and sports participation
(Ferreira et al., 2019). Also, motor competence is the result of the
encouragement, well-structured contexts and support (Barnett, Hinkley, Okely, &
Salmon, 2013; Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Burton & Davis, 1992; Luz, Almeida, et al.,
Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 1

Chapter 1
2017). Even though the child motor competence is an important issue, few
studies have tried to assess the processes that influence their development
(Nobre, Valentini, & Rusidill, 2020; Rodrigues, 2005).
As far as we know, no investigations have tried to assess the relationship
between the affordances presented in children’s microsystems and their motor
competence. This thesis aims to fill in that gap. A better understanding of
children’s contexts and their motor affordances might help parents and
professionals to structure those contexts to promote better and safe conditions
for exploration and action.
1.2 Thesis general and specific goals
As children age and become more autonomous and independent from the
parents, home environment becomes one of the many contexts that the child
experiences regularly in daily life. Other contexts, such the school, friends’
houses, playgrounds, shoppings, and sport environments start to gain more and
more importance in their lives. However, investigation concerning the importance
of children’s microsystems other than home is rather scarce. This thesis aims to
contribute to a better understanding on how the environments experienced by
schoolchildren can influence their motor competence. To achieve this main goal,
different specific goals were formulated, so we aimed:
(a) to perform a wide narrative review of the published studies trying to perceive
how they assess motor affordances for children regarding the home, school,
and leisure environments (chapter 2).
(b) to create an innovative parental reporting research questionnaire to assess

the quality and quantity of factors (affordances and events) in the 6- to 10-
year old children microsystems (chapter 3), presenting its standardization and
scoring system (chapter 4).

Chapter 1
(c) to estimate the association between the quality and quantity of affordances in
children’s microsystems and their motor competence (chapter 5).
(d) to verify the association between motor affordances and motor competence
in different cultural realities (Brazil and Portugal) (chapter 6).
1.3 Structure of the thesis
The current thesis research starts with the presentation of the state of the
art regarding the influence of affordances in home, school and sport
environments of schoolchildren (see chapter 2). The narrative review in this
chapter address studies dedicated to understanding the importance and the
influence of different microsystems in the motor development and motor
competence of children.
The third chapter shows the development and construct validation of the
Affordances for Schoolchildren Motor Behavior (AMBS) questionnaire. Chapter 3
shows all the steps used to create and validate this innovative parental reporting
research questionnaire, design to assess the quality and quantity of factors
(affordances and events) in the school-aged children microsystems. In addition,
chapter 4 presents the standardization and scoring system of the AMBS.
The relation between the regular contexts that children attend to and their motor
competence is addressed in chapter 5. This chapter focuses not only on
children’s motor competence but also on how the microsystem can enhance or
hinder their development.
Finally, it is known that the proper development of motor competence in
childhood is fundamental for the development and maintenance of healthy
lifestyles. Thus, to know the differences between children’s levels of motor
competence in different countries will help us to better understand differences in
cultural contexts and how regular contexts can influence children. So, in chapter
6 we present a cross-cultural comparison of the motor competence of Brazilian
and Portuguese children, who live in distinct cultural realities, further emphasizing
the influence of environmental contexts in the development of motor competence.

Chapter 1
The final section of the present thesis (Chapter 7) presents the general
conclusions, research limitations, practical implications and suggestions for
future studies in this field.
1.4 References
Abbott, A. L., Bartlett, D. J., Fanning, J. E., & Kramer, J. (2000). Infant Motor
Development and Aspects of the Home Environment. Pediatric Physical
Therapy, 12(2), 62–67.
Barnett, L., Hinkley, T., Okely, A., & Salmon, J. (2013). Child, family and
environmental correlates of children’s motor skill proficiency. Journal of
Science and Medicine in Sport, 16(4), 332–336.
Barnett, L., Hnatiuk, J., Salmon, J., & Hesketh, K. (2019). Modifiable factors
which predict children’s gross motor competence: A prospective cohort
study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity,
16(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-019-0888-0
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). The bioecological model from a life course

perspective: Reflections of a participant observer.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological

perspectives on human development. Sage.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1993). Heredity, environment, and the

question" How?": A first approximation.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological model of human

development. Handbook of Child Psychology.
Burton, A. W., & Davis, W. E. (1992). Optimizing the involvement and

performance of children with physical impairments in movement activities.
Pediatric Exercise Science, 4(3), 236–248.
Ferreira, L., Vieira, J., Silva, P., Chaves, R., Fernandes, R., Cheuczuk, F., …
Caçola, P. (2019). The role of sport participation and body mass index in
predicting motor competence of school-age children. Journal of Physical

Chapter 1
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Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Affordances for motor behavior in home, school, and sport environments:

a review
2.1 Abstract
Through development, a child’s varied movement contexts provide different

opportunities or affordances for action that are fundamental to promoting motor
competence. Although home is the primary environment for infants, as children
age, school and sport environments gain importance. Studies focusing on
affordances for motor behavior in children have mainly addressed the home
microsystem, providing an incomplete picture of affordances across different
settings, particularly later in development. Here, we undertook a narrative
literature review of various affordances for children’s motor development. This
review revealed that prior studies of school and sports contexts have not
specifically focused on those environmental properties that promote or hinder
motor learning opportunities, meaning that future research should assess these
relationships through manipulations of environmental features in these different
microsystems.
Keywords: affordances; children; environment; motor behavior.
2.2 Introduction
Children’s development occurs in socioecological contexts ranging from

proximal to distal, through an evolving process of reciprocal interactions between
the child and multidimensional levels of the environment, such as physical,
material, social, emotional, symbolic, and cultural (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993).
According to Bronfenbrenner's (1995) bioecological theory, as children grow, they
are influenced by an ecological framework consisting of micro-, meso-, exo, and
macrosystems. The microsystem refers to the immediate context in which face-
to-face interactions occur, such as the home, neighborhood, day care center,
school, and so on. Mesosystems aggregate two or more microsystems, such as

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child-home, child-school, school-home, home-leisure center relations. The

exosystem is comprised of the distal contexts that are not directly connected with
the child’s daily interactions in the immediate setting, but that can still influence
them (i.e., events that occur at the parents’ workplace or in the community
structure). The cultural institutions or the norms and symbols that serve as molar
archetypes of day-to-day interactions characterize the last system, the
macrosystem.
Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1993) noted that the physical, social, or
symbolic environmental characteristics invite, permit, or inhibit reciprocal tuning
toward a progressively more complex interactional activity in and with the
immediate environment. These interactional proximal processes of development
are dependent on the mutual interaction between the subject and the
environment. This person–environment transactional relationship is also the
focus of Gibson’s theory of affordances. According to Gibson (1979), affordances
are properties of the environment with reference to an animal (or in our case, a
person). They are opportunities for the person’s action that are only perceived by
the individual in order to establish a person–environment fit. Each environment
has objects, places, surfaces, events, and other people that provide a child
different action opportunities, depending on the child’s action capabilities (J. J.
Gibson, 1979). For example, a chair affords a sitting opportunity for a 6- year-old
child who is able to sit but not for a 9-month-old infant who has just begun
crawling. This concept emphasizes that the child immediately experiences the
environment according to its functionality by detecting meaningful environmental
properties of relevance to the perceiver (J. J. Gibson, 1979; Heft, 2012). Thus,
perceiving relevant environmental functionality guides the child’s actions and,
reciprocally, action facilitates the further detection of environmental properties
(affordances) with functional significance for the active whole-bodied individual
(Heft, 2012). Affordances vary with development (E. Gibson & Pick, 2000), but
their availability also varies with culture and the family’s social status (e.g.,
housing conditions vary around the world, according to socioeconomic status
(SES), ranging from well accommodated large houses and even mansions to
more primitive small houses and even slums, tents, or igloos).

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The two theoretical models provided by Bronfenbrenner and Gibson,

permit conceptualizing motor development as the result of proximal processes
between the child and his or her immediate settings and analyzing it through the
assessment of available affordances for motor skills in those same settings. The
existence of a certain motor skill opportunity for a child in a given context does
not mean that the child automatically perceives and acts upon it, but some
environments provide richer affordance landscapes than others and thus have
greater potential for fostering child development (Koller, 2004). Importantly,
access to immediate settings in the home, school, and sports environments that
represent an ecological fit best promotes the child’s motor development. Scholars
have also alluded to the invitational character of environmental affordances for
movement and physical activities as some are more inviting than others for
increasing physically active, nonsedentary, healthy behavior (Withagen &
Caljouw, 2016).
In the child’s early years, home is the primary environment, leading
researchers to have made various efforts to characterize the home environment
in its relationship to different aspects of child development. For example,
researchers created the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment
(HOME) inventory (Bradley & Caldwell, 1984) to examine the effects of the child’s
home environment on cognitive and social development. One of the most striking
and consistent HOME findings has been the discovery that the strong relationship
between available stimulating play materials and motor skill development
exceeds that of the relationship between motor skills and other ‘‘global measures
of environmental quality such as SES (socioeconomic status)’’ (Bradley et al.,
1989). Similarly, Rodrigues, Saraiva, and Gabbard (2005) developed the
Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development instrument, and
this tool was followed by the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor
Development–Infant Scale in 2011 (Caçola, Gabbard, Santos, & Batistela, 2011).
As the child matures, other environments become central in the child’s life
and objects, toys, materials, events, and other people change in number, type,
and complexity. Together, these additional environments have a further
fundamental role in promoting motor competence. For primary schoolchildren,

Chapter 2
most time is spent in three different (but connected) environments: home, school,
and leisure places (e.g., sports facilities, study centers, music academies). All
these environments may have multiple influences, and their affordances for motor
stimulation should be studied as well. A recent systematic review and meta-
analysis of prior research (Barnett et al., 2016) found that most studies
demonstrated correlates between gross motor competence in children and
adolescents and biological and demographic factors. Some studies found
correlates of more specific motor skills to be physical activity and participation in
sports, and only three studies reported correlations between motor competence
development and physical environment (Barnett et al., 2013; B. C. Chow & Chan,
2011; Parvez et al., 2011). Thus, there is a need for further studies regarding the
influence of the sociophysical environment on the development of motor
competence.
As far as we know, only a few studies specifically examined these
variables, and there has been no published review of studies focusing on the
environmental affordances for motor behavior in school-age children
(Chowdhury, Wrotniak, & Ghosh, 2010; Coley, Leventhal, Lynch, & Kull, 2013;
Fjørtoft, 2004; Venetsanou & Kambas, 2010). To more fully characterize
information gathered to date, in this article, we aimed to carry out a narrative
review of the published studies regarding motor affordances for children in home,
school, and leisure environments.
2.3 Method
2.3.1 Search Strategy
The online search expression we used to locate published studies for this
review was ‘‘Affordances AND Environment AND Motor Behavior (OR Motor
Development) AND Child.’’ We used five online databases: (a) Science Direct,
(b) PubMed, (c) Web of Science, (d) Sport Discus, and (e) Education Resources
Information Center. We did not delimitate any specific year for the search. In
addition, we conducted a further general Internet search (i.e., Google Scholar)

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using these search expressions and a snowballing literature search method, by

additionally identifying relevant references within the reference lists of previously
selected studies (Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006).
Inclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria for articles in this literature search were
as follows: (a) from peer-reviewed journals, (b) written in English and Portuguese
languages, (c) investigations of the effect of environments children regularly
encounter (e.g., home, school, and leisure places) on their motor skill
development, and (d) involved studies with children aged 0-18 years.
Exclusion criteria. The following types of studies were excluded from our
review: (a) those not involving children or involving children with disabilities; (b)
those surveying such environments as high-performance sports, digital interface,
and robotics; and (c) those only addressing psychometric properties of
measurement
tools.
2.4 Results
2.4.1 Home Environment Affordances
2.4.1.1 Household conditions
As previously emphasized, home is the dominant setting during early

childhood. The home contains opportunities for the child’s interaction and forms
specific demands for his or her motor behavior so as to boost different aspects of
motor development (Venetsanou & Kambas, 2010). Environmental stimulation
has a critical role in this process. High levels of development and motor
competence occur in rich contexts that are full of support and opportunities
(Fischer & Rose, 1998; Gallahue, Ozmun, Goodway, & Sales, 2013). Several
different studies have provided converging evidence that less favorable motor
development was associated with more limited availability of stimulating home
affordances (Abbott & Bartlett, 1999; Coley et al., 2013; Saccani, Valentini,

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Pereira, Müller, & Gabbard, 2013). Mori, Nakamoto, Mizuochi, Ikudome, and
Gabbard (2013) found that children with physically active parents presented
higher scores on measures of fine and gross motor skills than did children whose
parents were not physically active. Leitschuh and Dunn (2001) studied the
influence on gross motor development of the foster family for children who were
exposed prenatally to drug abuse and parent separations. Their results indicated
that characteristics of the primary care provider and the amount of early
intervention guidance from them reduced the risk of the children showing delays
in gross motor development. These researchers assumed that these improved
environmental conditions were a consequence of both new living arrangements
with a caring provider and longtime utilization of early intervention services.
Most research relating motor competence to affordances in the home
analyzed very young children’s motor development when motor ability was limited
to reflexive movement (Abbott et al., 2000; Miquelote, Santos, Caçola,
Montebelo, & Gabbard, 2012) or rudimentary movement (Fuligni, Han, & Brooks-
Gunn, 2004; Haydari, Askari, & Nezhad, 2009; Soares et al., 2015). Generally,
these studies showed that more supportive and stimulating home environments
were associated with higher infant motor development scores. Studies assessing
the effect of home affordances on fundamental or specialized movement skills
are difficult to find. (Saraiva, Rodrigues, Cordovil, & Barreiros, 2013) asserted
that age reflects both the child’s biological and neurological maturity and the
accumulated effects of environmental stimulation and influence.
Coley et al. (2013) noted that, regardless of age, poor quality housing was
associated with children and adolescents’ more limited emotional and behavioral
functioning and their lower cognitive skills. Other environmental influences, such
as toxic exposure (e.g., lead, arsenic), have been linked to lower motor
functioning scores (Davis & Svendsgaard, 1987; Parvez et al., 2011).
Venetsanou and Kambas (2010) affirmed that rearing conditions significantly
influence motor development during childhood. In addition, every context
provides different demands that can affect children’s development, learning,
MOTOR COMPETENCE, and physical activities. Generally, even though the
home’s physical structure is a restricted environment, the home contains

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opportunities for positive motor stimulation for children living within it, and optimal
home environments with a variety of play materials and adequate physical space
can improve children’s motor capabilities at various ages. Thus, a home
assessment for motor skill affordances can inform those interested in providing
necessary motor competence development opportunities for children at risk
(Leitschuh & Dunn, 2001; Saccani et al., 2013).
2.4.1.2 Family SES
Studying family SES has presented researchers with a challenge, given

that there are many different situations and family conditions. Although there is
no broad research consensus in this realm, the influence of SES in children’s
well-being and behavior has been previously studied by various researchers who
have reached separate conclusions (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Chowdhury et al.,
2010; Lizana, González, Lera, & Leyton, 2017). Freitas, Gabbard, Caçola,
Montebelo, and Santos (2013) found that SES can influence the general provision
of affordances for motor development in the home. Terrisse, Roberts, Palacio-
Quintin, & MacDonald (1998) pointed out that children from higher SES had more
stimulating environments and received higher scores in motor, social, language,
and cognitive developmental domains compared with children in lower SES
homes. These researchers emphasized that fathers most influenced children’s
motor and social development, while mothers most influenced their language and
cognitive development. Chowdhury et al. (2010) showed that children from lower
SES home environments had lower motor proficiency compared with children
from comparatively higher SES backgrounds. Bobbio, Morcillo, Filho, &
Gonçalves (2007) found that Brazilian schoolchildren attending public schools
had a higher risk of inadequate fine motor skills compared with children attending
private schools; they also suggested that SES may be associated with differential
fine motor skill development.
Guryan, Hurst, and Kearney (2008) examined how parents invest their
resources and time into raising children. They found that parents with a low level
of education spent less time taking care of their children; poorly educated mothers

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(i.e., less than a high school degree) dedicated only 12.1 hours per week to their
children, while mothers with higher educational levels (i.e., college educated
mothers) spent an average of 16.5 hours taking care of their children. Thus,
maternal education levels influence the quantity and quality of home affordances
for motor development. Likewise, the study identified that mothers with higher
levels of education are those with higher SES. According to Bradley and Corwyn
(2002), the most widely used SES measure is the family’s financial capital, and
this can be an accurate measure of access to motor development opportunities.
In summary, research regarding the family’s socioeconomic level indicates that
better financial conditions can influence the quantity and quality of materials,
objects, and toys, among other factors, providing helpful motor skill affordances
to developing children. Also, SES has been associated with good health, and with
cognitive and socioemotional outcomes in children (Sigmund et al., 2018).
2.4.1.3 Neighborhood and outdoor play
Home settings with different degrees of urbanization, especially the

neighborhood, can differentially influence children’s independent mobility and
motor behavior. Several different studies tried to evaluate the importance and
characteristics of this type of home context for child development (C. Clark &
Uzzell, 2002; Holupka & Newman, 2011; Monsur, Mansur, & Islam, 2017). Kyttä
(2002) studied varied affordances for children’s motor development within the
cities, small towns, suburbs, and rural villages. She found a more significant
number of perceived affordances in rural villages compared with cities.
Opportunities for unsupervised neighborhood exploration tend to be scarcer for
children in big cities, compromising children’s well-being in these urban
environments (Carroll, Witten, Kearns, & Donovan, 2015). Roemmich et al.
(2006) showed that neighborhoods with decreased housing density and
increased park density were associated with greater levels of physical activity in
4-year-old children. The time spent outdoors is an essential determinant of
children’s physical activity and independent mobility (Schaefer et al., 2014).

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According to the World Health Organization (2010), children aged between 5-17
years should engage in at least 60 minutes of daily physical activity, the
decreased time children spend outdoors is a growing concern (Gray, 2011; Islam,
Moore, & Cosco, 2014; Olds et al., 2009). Associated with this problem, children’s
free play with other children seems to have declined sharply, while their feelings
of anxiety and depression have generally increased (Gray, 2011).
A small number of studies analyzed the relationship between the
availability and type of neighborhood streets and children’s outdoor activities
(Falb, Kanny, Powell, & Giarrusso, 2007; Islam et al., 2014). According to Monsur
et al. (2017), some streets near the child’s home can be considered as an
extension of the home garden or yard, providing larger spaces in which the child
may actively move. The time children spend outdoors is associated with street
type in that children who live on dead-end streets seem to be more active,
spending more minutes outdoors than children who live on through streets (Islam
et al., 2014; Monsur et al., 2017). The neighborhood is an important setting for
children, as they spend a great of time within their immediate neighborhood.
Chambers et al. (2017) found that children, aged between 11-13 years, spent
over half of their leisure time within 500m of their homes. These authors also
found that children leave their neighborhood for three specific reasons: (a) to visit
the school for some leisure purpose; (b) to visit close friends, and (c) to go to food
stores. A very worrying finding from Chambers’ research is that children spent
more time at food stores than at sports and outdoor recreational locations
combined. Lopes, Cordovil, and Neto (2018) reported that going to shops with
adults was one of the most prevalent children’s weekend activities. Thus, free
play in outdoor neighborhood spaces functions as the primary means by which
children can engage in multiple forms of peer interaction; different kinds of
movements; and explore different surfaces, objects, and places.
2.4.2 School Environment Affordances
As noted earlier, school plays a critical role in children’s physical

development as they age and can access various objects, materials, toys, and

Chapter 2
other people. Of course, school ages are a critical childhood time period for
developing and learning fine and gross motor skills, and the acquisition of a varied
motor repertoire during this period helps determine the later acquisition of still
more advanced motor skills (Lubans, Morgan, Cliff, Barnett, & Okely, 2010;
Saraiva et al., 2013) and of motor competence (Luz, Almeida, et al., 2017). Luz
et al. (2017) explain that motor competence development is influenced by a
combination of environmental factors, opportunities, encouragement, and
instruction, making school experiences and the school environment especially
meaningful. Different studies have shown that schoolchildren spend their school
time in three different contexts: traditional classes, physical education (PE)
classes, and free schoolyard play (recess). Clark & Uzzell (2002) considered
school a vital component of the daily environments of adolescents, but these
authors found that modern schools may provide significantly fewer interaction
sites than town centers, creating a new concern and challenge, especially given
the considerable amount of time children stay at school. The school contains a
broad range of opportunities to develop and increase children’s personal
capabilities, though, for a large proportion of children, affordances provided by
PE classes in school are the children’s only school opportunity to engage in
sports, games, gymnastics, and dance.
2.4.2.1 PE Classes
Many studies have tried to analyze different aspects of PE classes,

including physical activity, motivational climates, and active time (Dias et al.,
2017; Hills, Dengel, & Lubans, 2015; McIver, Brown, Pfeiffer, Dowda, & Pate,
2016). Compelling evidence supports a beneficial association between PE
classes and children’s physical activity (Nettlefold et al., 2011). Research
generally shows that physical activity provided through PE decreases adiposity
in overweight children, decreases blood pressure, and enhances cardiovascular
health (Costa, 2018; Nader, 2003; Nettlefold et al., 2011). In addition, PE classes
can influence children’s development in five separate domains: physical, lifestyle,
affective, social, and cognitive (Bailey, 2006).

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Despite the potential benefits of PE for children, time allocated for it in the
school curriculum is declining (Marshall & Hardman, 2000; Snyder, Lee,
Bjornsen, & Dinkel, 2017). Nettlefold et al. (2011) found that less than 5% of
children in Canada met recommendations for physical activity during school PE
classes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). Nettlefold et al.
(2011) attributed these failures to a lack of PE teachers (specialists). Many PE
classes are taught by regular teachers from other disciplines (generalists), though
Sallis et al.(1997) showed that a school-based PE program taught by specialist
teachers was more effective at increasing time students spent in moderate to-
vigorous physical activity (MVPA) compared with the same program taught by
generalist teachers.
Since MVPA during PE classes is lower than recommended (Nader, 2003;
Nettlefold et al., 2011; Trost et al., 2002), PE classes (provided by a specialist)
should offer health-promoting physical activity to children, especially as children
spend approximately 30 hours a week in school. Although it is difficult to analyze
all the motor development affordances provided by PE classes, some studies
have analyzed specific factors such as class size and play materials used
(Barroso, McCullum‐Gomez, Hoelscher, Kelder, & Murray, 2005; Reynolds,
2013; Starc & Strel, 2012; Taras, 2005). The full and specific effects of class size
on educational outcomes in PE is still an unresolved educational issue (Reynolds,
2013). Moreover, although the literature has not reached a consensus regarding
an exact number of recommended students in PE classes, evidence suggests
that children in smaller classes have more skill practice time, more activity time,
more on-task activity time, and fewer management issues (Bevans, Fitzpatrick,
Sanchez, Riley, & Forrest, 2010; Reynolds, 2013). Reynolds (2013) showed that
a small number of students in PE classes helped personalize the teacher–student
relationship, meaning that the teachers’ efforts were less diluted and had a
greater teaching effect. Also, PE teachers in smaller classes had more
opportunity to interact with all the students in the class, significantly enhancing
the class learning atmosphere. However, there remains no agreed upon ideal
number of students per class, nor are there agreed upon ideal types of play
materials; these topics remain to be more fully researched.

Chapter 2
2.4.2.2 Recess, schoolyards, and playgrounds
Ramstetter, Murray, & Garner (2010) emphasized that recess should be

understood as a complement to PE classes, never as a substitution for them.
Moreover, other researchers found that recess can help children to develop social
skills that are not acquired in the more structured classroom environment (A D
Pellegrini, Kato, Blatchford, & Baines, 2002; Pellegrini & Bohn, 2005; Ramstetter
et al., 2010). Previous research reported that children spend 30 to 105 minutes
in recess per day (Mota et al., 2005; Verstraete, Cardon, De Clercq, & De
Bourdeaudhuij, 2006). Fjørtoft, Kristoffersen, & Sageie (2009) evaluated how
schoolchildren used their schoolyard during recess time and how this context
invited physical activity. They analyzed the different affordances provided by
different schoolyards.
Fjørtoft et al. (2009) found that asphalt areas, in city schools, invited
running and playing soccer (promoting physical activity in boys and girls), but
these authors emphasized that there were few appropriate landscape structures
that afforded wider activity in the flat asphalt schoolyard, leading the movement
pattern to become naturally more traditional. On the other hand, the rural
schoolyard had more diverse surroundings and afforded play in a forest, which
was more attractive to girls than boys, so that there was similar physical activity
for children of both genders in the two schoolyards. Regardless of the school
area, the recess period offers an excellent opportunity to promote children’s
physical activity.
Blatchford et al. (2003) examined the context of school playground games.
Specifically, they studied the activities at recess and the peer relations of boys
and girls aged 7-8 years. In this context, social activities were far more prevalent
than when children were engaged in either solitary or parallel activities. Children
spent recess in three main types of activity: (a) conversation, (b) free play
(vigorous, sedentary, and fantasy play), and (c) games (chasing, catching,
seeking; racing, ball games, jump skipping, and games with materials). The play
and game categories each represented one third of the physical activities in which

Chapter 2
children were engaged during recess time. Laaksoharju, Rappe, & Kaivola (2012)
analyzed the physical qualities and types of behavior induced among 7-12-year-
old children in a garden environment inside a free-time camp context. According
to the authors, after-school children’s play is more diverse and long lasting in
natural green environments. The garden fostered social interactions by offering
plentiful materials in a varied space.
Haug, Torsheim, Sallis, & Samdal (2008) examined the association
between physical environmental characteristics and participation in daily physical
activity during school recess. They found that schools with more outdoor facilities
had a higher probability of promoting children’s movement compared with
schools with fewer facilities. Consequently, improving the outdoor environment
should be considered essential in promoting school physical activity programs.
Regarding the size of the play area, Chow and Chan (2011) assessed gross
motor skills of preschool children and concluded that children from preschools
with larger play area performed better in locomotor skills and worse in object
control skills than those from preschools with a smaller play area. In the same
context, but analyzing older children (aged 14 years), Fjørtoft, Löfman, and
Thorén (2010) observed that environmental settings can influence the activity
patterns of children in schoolyards. When analyzing children’s leisure-time
physical activity at school and how it is associated with contextual variables,
McKenzie, Crespo, Baquero, and Elder (2010) found that boys had more MVPA
and more vigorous physical activity than girls. This finding is in accordance with
other studies (Marsha Dowda et al., 2016; Fjørtoft et al., 2009; Skrede et al.,
2017). In this context, boys perceived the available space at recess as an
opportunity to play, while girls viewed this context as an opportunity to socialize.
In addition, McKenzie et al. (2010) found that MVPA was greater during lunch
and break time than before school.
There is a debate in the literature regarding the benefits of unstructured
versus structured recess contexts (Frago-Calvo, Pardo, García-Gonzalez,
Solana, & Casterad, 2017). Ramstetter et al. (2010) asserted that unstructured
recess presents an opportunity for children to be physically active, contributing
positively to the child’s development. These authors considered recess as a

Chapter 2
period when children can be more physically active, regardless of the type of
activity. Pate, Baranowski, Dowda, and Trost (1996) commented that it is more
likely for children to participate in an MVPA within unstructured recess than within
more structured contexts. However, some studies found that children, especially
girls, were sedentary during the recess period (Frago-Calvo et al., 2017; Ridgers,
Stratton, & Fairclough, 2006; Verstraete et al., 2006). Therefore, the effects of the
structure of recess on children’s behavior still need further investigation.
The association between recess, schoolyards, playgrounds, and
opportunities for children to move has been debated for quite some time (Cardon,
Labarque, Smits, & De Bourdeaudhuij, 2009; Gubbels, Van Kann, & Jansen,
2012; Mott et al., 1997). Despite this, little emphasis has been placed on
understanding the affordances made available by play materials or equipment.
Using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation Instrument,
Gubbels et al. (2012) found that the variability of play equipment was quite limited
in childcare centers. The most common materials were balls, indoor floor play
equipment, push and pull toys, and balancing surfaces. In contrast, materials
such as indoor structured track, merry-go-round, tunnels, and sandboxes and
swinging equipment have almost never been found in these settings. Hannon &
Brown (2008) also showed that adding portable play equipment (hurdles, hoops,
bean bags, and balls) significantly decreased sedentary behavior and increased
physical activity during recess time in 3-5-year-old children. Despite some
positive results, a study by Cardon, Van Cauwenberghe, Labarque, Haerens, and
De Bourdeaudhuij (2008) showed that access to play materials, such as toys,
was not a significant physical activity predictor. The same results were found by
Cardon et al. (2009), supporting Cardon et al.'s (2008) conclusion that providing
play equipment during recess is not sufficient to increase time spent in physical
activity or to decrease time spent in sedentary activity during preschool recess.
In summary, children’s levels of physical activity (vigorous or not) will only
increase if their environmental contexts (in this case, recess period, schoolyards,
and playgrounds) provide opportunities for movement and access to a wide
variety of materials.

Chapter 2
2.4.3 Affordances in Sport Environments
Different studies have addressed the effects of sports practice and after-
school programs on multiple aspects of children’s lives (Herrick, Thompson,
Kinder, & Madsen, 2012; Kelder et al., 2005; Kordi, Nourian, Ghayour, Kordi, &
Younesian, 2012; Wickel & Eisenmann, 2007). A large number of studies report
that a substantial number of children fail to engage in any kind of physical activity
after school (Atkin, Gorely, Biddle, Marshall, & Cameron, 2008; Barnett et al.,
2013; Frago-Calvo et al., 2017; Laguna Nieto, Lara Hernández, & Aznar Laín,
2011). Since children generally make rapid gains in learning and are capable of
increasingly refined motor functioning (Gallahue, 1996), sport environments are
important learning contexts (ecological settings), critical to children’s acquisition
of movement skills.
In the last two decades, many studies have shown that children who
practice sports during childhood are more likely than children who do not practice
sports to be physically active during adulthood (Kjønniksen, Anderssen, & Wold,
2009; Tammelin, Näyhä, Hills, & Järvelin, 2003; Zimmermann-Sloutskis, Wanner,
Zimmermann, & Martin, 2010). Ribeiro-Silva et al. (2018) analyzed the motor
performance in fundamental movement skills of 8-10 year-old children,
participants and nonparticipants in guided sports practice outside school. These
results showed that children who participated in guided sports practice had higher
levels of fundamental motor skills than the control group, in both locomotor and
object control skills. Kjønniksen et al. (2009), in a 10-year longitudinal study,
examined whether participating in sports during childhood predicted the
frequency of leisure-time physical activity during adulthood. Having participated
in organized youth sports was positively related with the frequency of leisure-time
physical activity at 23 years of age. Children who were involved in organized
youth sports at an early age (6–10 years) and continued through adolescence
were more likely to become active adults.
The after-school period is a potentially important moment for increasing
physical activity for youth. According to Kelder et al. (2005), it is important to
reach children who are enrolled in after-school programs in order to increase their

Chapter 2
nonacademic activities and promote their health. To accomplish this, a large

number of after-school programs have been developed (Herrick et al., 2012;
Mahoney, Larson, & Eccles, 2005). For example, CATCH Coordinated Approach
to Child Health) was designed for the early prevention of cardiovascular disease
and improvement of physical activity of third- to fifthgrade children. Using CATCH
in the after-school period was associated with a decrease in children’s self-
reported fat consumption and increased physical activity (Sharpe, Forrester, &
Mandigo, 2011). Other studies have found similar CATCH program results
(Hoelscher et al., 2010; Nader et al., 1999; Parcel et al., 2003; Sharpe et al.,
2011). The Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK) program was
another afterschool program used to increase children’s physical activity.
However, in a 5-month study, Herrick et al. (2012) found no differences in MVPA
between children enrolled in SPARK versus a control group of children who were
not enrolled. Vizcaíno et al. (2008) used the MOVI program, found that this after-
school program of recreational physical activity was able to reduce all children’s
adiposity and girl’s body fat percentage and led to increased diastolic blood
pressure in boys. Despite the aforementioned studies on the influence of sports
programs (events) on children’s motor skills, investigations that address the
impact of sporting physical features (e.g., materials and spaces) on motor skill
development are difficult to find. New approaches are needed to understand the
role of affordances in sports contexts in which children are engaged.
2.5 Discussion
In the present article, we summarized current research literature regarding

relationships between different environmental microsystems and motor learning
affordances for children. We adopted Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems
theory with Gibson’s ecological perceptual theory to focus particularly on different
types of microsystems, such as home, school, and sport settings in order to
analyze within them various opportunities for motor skill development. In the
home microsystem, we concluded that the optimal home context (i.e., variety of
play materials, adequate physical spaces to use, etc.) can improve children’s
motor capabilities at various ages. Better financial conditions can positively

Chapter 2
influence the quantity and quality of materials, objects, toys, and so on and the
availability of parents to provide more appropriate motor competence affordances
for developing children. In addition, SES, including maternal education level, was
associated with children’s good health and cognitive and socioemotional
outcomes. The neighborhood setting had rich potential for motor affordances
essential to children’s explorations through outdoor free play; multiple forms of
interaction; different kinds of movements; and different surfaces, objects, and
places.
In the school microsystem, no studies determined an ideal number of
students per PE class or an ideal type of play materials, suggesting a need for
more research in these areas. Generally, researchers have called for increased
physical activity levels within PE classes for more students and greater numbers
of specialists versus generalists in PE education. After-school activities on school
premises may represent further motor competence development opportunities,
though these too have been generally under studied.
Considering the sports microsystem, we found no studies that addressed
the motor learning affordances from sports engagement in school-aged children.
Leisure activities, such as going to a sports center, are sometimes embedded in
children’s daily routines with clear health advantages. Sport environments
influence children’s development in multiple ways that extend beyond the
development of sports abilities per se. These are also important contexts for
social interaction and a place to meet friends, thus providing a key developmental
role for the emergence of motor and social learning affordances. Future studies
should focus on assessing the material and social features of these microsystems
and their relation with the motor affordances along different stages of the lifespan.
Some research gaps were identified in our narrative review. This narrative
review did not address motor affordances for children with disabilities, a niche
topic that merits its own review. Also, most studies reviewed here focused only
separate specific microsystems, failing to aggregate two or more microsystems
into a mesosystemic view of motor development. Bronfenbrenner’s theory
reinforces the advantage of various different perspectives, including analyses of
human development influences of both proximal and more distal processes

Chapter 2
involving the relation between micro-, meso, exo-, and macrosystems. Thus,
comparing the affordances for motor skill development in multiple microsystems
across different cultures, and along the lifespan, would be a valuable next
contribution to this field. Some research efforts have used web-map surveys to
study children and youths’ meaningful places across different cultures (Kyttä et
al., 2018), and others have primarily focused on mapping places with social
opportunities (Lopes et al., 2018). Extending this methodology to identify motor
affordances through development and across different cultures is an important
future research direction.
2.6 Conclusion
Our literature review findings support Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems

theory and Gibson’s affordances theory. Both authors addressed human
development from within a person–environment transactional relation and not as
individual units of analysis. Physical, social, symbolic, and cultural characteristics
of an environment may invite, permit, or inhibit a reciprocal transaction between
the immediate environment and the active child’s engagement in diversified
motor behaviors (walking to school, performing a motor task, practicing a sports
activity, etc.). These child–environment interactions result from the emergence of
diversified types of affordances, such as those in the motor category. Maturation
stems from the occurrence of proximal processes established via the emergence
of affordances in the immediate setting as affected by more distal ones. We have
focused on home, school, and sports environments, each microsystem with its
own objects, places, surfaces, events, and people to stimulate and offer children
different opportunities for motoric interaction. This narrative review revealed that
studies of affordances for motor development in the home environment setting
have been focused mainly in early developmental stages, while studies in school
and sports contexts promoting or hindering motor opportunities are scarce. An
ecological approach to studying motor development holds promise for learning
how to better enhance motor skill acquisition by manipulating environmental
constraints.

Chapter 2
2.7 References
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empirical findings. Social Development, 9(1), 115–125.

Chapter 2

Brown, T. (2006). Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research. New York:
The Guilford Press.
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Clark, C., & Uzzell, D. L. (2002). The affordances of the home, neighbourhood,
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Spanish primary and secondary schools. European Journal of Human
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Goyen, T., & Lui, K. (2009). Developmental coordination disorder in “apparently
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Gubbels, J. S., Van Kann, D. H. H., & Jansen, M. W. J. (2012). Play equipment,
physical activity opportunities, and children’s activity levels at childcare.
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Heft, H. (2012). Foundations of an ecological approach to psychology. In The
Oxford handbook of environmental and conservation psychology.
Herrmann, C., Heim, C., & Seelig, H. (2019). Construct and correlates of basic
motor competencies in primary school-aged children. Journal of Sport and
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Multidisciplinary Journal Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure
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Kjønniksen, L., Anderssen, N., & Wold, B. (2009). Organized youth sport as a
predictor of physical activity in adulthood. Scandinavian Journal of
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contemporary theories of human development. Handbook of Child
Psychology.
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comparison of school-age children’s performance on two motor
assessments: the Test of Gross Motor Development and the Movement
Assessment Battery for Children. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy,
19(1), 48–59.
McKenzie, T., Sallis, J., & Nader, P. (1992). SOFIT: System for observing
fitness instruction time. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 11(2),
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primary school playgrounds. Sport and Exercise Medicine Open Journal,
3(2), 30–39.
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C. (2012). Effect of the home environment on motor and cognitive behavior
of infants. Infant Behavior & Development, 35, 329–334.
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streets more active? Near-home street patterns and school-going children’s
time spent outdoors in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Preventive Medicine, 103,
S73–S80.
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Physical activity and school recess time: differences between the sexes
and the relationship between children’s playground physical activity and

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habitual physical activity. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23(3), 269–275.

Nettlefold, L., McKay, H. A., Warburton, D. E. R., McGuire, K. A., Bredin, S. S.
D., & Naylor, P. J. (2011). The challenge of low physical activity during the
school day: at recess, lunch and in physical education. British Journal of
Sports Medicine, 45(10), 813–819.
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a revised system for observing fitness instruction time (SOFIT). Pediatric
Exercise Science, 14(2), 135–146.
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Sallis, J., Kerr, J., Carlson, J., Norman, G., Saelens, B., Durant, N., &
Ainsworth, B. (2010). Evaluating a Brief Self-Report Measure of
Neighborhood Environments for Physical Activity Research and
Surveillance: Physical Activity Neighborhood Environment Scale (PANES).
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acquisition research: A new framework to study the development of sport
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Venetsanou, F., & Kambas, A. (2010). Environmental factors affecting
preschoolers’ motor development. Early Childhood Education Journal,
37(4), 319–327.
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environmental intervention. American Journal of Preventive Medicine,
35(4), 352–356.

Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
Development and construct validation of a questionnaire for measuring

affordances for motor behavior of schoolchildren
3.1 Abstract
Mapping and evaluating children’s regular environments, especially when they

start to attend other settings than the home can be crucial to understand Motor
Behavior. The intent of this research is to present the Affordances for Motor
Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS) questionnaire, which was developed to
assess the interdependent systems, such as home, school, and sports activities,
that can influence 6 to 10-year-old children's motor development, motor learning,
and motor competence. After establishing face validity, the questionnaire was
completed by 155 Brazilian families. Construct validity was assessed on the
whole sample with Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The model testing showed a
very good fit, and the structural model presented significative loading coefficients
from the identified variables to the theoretically specified latent variables (factors).
Significant correlation values were found between factors: Home and Materials
(R=0.84), Home and School (R=0.47), and Materials and School (R=0.64). Our
results suggest that the AMBS can be a valuable tool to inform about the
opportunities for action provided to children by their home, the materials in the
home and their school.
Keywords: childhood; motor behavior; home environment; school.
3.2 Introduction
The process of mapping and evaluating children’s contexts is difficult,

especially as they begin to attend multiple environments daily. Although there is
evidence that high-quality environments promote motor learning, motor

Chapter 3
competence and motor development in children (Fischer & Rose, 1998; Gallahue
et al., 2013; Venetsanou & Kambas, 2010), there is not much research regarding
how different contexts can affect children between 6 and 10 years of age. Most
of the research has focused on infants and young children (Bradley, Caldwell, &
Corwyn, 2003; Caçola et al., 2011; Gabbard, Caçola, & Rodrigues, 2008), and
only a few studies have addressed older children’s environments (Bradley et al.,
2000). Furthermore, the literature lacks evidence on how the different contexts,
and their relationship, can affect children’s motor behavior.
Children’s motor behavior can be influenced by ecological settings ranging
from proximal (immediate) to distal ones. Bronfenbrenner (1979) termed these
contexts as a set of interdependent systems, where each one fits inside the other,
from a micro to a macro level. To Bronfenbrenner, children are present and are
influenced by the immediate contexts, such as home, neighborhood, school,
daycare centre, sports environments, etc. Within all these different microsystems,
proximal processes are activated, presupposing progressively more complex
reciprocal interactions between persons, objects, and symbols (Bronfenbrenner
& Evans, 2000; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Thus, different microsystems
are essential to promote action, development, learning, and competence.
The proximal interactional processes of development that occur within
each microsystem relate to the Gibsonian ecological approach. To Gibson
(1979), each context affords materials, spaces, surfaces, actions, events, and
people that provide the child opportunities for movement (i.e. motor affordances).
For example, to a 6-year-old child, a ball affords an opportunity to kick but not for
an 8-month-old infant who has just begun crawling (Flôres, Rodrigues, Copetti,
Lopes, & Cordovil, 2019). Consequently, the perception of the environment and
its features guides the child’s movements and, reciprocally, action facilitates the
detection of those features, specifying the possibilities for other actions (or
affordances) (Flôres et al., 2019; Heft, 2012).
Therefore, each environment can provide unique relationships to engage
children in multiple practice opportunities (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1995, 2005;
Flôres et al., 2019). It is important to highlight the role of time, or according to
Bronfenbrenner (2005), the chronosystem. Over the years, especially after they

Chapter 3
enter primary school, children begin to attend places other than home regularly.
Thus, other environments, such as the school, home of close friends, neighbors,
or sports environments become important microsystems, and their opportunities
for promoting children’s development should be analyzed. Even though the
importance of different microsystems is widely accepted in the literature (e.g,
Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993; Flôres et al., 2019), few
researchers have tried to assess what these contexts afford to 6-to-10-year old
children (e.g, Dias et al., 2017; Gubbels, Van Kann, & Jansen, 2012; Kjønniksen,
Anderssen, & Wold, 2009; Monsur, Mansur, & Islam, 2017; Mota et al., 2005;
Nettlefold et al., 2011; Ward et al., 2008). The major focus of research has been
in infancy and early childhood and in the home setting, as we can notice when
analyzing the different instruments that have been developed to evaluate the
affordances present children’s environments. Bradley & Caldwell (1984) created
the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory
to observe the effects of the infants’ and preschoolers’ home environment on
cognitive and social development. A version for families with children ages 6 to
10 was later created (Bradley, Caldwell, Rock, Hamrick, & Harris, 1988), but like
the previous version, its focus was mainly in the home environment. Although in
the version for elementary school children (Bradley et al., 1988), the “Provision
for active stimulation” subscale included items regarding the possibility of the
child to attend to other environments (e.g., gymnastic lessons, music lessons, art
lessons, playground, library), the characteristics of the school environment where
children spend great part of their time were not assessed. Other instruments,
such as the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development
(AHEMD-SR) (Rodrigues et al., 2005) and Affordances in the Home Environment
for Motor Development–Infant Scale (AHEMD-IS) (Caçola et al., 2011) were also
developed. However, both questionnaires were designed to assess the home
environments of children under 4 years of age.
Some instruments were developed to analyze, separately, the different
contexts of the child’s life. The System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time
(SOFIT) is an observation instrument designed to assess different variables
associated with children's activity levels and opportunities to become physically

Chapter 3
fit in physical education (Kenzie, Sallis, & Nader, 1992; Pope, Coleman,
Gonzalez, Barron, & Heath, 2002). The Nutrition Physical Activity Self-
Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC) aimed to analyze the school
environment in relation to the physical structure, food and educational policies
(Ward et al., 2008). Environmental neighborhood perceptions were also studied.
The Physical Activity Neighborhood Environment Scale (PANES) was developed
to assess the neighborhood environment walkability and recreation facilities,
each one, related to the support physical activity for children (Sallis et al., 2010).
Despite the abovementioned instruments, there is a lack in the literature
related to an instrument capable of analyzing the different contexts that 6-to 10-
year-old children are engaged. Thus, this paper aims to create an innovative
parental reporting research questionnaire to assess the quality and quantity of
factors (affordances and events) in the 6- to 10- year old children microsystems.
Specifically, we intend to analyze the home and school environments, gathering
also information about other extracurricular environments that children attend to,
in order to better understand the potential of those environments in optimizing
children’s motor development. In addition, our long-term goal is to increase the
cultural scope of the instrument, by comparing different cultures and nations.
3.3 Method
3.3.1 Initial Development of the Instrument
Stemming from the previous work that has focused on the influence of
specific environments on children’s development (Abbott & Bartlett, 1999;
Bradley et al., 2000; Gabbard et al., 2008; Rodrigues et al., 2005; Sallis et al.,
2010), and grounded on the assumption that the child’s development is
influenced by multiple contexts or systems, particularly as children grow older
(Bronfenbrenner, 1995; Lerner, 2006), an extensive literature search was
undertaken (Flôres et al., 2019). This review of literature aimed at characterizing
the availability of affordances for motor development in the microsystems that 6-
to 10-year-old children frequently attend to (i.e., home, school, and leisure

Chapter 3
environments). Besides, one of our main goals was to increase the cultural scope
of the instrument Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS). To
this end, the AMBS was developed in three versions: Portuguese for Brazilians
(using specific terms of this country), Portuguese and English. Concerning this
study, the parents/guardians of the children answered the Brazilian version of the
instrument.
Based on the review of literature an initial version of the questionnaire with

seven categories, and 136 items was created. The questionnaire was sent to 3
experts in child motor development (agreed participation) for content validity and
critical review to assess the main components and items. The experts were
instructed to express agreement or disagreement with each item description and
to evaluate it according to the proposed concept, recommending the inclusion or
exclusion of items or categories if necessary. After the contribution of the experts,
ten items and one category were added (i.e., characterization of house items,
sports rackets, puzzles, etc), and three categories changed their names (i.e.,
house and house items to home characterization, sports environments to
extracurricular activities, and child items to play materials in the home). Thus, of
the initial 136 items, sixty-four and one category were withdrawn (e.g., parents’
general data, number of garages, number of classmates, number of dance
rooms, pilates classes, etc). To assess face validity, the parent report
questionnaire “Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS)” was
completed by 20 south Brazilian families, representing a variety of ethnic,
socioeconomic, and education levels. Parents or guardians were asked to
answer the survey questions while pointing out difficulties or making suggestions
for corrections. They were also asked about the purpose of the survey and agreed
it measured the opportunities for action in different environments. Participants
reported understanding the guidelines, items, and response options. The final
version of the questionnaire was written in an unbiased and affirmative manner.
The present version of AMBS consists of 72 items, which are part of 7
different types of materials/spaces made available to children : Child
Characteristics (6 items), Extracurricular Activities (6 item), Family (7 items),
Family House (10 items), House Items (7 items), Child Play Materials (22 items),

Chapter 3
and School (14 items). The questionnaire contains dichotomous questions, 7-

point Likert-type scales, and description-based queries. Figures were used in all
Likert scales to illustrate the alternatives (e.g., type of play materials). Figure 1
presents the examples of the three types of questions used in the instrument.
(a) Dichotomous Questions
(b) Likert-type Scales
(c) Description-based queries
Figure 1. Examples of the three types of questions: dichotomous questions,

Likert-type scales, and description-based queries.

Chapter 3
3.3.2 Participants
Participants were assigned from eight schools in south Brazil. Three

hundred (n=300) volunteer families with children ages six to 10 years (7.8±1.54)
were invited to participate in the present study and one hundred and fifty-five
(n=155) consented to participate and completed the AMBS (80 boys and 75 girls).
Of the 155 questionnaires answered, 44 (28.6%) were from families with children
aged six years, 33 (21.4%) seven years, 47 (30.5%) eight years, 20 (12.3%) nine
years, and 11 (7.1 %) aged ten years. In addition, the final sample consisted of
122 houses and 33 apartments. Regarding the monthly income of families, 11%
earned R$1000, 51% earned between R$2000 and R$3000, 20% received
between R$4000 and R$6000, and 17% had a monthly income of R$7000.
3.3.3 Procedures
All parents received a letter explaining the purpose of the study and asking
for the signed informed consent for their participation in the study. Parents could
opt between answering with the digital (available for Android system), or the
paper version questionnaire. In the digital version, the answers were sent directly
to the cloud database, and the family names were coded to keep the researchers
naive to the results until testing was completed. When the printed version was
used, a blind researcher coded the AMBS responses in the database. The
research was approved by the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM,
Brazil) ethics committee (Protocol: 76336117.0.0000.5346).
3.3.4 Initial Exploratory Analysis
Fifty-two of the 72 items were grouped according to common content in 3

sub-scales and 11 variables (Table 1) representing the characteristics of the
multiple environments that children attend. The contribution of the original items
to the assigned variable was checked for consistency using a correlation
(bivariate) matrix.

Chapter 3
3.3.5 Examination of the Structural Validity
Structural validity was tested by a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

using the AMOS software version 24.0. According to the theoretical argument,
items unique loadings into latent variables (sub-scales), and full correlational
paths between latent variables were specified. The model goodness of fit was
assessed by the index Chi-Square/df, the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker
Lewis Index (TLI) and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA),
along with the Chi-Square value. Values of Chi-Square/df <2, CFI and TLI ≥ 0.90,
and a RMSEA ≤0.06 are considered as indicative of good model fit (Brown, 2006;
Hu & Bentler, 2009). As seen in Figure 2, the diagram of structural model included
paths from Home to the Inside Spaces and Outside space; to the Materials to
Sedentary materials, Pretend play toys, Educational toys, Manipulative materials,
and Stability materials; and to the School to the Space for movement, Free time
for movements, and Sedentary free time.
3.4 Results
Most parents that participated in the study (72.9% of fathers and 63.2% of
mothers) had completed high school or less, while 63.2% of the mothers had
done the same. Most children (74,19%) attended school in the afternoon, 21,29%
attended it in the morning, and 4,52% attended full-time school. In addition, 79%
lived in houses and 21% in apartments.
Regarding the structural validity of the AMBS, the model testing resulted
in a Chi-Square of 76.76; p<.001, and showed a very good fit, as assessed by
the index Chi-Square/df=1.87, CFI=.949; TLI=.918 and RMSEA=.001. The
structural model showed significative loading coefficients ranging from 0.45 to
0.90 from the identified variables to the theoretically specified latent variables
(factors). Furthermore, figure 2 shows that significant correlation values were

Chapter 3
found between factors: Home and Materials (R=0.84), Home and School
(R=0.47), and Materials and School (R=0.64).
Figure 2. Path diagram of the confirmatory factor analysis with the completely
standardized values.
Table 1 display the how the items were grouped according to common
content. The sub-scales variables, and items are showed.
Table 1. Descriptive values of the items.

Sub-scales Variable Items Median Minimum Maximum
-Apartment / House (9) 1 0 1
-Number of bedrooms (10) 2 0 5
Inside space
-Number of living rooms (11) 1 0 3
A
-Number of kitchens (12) 1 1 2
-Number of offices (13) 0 0 1
HOME
Inside space -Number of playrooms (14) 0 0 1
B -Number of fitness rooms (15) 0 0 1
-Number of green areas (16) 1 0 6

Outside
-Number of swimming pools (17) 0 0 2
space
-Number of playgrounds (18) 0 0 2
Table 1 continues the next page

Chapter 3
Continuation of Table 1
-Number of books (20) 6 0 6
-Number of computers (21) 1 0 5
Sedentary -Number of blu-rays or DVD players (22) 1 0 5
Materials -Number of smartphones (23) 2 0 6
-Number of tablets (24) 1 0 6
-Number of TVs (25) 2 1 6
-Action figures (26) 2 0 6

-Dolls (27) 4 0 6
Pretend play -Remote control toys (28) 1 0 6
toys -Miniature cars (29) 4 0 6
-Dollhouse (30) 0 0 6
-Costumes (42) 1 0 6
-Board games (31) 2 0 6

-Card games (32) 1 0 6
MATERIALS -Puzzles (36) 2 0 6
Educational
-Legos (37) 1 0 6
toys
-Educational toys (38) 0 0 6
-Toys that encourage reading and writing (39) 4 0 6
-Musical instruments (40) 1 0 6
-Foosball table or ping-pong table (33) 0 0 4

-Balls (34) 2 0 6
Manipulative -Rackets (35) 0 0 6
materials -Videogames (41) 0 0 3
-Basketball tables and volleyball or badminton
0 0 6
nets (46)
-Bicycles, scooters, skates (43) 1 0 6

Stability -Trampolines (44) 0 0 2
materials -Slides (45) 0 0 3
-Pogo stick, stilts (47) 0 0 5
-Space for outdoor or gym activities (52) 2 1 6

Space for -Natural grass or synthetic turf field (53) 0 0 4
movement -Athletics track (54) 0 0 1
-Space for sports classes, inside the school (55) 1 0 6
Free space -Open spaces for free play and recreation (56) 1 0 6
SCHOOL for
movement -Space with ping-pong or foosball tables (57) 0 0 4
-Music room (58) 0 0 2

Sedentary -Game room (59) 1 0 4
space -Computers room (60) 1 0 4
-Library (61) 1 0 4
Note: Item number reference in parenthesis

Chapter 3
3.5 Discussion
Our starting premise was that the different immediate contexts (or
microsystems) (Bronfenbrenner, 1995; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993) and their
objects, places, surfaces, events, and other people (J. J. Gibson, 1979) can
invite, permit, or inhibit progressively more complex child-environment
interactions. Ward (1978, p.85) points out that “children will play everywhere and
with anything” during their childhood, and also, “they will play wherever they
happen to be”, thus a city (and all of their available microsystems) need to make
the whole environment accessible to them, because “whether invited to or not,
they are going to use the whole environment”. Nowadays, these thoughts
continue to be important in the study of the environmental contexts experienced
by children. Thus, our goal was to create a parental reporting research
questionnaire to assess the quality and quantity of the characteristics
(affordances and events) in the different microsystems that can enhance motor
learning, motor competence and motor development for children ranging from 6-
to 10- years.
The current study revealed that the AMBS was able to detect a common
structured organization of potential affordances in the children's microsystems
comprising different groups of categories: Home, Materials, and School,
representing a meaningful structure associated with the children's regular
environment. Accordingly, the AMBS shows the potential to evaluate and
discriminate affordances among different microsystems that children attend to.
These results can help us to increase our understanding of the children’s regular
microsystems which can influence motor behavior.
According to our results, the home, school and the materials provided to
children are related to each other. The strongest correlation is between home (its
physical characteristics) and the available materials as it would be expected.
Also, figure 2 showed that educational toys and manipulative materials showed
a strong positive association. These results indicate that parents provided a
specific type of material, allowing opportunities for children to develop fine motor
skills and cognitive competencies.

Chapter 3
Previous studies with different instruments developed to date have

confirmed the importance of the contexts that children attend for their motor
development. However, in most cases, only a setting is studied at a time. For
example, regarding the home setting, Miquelote, Santos, Caçola, Montebelo, &
Gabbard (2012) found that home provides great resources to promote motor and
cognitive skills in young children, and it is associated with gross and fine motor
performance. Despite the positive results, the authors do not report the
importance of other environments experienced by children, such as the home of
grandparents (or relatives in general) and daycare centers. In relation to sports,
Ferreira et al. (2019) aimed to investigate the association between sport
participation and motor competence in 6-to 10-year-old children. The results
showed that sports participation was associated with motor competence and play
a relevant role in this process. Again, the authors cannot explain the role of other
environments, such as home or school, in the development of motor competence.
Regarding school attendance, Clark & Uzzell (2002), consider the school as an
important environment in the daily activities of children and adolescents.
Nevertheless, the authors claim that modern schools may provide few interaction
settings to these people. Thus, the school should contain a broad range of
different opportunities to develop children’s skills and capabilities (Flôres et al.,
2019). Despite of that, most of the research that studied the school period,
focused on physical activity during recess, playgrounds or physical education
classes, not taking into account the materials, people and other affordances
provided (M Dowda, Sallis, McKenzie, Rosengard, & Kohl III, 2005; Frago-Calvo
et al., 2017; Mills & Burnett, 2017).
On the other hand, frequently research designs are targeted to assess
children's motor behavior, not investigating the environments that may influence
the results. Many studies focus on assessing motor learning, motor competence
and motor development (using different types of instruments) with little attention
given to the underlying factors. For instance, Goyen & Lui (2009) aimed to
determine the prevalence of developmental coordination disorder (DCD) in
‘‘apparently normal’’ extremely premature or extremely low birthweight
schoolchildren at 8 years of age. The results showed that “apparently normal”

Chapter 3
infants are at risk of motor dysfunction in their school years. Nevertheless, there
was not an assessment of the environments and contexts experienced by these
children. Avigo et al. (2019) assessed the fundamental motor skills competence
levels in 8- and 10-year-old Brazilian children. The findings showed low levels of
competence across all fundamental motor skills and observed motor competence
deficit increases with age. To the authors, the delay in motor competence is
associated with decreased levels of health, physical activity, physical fitness,
executive functions, and perceived competence, as well as increased obesity, but
they didn’t associate these results to the environmental factors. Several other
research follows the same pattern, evaluating many aspects of the child and
finding interesting results that could have been complemented with information
about the environmental factors (Flôres, Schild, & Chiviacowsky, 2015; Goyen &
Lui, 2002; Herrmann, Heim, & Seelig, 2019; Herrmann, Seelig, Ferrari, & Kühnis,
2019; Logan, Robinson, Rudisill, Wadsworth, & Morera, 2014). In fact, nowadays
a gap is established in the literature, regarding the lack of a “sociocultural”
approach, which can help us to better understand what happens in children's
motor behavior processes (Nobre et al., 2020; Uehara, Button, Falcous, &
Davids, 2016). Thus, this contextualized perspective helps in the need to
investigate beyond the child’s immediate context to examining the influence of
wider environments and the opportunities offered for the children (Gabbard &
Krebs, 2012; Nobre et al., 2020).
The AMBS can be used to examine the different contexts that children
attend to, and further relate them to their levels of motor learning, motor
competence, and motor development. That is, relating AMBS scores to motor
competence or motor development assessments (e.g. Motor Competence
Assessment, Test of Gross Motor Development -2) should provide a better
understanding of how children are developing, learning and acquiring lifespan
motor competence within the environment. Information from the AMBS may be
particularly beneficial to supplement motor information for children with lower
levels of motor competence since this instrument might help to identify areas of
strength and weakness in the environments the child attends to, which can help
to develop appropriate interventive strategies.

Chapter 3
While our results suggest that the AMBS can be a valuable tool to inform
about the opportunities for action provided to children by their home, the materials
in the home and their school, it still has some limitations. First, the AMBS is
answered by parents, which means that the physical environments could not be
verified. This fact implies that the responses provided are related to parental
perception and, sometimes, can have a discrepancy between the real
environment and the perceived. Second, although an effort was made to assess
the affordances in different microsystems, it is quite difficult to have an instrument
that evaluates all the environments the child attends. For example, in the AMBS,
the extracurricular activities are only identified, but no detailed assessment is
made regarding the opportunities for action that exist in those environments.
Finally, although the AMBS assesses the opportunities for action provided by
different environments, it does not allow for assessing the child's real interaction
within those environments, since children might not always use the affordances
that are available to them.
3.6 Conclusion
The results of this study support the idea that the AMBS is a valid
instrument to assess the affordances for motor behavior in different microsystems
that the child attends. More specifically, after an initial part composed by items
that allow to gather descriptive data regarding the child’s and family
characteristics, as well as the attendance of extracurricular activities, the
questionnaire considers three latent categories: home (physical characteristics);
materials (house items and child play materials) and school (school spaces).
These three categories are represented by 11 variables and 52 items. We
suggest that the AMBS can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in the
studied environments, complementing the information about children’s levels of
motor learning, motor competence, and motor development assessed by other
instruments, and to inform about interventive strategies when needed.

Chapter 3
3.7 References

Chapter 3

The Guilford Press.
Caçola, P., Gabbard, C., Santos, D., & Batistela, A. (2011). Development of the
affordances in the home environment for motor development–infant scale.
Pediatrics International, 53(6), 820–825.
Psychology, 22(1–2), 95–108.
Dowda, M., Sallis, J., McKenzie, T., Rosengard, P., & Kohl III, H. (2005).
Sport, 76(1), 11–19.
Flôres, F., Rodrigues, L. P., Copetti, F., Lopes, F., & Cordovil, R. (2019).
003151251982927. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031512519829271
Flôres, F., Schild, J., & Chiviacowsky, S. (2015). Benefits of external focus

Chapter 3

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-008-0235-6
Development, 70(1), 103–115.
302.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-019-00566-5

Chapter 3

Psychology.
19(1), 48–59.
195–205.
3(2), 30–39.
Miquelote, A., Santos, D., Caçola, P., Montebelo, M., & Gabbard, C. (2012).
Effect of the home environment on motor and cognitive behavior of infants.
Infant Behavior & Development, 35, 329–334.
S73–S80.

Chapter 3

37(4), 319–327.
35(4), 352–356.

Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
Further development of the affordances for motor behavior of

schoolchildren: standardized version and scoring system
4.1 Abstract
Mapping and evaluating regular contexts that schoolchildren attend is of great

importance to understand their motor behavior. The aim of this communication is
to present the scoring system and standardization of the Affordances for Motor
Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS), recently presented to the scientific and
educational community. The questionnaire was completed by 377 Brazilian
families. Raw scores of each of the three sub-scales (Home, Materials, and
School) can be transformed into standard scores, ranging from very low to very
high. The AMBS total raw score are a result of the sum of the three sub-scales
standard scores, and can be classified into three categories, ranging from a low
to a high AMBS. Our expectation is that raw and standard scores of the AMBS
can be used by researchers, parents and clinical and education professionals to
assess children’s affordances for motor behavior.
Keywords: affordances; AMBS; children.
4.2 Introduction
Children’s microsystems have been established as crucial factors for the

development of motor behavior, motor development, motor learning and motor
competence (Barnett, Hnatiuk, Salmon, & Hesketh, 2019; Bronfenbrenner, 1995;
Caçola, Gabbard, Montebelo, & Santos, 2015). Exploring the multiple contexts
present in children’s daily life can have major implications for intervention and
research.
Based in an extensive review of the literature that identified the need for
an instrument capable of assessing daily affordances for motor behavior of

Chapter 4
children after three years of age (Flôres, Rodrigues, Copetti, Lopes, & Cordovil,
2019), our group developed the Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren
(AMBS) (chapter 3), a parental reporting questionnaire designed to assess the
quality and quantity of affordances (opportunities for action) in the child's main
microsystems. The AMBS has dichotomous questions, 7-point Likert-type scales,
and description-based queries, aiming to map and evaluate children’s regular
environments, especially when they start to attend other settings than the home
(after 6 years of age). The Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to test the
structural validity of the AMBS. The model testing resulted in a Chi-Square of
76.76; p<.001 and showed a very good fit (Chi-Square/df=1.87, CFI=.949;
TLI=.918 and RMSEA=.001). In addition, significant correlation values were
found between the sub-scales (Home and Materials, R=0.84; Home and School,
R=0.47; and Materials and School, R=0.64).
Despite being a valid instrument, its standardization and scoring system
have not yet been published. Thus, our aim with the present communication is to
inform the scientific community of the AMBS update, by presenting the
standardization and scoring system.
4.3 Method
4.3.1 Participants
The AMBS original sample (chapter 3) consisted of 155 responses

completed by families of 6 to 10-year-old Brazilian children. For this scoring
system classification, a broader sample was collected. For the present report we
considered questionnaire responses regarding 377 Brazilian children (198 boys
and 179 girls), between 6 and 10 years of age (M=7,80; SD=1,87).
4.3.2 Procedures
The AMBS consists of 72 items grouped in 7 different categories,

regarding the materials/spaces available to children: Child Characteristics (6

Chapter 4
items), Extracurricular Activities (6 items), Family (7 items), Family House (10

items), House Items (7 items), Child Play Materials (22 items), and School (14
items). Forty-eight of these items are grouped into 11 variables (Inside Space A,
Inside Space B, and Outside Space; Sedentary Materials, Pretend Play Toys,
Educational Toys, Manipulative Materials, and Stability Materials; Space for
Movement, Free Space for Movement, and Sedentary Space), which are then
organized in three sub-scales (Home, Materials, and School). All sub-scales raw
scores are transformed in standard scores, according to quartiles cut-off values
for each sub-scale, resulting in a classification ranging from 1 (Very Low) to 4
(Very High).
The AMBS total raw score is made up of the sum of the three sub-scales
standard scores. Finally, the AMBS total raw scores are transformed into
standardized scores: Low (scores less than 8 points), Average (scores ranging 8
and 10 points), and High (scores above 10 points).
4.3.3 Data Analysis
Descriptive analysis with mean and standard deviation was used to

characterize AMBS results according to the proposed scoring systems. The
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.0, was used, adopting
an alpha level of significance of 5%.
4.4 Results
Most children (74,2%) attended school in the afternoon, 21,3% attended it

in the morning, and 4,5% attended full-time school. Of the 377 questionnaires
answered, 112 (38,5%) were from families with children aged six years, 42 (14%)
seven years, 45 (17,5%) eight years, 49 (16,5%) nine years, and 43 (13,5%) aged
ten years. Regarding housing type, 201 children lived in houses and 176 lived in
apartments. Considering the monthly income of families, 34 (9%) earned R$1000
or less, 157 (40,0%) earned between R$1001 and R$4000, 31 (8,2%) earned

Chapter 4
between R$4001 and R$5000, and 161 (42,7%) had a monthly income over
R$5001.
Table 2 shows the descriptive values of the AMBS responses, regarding

child characterization, movement activities and AMBS scores, by sex and for the
total sample. In relation to the Child Movement activities, most of the boys
participate in team sports (63.6%), while about half of the girls participate in this
type of activity (49.2%). Almost three-quarters of children participate in outdoor
activities (74.8%). Another interesting finding is that girls practice individual sports
more than boys do (55.3% and 39.9%, respectively).
Table 2. Descriptive values of the sample.
AMBS categories Boys (n=198) Girls (n=179) Total (n=377)

Child Characteristics Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Age 7.74 1.83 7.87 1.91 7.80 1.87
Child Movement activities n % n % n %
Team Sports 126 63.6 88 49.2 214 56.8
Individual Sports 79 39.9 99 55.3 178 47.2
Combat Sports 32 16.2 18 10.1 50 13.3
Outdoor Activities 151 76.3 131 73.2 282 74.8
Music Activities 56 28.3 59 33.0 115 30.5
Cultural/Artistic Activities 86 43.4 96 53.6 182 48.3
Home Variables Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Inside Space A 6.44 1.47 6.65 1.49 6.54 1.48
Inside Space B 0.35 0.62 0.32 0.55 0.34 0.58
Outside Space 1.17 1.08 1.16 0.97 1.16 1.02
Materials Variables Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Sedentary Materials 12.96 4.28 13.19 4.15 13.07 4.22
Pretend Play Toys 14.40 6.66 13.66 6.32 14.05 6.50
Educational Toys 18.64 10.89 18.17 10.14 18.42 10.53
Manipulative Materials 5.83 3.69 4.49 3.46 5.20 3.64
Stability Materials 2.40 2.24 2.68 1.93 2.53 2.10
School Variables Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Space for Movement 4.65 2.68 4.81 3.00 4.73 2.84
Free Space for Movement 2.58 1.6 2.42 1.64 2.50 1.70
Sedentary Space 3.38 1.89 3.66 3.51 2.2
AMBS. Sub-scales and total Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Home 7.96 2.4 8.13 2.18 8.04 2.30
Materials 54.23 22.41 52.20 21.30 53.27 21.89
School 10.61 5.36 10.89 6.17 10.75 5.75
AMBS total 8.79 2.37 8.68 2.33 8.04 2.30

Chapter 4
Table 3 shows the quartile cut-off values for the distribution of the sub-
scales to produce the standardized scores. Then, to establish the cutoff value for
the AMBS total, the sum of the subscales was computed and tercile values were
used.
Table 3. AMBS sub-scales standardization and AMBS total scores.
AMBS classification
VERY LOW LOW GOOD VERY GOOD
Sub-scales
1st quartile 2nd quartile 3rd quartile 4th quartile
Home <6 7 8-9 >9
Materials <36 36 to53 54 to 68 >68
School <7 7 to 8 9 to13 >13
LOW AVERAGE HIGH
Total
1st tercile 2nd tercile 3rd tercile
AMBS total <8 8 to 10 >10
4.5 Conclusion
The present communication establishes the scoring and classification

system for the AMBS questionnaire, which are of great importance to assess the
available affordances in children’s environments. Knowledge about the quality
and quantity of the existent affordances can help parents and teachers to better
shape environments for children. Also, professionals can use the AMBS to
investigate the relations between the quality of different contexts and to correlate
it with other variables, which can be evaluated by other instruments, such as
children’s motor competence, motor development or motor learning. Our
expectation is that children with different AMBS scores, who have different
opportunities for motor behavior stimulation during their daily activities, will also
have different motor competence profiles.
In summary, our findings provide further AMBS progress to be a tool
capable of assessing and measure motor affordances for schoolchildren.
Furthermore, some studies with younger children indicate that there is an
relationship between affordances in the child’s microsystems and his or her motor
competence (Barnett et al., 2019; Niemistö et al., 2019) but this relationship has

Chapter 4
not been fully explored in older children. Exploring the relation between the quality
and quantity of the microsystem’s affordances and its influence on
schoolchildren’s motor competence can be fundamental for understanding the
complex nature of these factors. The Affordances for Motor Behavior of
Schoolchildren questionnaire has the potential to be a useful tool for such task.
4.6 References
16(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-019-0888-0
Caçola, P., Gabbard, C., Montebelo, M., & Santos, D. (2015). Further
Development and Validation of the Affordances in the Home Environment
for Motor Development–Infant Scale (AHEMD-IS). Physical Therapy, 95(6),
901–923. https://doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20140011
003151251982927. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031512519829271
Niemistö, D., Barnett, L., Cantell, M., Finni, T., Korhonen, E., & Sääkslahti, A.
(2019). Socioecological correlates of perceived motor competence in 5 ‐ to
7 ‐ year ‐ old Finnish children. Scand J Med Sci Sports, 29, 753–765.
https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.13389

Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
Examining the relationship of the Affordances for Motor Behavior of

Schoolchildren (AMBS) to motor competence in Brazilian schoolchildren
5.1 Abstract
During growth, children are influenced by an extensive network, in which more

favorable contexts provide better affordance’s landscapes, and consequently
have a better potential to foster child development. Our aim was to examine the
affordances provided to children using the Affordance for Motor Behavior of
Schoolchildren (AMBS) estimating its association with children’s motor
competence, as assessed by the Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) battery.
Seventy-two Brazilian children were evaluated using the MCA instrument. Their
parents/guardians completed the AMBS. The correlations between the two
instruments (sub-scales and total scores) were investigated. ANOVAs were used
to compare the motor competence performance of children with Low, Average
and High AMBS scores. Positive associations were found between AMBS and
MCA, although weak to moderate in nature. In addition, children whose
environments were richer in motor affordances (higher AMBS scores) showed
significantly higher levels of MCA. This study provides evidence that AMBS is a
valid tool for assessing motor affordances for schoolchildren and that those
affordances are related to children’s motor competence.
Keywords: motor behavior; children; MCA; assessment.
5.2 Introduction
As children grow, they are influenced by an extensive network, such as

their houses, the neighborhood, parents work, house of relatives or friends,
school, sports contexts, and culture (Bronfenbrenner, 1995). During this process,
more favorable environments, richer, with better structural and material

Chapter 5
conditions provide richer opportunities for action, or affordance’s landscapes

(Gibson, 1979) than others (Gabbard & Rodrigues, 2007; Soares et al., 2015),
having a better potential to foster child development (Koller, 2004). Thus, the
importance of the different environments (or microsystems) that the child interacts
with during development is widely accepted in the literature (e.g, Bronfenbrenner,
2005; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993; Flôres et al., 2019).
A previous literature review (Flôres et al., 2019) tried to better understand
how studies have investigated the potential of different environments (i.e., home,
school, and leisure environments) to promote children’s motor competence and
motor development. The authors concluded that most studies have focused
mainly on the home microsystem, providing an incomplete frame of the
affordances across those environments, especially later in development. A gap
in the literature concerning the study of affordances in schoolchildren’s
environments was identified and that was probably due to the lack of an
instrument at the time capable of analyzing the different contexts that 6-to 10-
year-old children are engaged.
To address this gap, in chapter 3 we showed the development of the
Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS) questionnaire,
designed to quantify motor affordances present at home and school
environments. The AMBS questionnaire showed to represent a valuable and
coherent structure of the existent affordances in three main sub-scales (Home,
Materials, and School), capable of discriminating between environments
according to its motor affordance enrichment. But to be effective as an evaluation
tool, the AMBS also must prove the expected relationship to children motor
development characteristics, as measured by motor competence.
Motor competence is strongly related to the development of fundamental
motor skills, comprising locomotor, stability and manipulative skills that are
cornerstones for the acquisition of specialized movements throughout the
lifespan (Luz et al., 2017; Rodrigues et al., 2019), relevant for developing
children’s healthy lifestyles (Luz, Almeida, et al., 2017; Robinson et al., 2015;
Stodden et al., 2008), and sports participation (Ferreira et al., 2019).

Chapter 5
Even though motor competence is an extremely important topic in the

study of children, few have tried to understand the underlying processes that
influence their development (Nobre et al., 2020), being available motor
affordances surely one of those (Rodrigues, 2005). Given the nature of motor
affordances, construct validity of the AMBS must be validated by estimating its
association with the expected output of motor affordances (e.g. motor
competence). Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine the AMBS
construct validity estimating its association with children’s motor competence, as
assessed by the Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) battery. Our hypothesis
is that children who interact with richer motor affordances contexts (high AMBS)
will present higher motor competence scores (MCA) than children living in poorer
motor affordances contexts.
5.3 Method
5.3.1 Participants
Two hundred and ten Brazilian families were invited (contacted using
social media and schools) to participate on the present research. Seventy-two
children (35 boys and 37 girls – mean age of 8,2±1,4) and their parents or
guardians agree to enroll in this study. Participants were recruited from different
cities in the south Brazil. Oral assent was obtained from the participants and
written consent from their parents/guardians, before beginning the experiment.
None of the participants had any developmental difficulties or medical restriction
to perform the activities.
The research was approved by the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria
(UFSM, Brazil) ethics committee (Protocol: 76336117.0.0000.5346).
5.3.2 Procedures
From the 122 parents who agreed to participate, 103 returned the
Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren (AMBS) questionnaire (further

Chapter 5
information available on chapter 3), and 72 of their children completed the motor
competence evaluation. Parents also reported their children age, height and
weight using the characterization category in the AMBS.
The AMBS intends to evaluate the affordances provided by the different
contexts to children. The instrument is composed of 72 questions grouped into
11 variables (Inside Space A, Inside Space B, and Outside Space; Sedentary
Material, Pretend Play Toys, Educational Toys, Manipulative Materials, and
Stability Materials; Space for Movement, Free Space for Movement, and
Sedentary Space), which are then organized in three main sub-scales (Home,
Materials, and School). Each category raw score is transformed into a
standardized score that ranges from 1 (Very Low) to 4 (Very High). The AMBS
total score is made up of the sum of the three sub-scales standardized scores.
For the purpose of this study, children were organized into tercile groups
according to the AMBS total scores, thus representing a Low, Average, and High
AMBS.
To assess motor competence of the children, the Motor Competence
Assessment (MCA) was administered according to the protocol described by Luz,
Rodrigues, Almeida, & Cordovil (2016) and Rodrigues et al. (2019). This
instrument was designed to measure motor competence and comprises six tests
of three components – Stability: Jumping Sideways (JS) and Shifting Platforms
(SP); Locomotor: Standing Long Jump (SLJ) and Shuttle Run (SHR); and
Manipulative: Ball Kicking Velocity (BKV) and Ball Throwing Velocity (BTV). The
individual results (JS, SP, SLJ, SHR, BTV, and BKV) were transformed into age-
and sex-related percentiles using the normative values of the MCA instrument
(Rodrigues et al., 2019). To find each MCA component score (Stability,
Locomotor, and Manipulative), the average of the respective two tests percentile
position was used. Finally, the total MCA was calculated as the average of the
three MCA components.

Chapter 5
5.3.3 Data Analysis
Descriptive analysis with mean and standard deviation was used to

characterize anthropometric data and AMBS and MCA results. The Shapiro-Wilk
test confirmed the data normality and all statistical assumptions. Pearson
correlation was used to analyze the relationship between the MCA components
and total, with the AMBS sub-scales and total. Correlations coefficients <0.30
were considered weak, those between 0.30 and 0.70 were considered moderate
and coefficients >0.70 were considered strong (Field, 2005). Univariate ANOVAs
were used to find if the AMBS classification (High, Medium, and Low AMBS) was
related to MCA values (sub-scales and total). The Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS), version 25.0, was used, adopting an alpha level of significance
of 5%.
5.4 Results
Regarding the income condition of the families, the answers to the AMBS
showed that most of the families received less than less than R$3000 per month
(58.4%), between R$3001 and R$5000 (19.4%),and more than R$5001 (22.%).
In relation to the parent education 34.7% of the parents failed to complete school
education, 38.9% finish high school, and 26.4% finish higher education.
Table 4 provides information about sample size, gender, height, weight
and extracurricular activities of the participants. In addition, it presents the data
regarding MCA test percentiles, categories and total MCA. The results showed
that the children’s microsystems present low levels of AMBS total (<8 points).

Chapter 5
Table 4. Descriptive values of the sample.

Boys (n=35) Girls (n=37) Total (n=72)
Raw scores
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Child Characterization
Age 7.83 1.40 8.53 1.30 8.19 1.39
Height 118.83 21.78 119.70 23.16 119.28 22.34
Weight 31.88 8.34 30.66 9.06 31.25 8.68
Child Movement activities (days per week)
Team Sports 0.37 0.77 1.40 1.50 0.90 1.30
Individual Sports 0.42 0.81 1.65 2.08 1.05 1.70
Combat Sports 0.0 0.0 0.38 1.11 0.19 0.82
Outdoor Activities 0.11 0.53 0.14 0.42 0.13 0.47
Music Activities 0.60 0.95 0.51 0.96 0.56 0.94
Cultural/Artistic Activities 2.54 2.10 3.24 1.82 2.90 1.98
AMBS. Sub-scales and total (raw scores)
Home 7.11 3.15 7.32 2.33 7.22 2.75
Materials 47.94 25.60 47.62 21.83 47.78 24.09
School 9.29 3.73 9.35 4.18 9.32 3.94
AMBS total 6.23 2.97 6.32 2.74 6.28 2.83
MCA tests percentiles
Jumping Sideways 36 27 25 27 30 28
Shifting Platforms 43 30 32 19 37 26
Standing Long Jump 56 28 58 30 57 29
Shuttle Run 46 33 40 30 43 31
Ball Throwing Velocity 62 37 42 33 52 36
Ball Kicking Velocity 49 40 44 34 46 37
MCA. Components and total (mean of test’s percentiles)
Stabilization 50 24 49 27 49 26
Locomotion 39 23 28 19 33 22
Manipulation 55 35 43 28 49 32
Total MCA 48 24 40 20 44 22
To test the associations between the AMBS and the MCA, bivariate
correlation between AMBS and MCA, categories and total are presented in Table
2. There were significant weak associations between MCA Locomotion and
AMBS Materials (r = .232, p <.05), AMBS School (r = .235, p <.05), and AMBS
Total (r = .267, p <.05); MCA Manipulative category is associated with AMBS total
(r = .279, p <.05); and Total MCA to AMBS School (r = .241, p <.05). Also, there
were significant moderate associations between MCA Stabilization and AMBS
Home (r = .317, p <.01), AMBS Materials (r = .368, p <.001), and AMBS total (r =
.376, p <.001); MCA Manipulative category was associated with AMBS Home (r
= .313, p <.01). The Total MCA showed association with AMBS Home (r = .311,
p <.01), and AMBS Materials (r = .302, p <.01). Finally, there were significant

Chapter 5
moderate associations between the Total MCA and AMBS Total (r = .359, p
<.001) (Table 5).
Table 5. Correlation between the MCA categories, total MCA and AMBS sub-
scales and AMBS total.
AMBS sub-scales
MCA categories Home Materials School AMBS Total
Stabilization 0.317** 0.368*** 0.179 0.376***
Locomotion 0.152 0.232* 0.235* 0.267*
Manipulative 0.313** 0.195 0.192 0.279*
Total MCA 0.311** 0.302** 0.241* 0.359***
Note: *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001
To test for the hypothesized differences in motor competence according to

the AMBS classification, one-way ANOVAS for each MCA component and total
were made using the three tercile groups of AMBS (Low, Average, and High).
Table 6 presents the results of the main effects and post-hoc tests, showing that
AMBS classification was significantly associated with motor competence
performance for all MCA components and total. Children that showed higher level
of motor affordances on their environment were also significantly different for the
better on their motor competence as showed in figure 3.
Table 6. Descriptive results for each MCA component and total, according to the AMBS
group classification, and ANOVAS and Post-hoc tests.
AMBS classification groups

(MCA mean percentiles)
T2
T1 (Low) T3 (High) ANOVAS
MCA (Average)
(M ± SD) (M ± SD) Post-hoc
(M ± SD)
F (3,69) = 72.943; p< .001
Stabilization 26 ± 17 28 ± 20 47 ± 23
T1=T2<T3
F (3,69) = 98.014; p<.001
Locomotion 42 ± 25 48 ± 23 60 ± 26
T1=T2, T2=T3, T1<T3
F (3,69) = 73.029; p<.001
Manipulation 42 ± 28 33 ± 29 67 ± 30
T1=T2<T3
F (2,69) = 9,252; p < .001
Total MCA 37 ± 19 36 ± 19 58 ± 23
T1=T2<T3

Chapter 5
Figure 3. AMBS classification groups regarding MCA values.
5.5 Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship

between the opportunities for action that are present in children’s environments
and their levels of motor competence. The AMBS was used to assess the quality
of the different microsystems. Our initial premise was that AMBS and MCA scores
would be related, with associations between AMBS and MCA categories. Our
findings confirm a significant association between AMBS and MCA categories
and Total scores (Table 5). The association tested is between the opportunities
for action assessed by a questionnaire and the level of motor competence as
assessed by the MCA. The rationale was that when in presence of more motor
affordances in their daily life, children will take advantage of these opportunities
increasing their physical activity and movement experience, and with that there
is the likelihood of developing a better motor competence. Powerful has it can be
expected, motor affordances in the environment are not supposed to be the only
influence for the motor development of children at this age. Several other features

Chapter 5
of children, personal and of the daily life, heredity, family, culture, society,
biological development, socioeconomic condition, motivation, etc., are certainly
influencing these children’s motor competence, and consequently the found
associations between AMBS and MCA, although moderate in nature, are
signaling the important conclusion that AMBS was apparently able to assess and
quantify important characteristics that are related to the actual development of
motor competence. Thus, and even though environments are not the only
influencing factor (i.e.; genetic or biological condition are important conditions),
the children's motor competence is related to the motor affordances provided in
their daily life, and AMBS was able of capturing them.
Of the most importance to this research is the insight obtained from the
AMBS total scores since they consider not only the number but also the variety
of affordances. Despite the average affordances provided to children are
classified as Low, scoring 6.28±2.82 (this means that home, materials and
schools are not providing all the necessary affordances to average children),
children with higher affordances had significantly better levels of MCA than the
other two groups (Table 6 and Figure 3). Similar results are found in several
studies, showing that higher affordances provide higher levels of motor
development in infants (Abbott et al., 2000; Saccani et al., 2013) and young
children (Haydari et al., 2009; Mori et al., 2013; Valadi & Gabbard, 2018). Thus,
our study confirms that affordances are extremely important to develop of motor
competence across lifespan.
AMBS proved to be an important tool to evaluate and discriminate among
different motor affordances profiles. The results showed a common structured
organization of potential affordances in the children microsystems in relation to
three sub-scales (Home, Materials, and School), representing a meaningful
structure inside and outside the home, resulting from the parents' decisions or
possibilities on how they provide environmental stimuli to their children. Thus, our
results revealed that AMBS is a valid indicator of the affordances found in the
multiple contexts that have the potential to influence schoolchildren motor
competence.

Chapter 5
Additionally, to the affordances provision, other factors measured by the

AMBS can contribute to the results found in the present research. For example,
58.4% of all families receive less than R$3000 per month, and 38.9% the fathers
and 44.4% just finished high school. A body of studies shows that financial
conditions (Hernández, Robins, Widaman, & Conger, 2016; Trawick-Smith,
Wolff, Koschel, & Vallarelli, 2015) and parental education is an important aspect
of child development, especially at a young age (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Lung,
Shu, Chiang, & Lin, 2010; Miquelote et al., 2012).
There are limitations of the study that note mention. First, although the
AMBS has been shown to be a valid and reliable assessing tool, the actual
assessment of the environments could provide better information. Second, the
AMBS is a parental report instrument and provides data regarding the quantity
and variety of the materials inside and outside the home, it is not possible to
assess the amount of interaction that children have with the materials, nor the
importance assigned to these interactions. We believe that studies using AMBS
to assess motor affordances provide important information that can be
complemented by studies that investigate children’s actual interactions in the
different settings.
5.6 Conclusion
Our findings provide further evidence that AMBS is a valid tool for
assessing motor affordances for schoolchildren, being able to asses and
discriminate among different motor affordances profiles. Furthermore, we can
state that there is an interrelation between affordances in the microsystems and
children motor competence. Thus, better context conditions are important to the
development of schoolchildren’s motor competence. Exploring the relation of the
quality and quantity of the microsystem’s affordances and its influence on the
children motor competence development can be fundamental for understanding
the complex nature of these factors, and the Affordances for Motor Behavior of
Schoolchildren questionnaire proved to be a useful tool for such task.

Chapter 5
5.7 References
Therapy, 12(2), 62–67.
Bradley, R., & Corwyn, R. (2002). Socioeconomic status and child development.
Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 371–399.
Field, A. (2005). Discovering Statistics with SPSS. Aletheia (2nd ed.). London:
Sage Publications of London.
003151251982927. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031512519829271
Gabbard, C., & Rodrigues, L. P. (2007). Affordances for motor development.
Tópicos Em Desenvolvimento Motor Na Infância e Adolescência. Rio de
Janeiro: LECSU.
Haydari, A., Askari, P., & Nezhad, M. Z. (2009). Relationship between
affordances in the home environment and motor development in children
age 18-42 months. Journal of Social Sciences, 5(4), 319.
Hernández, M. M., Robins, R. W., Widaman, K. F., & Conger, R. D. (2016).
School Belonging, Generational Status, and Socioeconomic Effects on

Chapter 5
Mexican-Origin Children’s Later Academic Competence and Expectations.

Journal of Research on Adolescence, 26(2), 241–256.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12188
Lung, F.-W., Shu, B.-C., Chiang, T.-L., & Lin, S.-J. (2010). Child : the
development of children at 6 , 18 and 36 months : a Taiwan birth cohort
pilot study. Child: Care, Health and Development, 37(2), 211–223.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2010.01163.x
Luz, C., Rodrigues, L. P., Almeida, G., & Cordovil, R. (2016). Development and
validation of a model of motor competence in children and adolescents.
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 19, 568–572.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2015.07.005
Mori, S., Nakamoto, H., Mizuochi, H., Ikudome, S., & Gabbard, C. (2013).
Influence of affordances in the home environment on motor development of
young children in Japan. Child Development Research, 2013.

Chapter 5

22, 1038–1043.
Saccani, R., Valentini, N., Pereira, K., Müller, A., & Gabbard, C. (2013).
Associations of biological factors and affordances in the home with infant
motor development. Pediatrics International, 55, 197–203.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ped.12042
Soares, E., Flôres, F., Katzer, J., Valentini, N., Corazza, S., Copetti, F., …
Soares, E. (2015). Análise das oportunidades de estimulação motora em
ambientes domiciliares na região central do Rio Grande do Sul. Revista
Brasileira de Educação Física e Esporte, 29(2), 279–288.
https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-55092015000200279
60(2), 290–306.
Trawick-Smith, J., Wolff, J., Koschel, M., & Vallarelli, J. (2015). Effects of Toys
on the Play Quality of Preschool Children: Influence of Gender, Ethnicity,
and Socioeconomic Status. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43(4), 249–
256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-014-0644-7
https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2018.1526791

Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Cross-cultural comparisons of motor competence in Brazilian and

Portuguese children
6.1 Abstract
The proper development of motor competence in childhood is fundamental for

the development and maintenance of healthy lifestyles. Environmental and
cultural contexts are known to influence children’s lives and more specifically their
levels of MC. To know the differences between children’s levels of motor
competence in different countries will help us to better understand differences in
cultural contexts and to adjust intervention strategies. In this study, we aimed to
compare the motor competence levels of Brazilian and Portuguese children from
4 to 11 years. One hundred and forty-eight Brazilian children were evaluated
using the Motor Competence Assessment (MCA) instrument and were later
compared to the existent normative values of Portuguese children for the same
age range. Results showed the motor competence increases with age, and boys
outperformed girls, especially the older. The distribution of the Brazilian children
showed that while Brazilian boys perform above Portuguese normative values in
4 of the 6 tasks of the MCA, Brazilian girls perform below those values in all tasks,
except for the standing long jump. We believe that the differences found,
especially in girls, are related to Physical Education curricula and the type of the
use of recess during school days.
Keywords: motor competence; motor assessment; children.
6.2 Introduction
Motor competence is understood as a person’s ability to perform on a

broad range of motor skills (Fransen et al., 2014; Luz, Almeida, et al., 2017). It is
related with the development of fundamental motor skills (FMS), which comprise

Chapter 6
locomotor, stability and manipulative skills that are fundamental for the
acquisition of specialized movements in future life (Luz, Almeida, et al., 2017).
Likewise, it is expected that good levels of motor competence contribute to a
better learning of new skills, and to a higher motor proficiency on novel motor
tasks throughout the lifespan (Rodrigues et al., 2019). In other words, motor
competence can be learned and retained in the long term and developed along
with different situation-specific motor demands (Herrmann, Heim, et al., 2019).
Indeed, in the last few years, there has been growing evidence of the importance
of motor competence for developing children’s healthy lifestyles (Luz, Almeida,
et al., 2017; Robinson et al., 2015; Stodden et al., 2008) and sports participation
(Ferreira et al., 2019). Furthermore, motor competence in childhood is an
important determinant of physical activity and physical fitness in later life (Bardid,
Rudd, Lenoir, Polman, & Barnett, 2015; Robinson et al., 2015; Stodden et al.,
2008).
During childhood, children attend multiple contexts, such as home, school,
sports environments or free play (Flôres et al., 2019). In all these contexts they
move, but some settings seem to be particularly important to develop motor
competence, such as Physical Education (PE) classes or sports (Morgan et al.,
2013). For most children, these environments are the opportunity they have to
engage in a structured practice that specifically aim the development of motor
competence (Luz, Almeida, et al., 2017; McKenzie & Lounsbery, 2013). Higher
levels of motor competence in Brazilian children were found in those who
practiced sports regularly (Ferreira et al., 2019). Also, there is a moderate-strong
significant correlation between motor competence and health-related fitness in 7-
to-14-year-old children, regardless of sex (Luz, Rodrigues, De Meester, &
Cordovil, 2017). Logan, Kipling, Getchell, Pfeiffer, & Robinson (2015) suggested
a low to moderate relationship between FMS competence and physical activity in
early childhood, low to high relationships in middle to late childhood, and low to
moderate relationships in adolescence. These results support Stodden et al.'s
(2008) suggestion that physical activity and sports in early childhood will promote
the development of motor competence, and long-term adherence to physical
activity through a variety of exploratory movement experiences.

Chapter 6
The literature also shows that cultural diversity should be considered when
trying to understand how children develop motor competence across age (Bardid
et al., 2015; Luz et al., 2019). Bardid et al. (Bardid et al., 2015) evaluated the
motor competence of Australian and Belgium children between 6 and 8 years of
age. The results showed that Belgium children outperform Australian on jumping
sideways, moving sideways and hopping for height. In addition, Australian
children scored below average on the general motor competence test. The
authors considered that cultural differences in physical activity, physical
education and active transport could help to explain the results. Luz et al. (2019)
examined cross-cultural performances on motor competence and health-related
fitness between Portuguese and US children. Results indicated that Portuguese
children presented better performances in locomotor performance than US
children, but the US children outperformed Portuguese children in throwing and
handgrip tests. The authors assumed that cultural differences in PE curricula and
sports participation may influence differences in motor competence and fitness
development in these countries.
Comparisons among different cultural contexts may help researchers to
understand the mechanisms for motor competence and to elaborate new
strategies and policy measures to improve and develop motor competence in
children. To comprehend how different cultural contexts may impact the learning
and development of motor competence can be fundamental. It seems to be
imperative to point out the importance of comparisons between different cultural
contexts. The purpose of this study was to compare the Brazilian motor
competence levels with the normative values of Portuguese children from 4 to 11
years. Due to differences in school organization, which are related to the distinct
cultural and political situation of the countries, it is expected that differences will
be found in motor competence tests in Portuguese and Brazilian children.

Chapter 6
6.3 Method
6.3.1 Participants
One hundred and forty-eight Brazilian children (80 boys, 68 girls – mean
age of 7.81±1.50 years) participated in this study. Children were recruited from
different cities and schools in the south Brazil. All children participated in regular
physical education classes during school (2 – 3 per week for approximately 45
min each). The physical education classes in the south Brazilian schools focused
mainly on team ball games, sports and recreational activities.
6.3.2 Procedures
Participants were evaluated using the Motor Competence Assessment

instrument (Luz, Rodrigues, Almeida, & Cordovil, 2015; Rodrigues et al., 2019).
The MCA comprises six tests of three categories (Locomotor, Stability,
Manipulative or Object Control): Standing Long Jump (SLJ), Shuttle Run (SHR),
Jumping Sideways (JS), and Shifting Platforms (SP), Ball Kicking Velocity (BKV),
and Ball Throwing Velocity (BTV).
In the SLJ test, participants were instructed to perform the jump with
maximal effort starting with both feet together. The distance was measured as
the distance from the starting point to the location of the heel of the foot closest
to the starting point after the jump (in centimeters) – the farthest distance traveled
of three attempts was used for data analysis.
In the SHR test, children should run at maximal speed to a line placed 10
meters apart, picking up a block of wood, running back and placing it beyond the
starting line. Then running back to retrieve the second block and carry it back
across the finish line. The final score was the best time of the two trials.
The BKV test required children to kick a soccer ball (circumference, 64.0
cm; mass, 360.0g) against a wall with maximum effort. The BTV test required
subjects to use an overarm action to throw a size tennis ball (diameter, 6.5 cm;
mass, 57.0 g) against a wall with maximum effort. The speed of each attempt
(BKV and BTV tests) was measured in meters per second using a radar gun (Pro

Chapter 6
II STALKER radar gun). The fastest speed of three kicks and the fastest speed
of three throws were used for data analyses.
In the JS, participants should jump sideways with two feet together over a
wooden beam as fast as possible for 15 seconds. Each correct jump scored one
point and the best result over two trials was considered. Finally, in the SP test,
children were asked to move sideways for 20 seconds using two wooden
platforms (25cm x 25cm x 2cm). Each successful transfer from one platform to
the other was scored with two points (one point for each step – passing the
platform and moving the body to the platform). Participants were given two trials
and only the best score was considered. All data were collected during 2019.
6.3.3 Data Analysis
Normality of the data was confirmed by the Shapiro-Wilk test (all p’s>.05).
Shuttle run scores were inverted due the nature of the task (higher values
represent lower performance). T-scores were calculated for all tests. Stability,
locomotor and manipulative category scores were computed as the sum of the
two tasks t-scores from the sample results. The total motor competence was
calculated as the mean of the t-scores for all tests. Using these t-scores values,
a 2x2 ANOVA (sex by age) was performed to analyze the effects of age
(separated into two groups), sex and their interaction on MCA categories.
Brazilian raw scores for each task were transformed into Portuguese
normative values (percentiles and z-scores). Chi-Square tests were used to test
the distribution of the Brazilian sample within the Portuguese normative quartiles,
and t-tests were used to compare between Brazilian and Portuguese results on
each test. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.0, was
used, adopting an alpha level of significance of 5%.
6.4 Results
Table 7 show the descriptive values of the motor competence tests by sex
and age groups. Results indicate that motor competence improves with age, and
boys’ motor competence is higher than girls’ motor competence.

Chapter 6
Table 7. Descriptive values (mean and SD) of Brazilian MCA tests by sex and age group
4 to 7 years 8 to 11 years
MCA categories MCA tests Mean ± SD Mean ± SD
JS 19.00±7.30 28.21±8.16
Stabilization
SP 14.81±3.47 19.04±2.77
SLJ 117.25±20.85 135.27±19.86
Boys Locomotion
SHR 15.76±2.20 13.08±1.34
BTV 9.26±3.26 14.73±2.59
Manipulation
BKV 10.59±4.30 15.11±3.73
JS 18.00±5.74 20.31±7.40
Stabilization
SP 12.66±3.27 15.73±3.24
SLJ 115.27±20.33 118.05±19.14
Girls Locomotion
SHR 16.27±1.91 14.86±1.46
BTV 7.75±2.15 9.18±2.50
Manipulation
BKV 7.44±1.53 9.32±3.06
Legend: Jumping Sideways (JS), Shifting Platforms (SP), Standing Long Jump (SLJ), Ball Kicking
Velocity (BKV), Ball Throwing Velocity (BTV), Shuttle Run (SHR).
Accordingly, the 2x2 ANOVA overall results, computed with categories and
total MCA mean t-scores, showed main effects of sex and age for all analysis.
More specifically, boys outperformed girls and the older age group outperformed
the younger for the different categories: stabilization (sex: F (1,143) = 23.361, p
< .001; age-group: F (1,143) = 42.228, p < .001), locomotion (sex: F (1,143) =
12.891, p < .001; age-group: F (1,143) = 3.976, p < .048), manipulation (sex: F
(1,143) = 78.857, p < .001; age-group: F (1,143) = 56.142, p < .001). Differences
in total MCA followed the same trend (sex: F (1,143) = 38.482, p <.001; age-
group: F (1,142) = 36.848, p = <.001). Significant interactions between sex and
age were found in total motor competence and in all categories of motor
competence. In total motor competence (F (1,140) = 10.317, p<.002) and the
stability (F (1,143) = 4.553, p<.035) and manipulative (F (1.143) = 14.361,
p<.001) categories, sexes become increasingly different with age. In the
locomotor category, the results for girls are lower in the older age group than in
the younger, contradicting the usual tendency (F (1,143) = 9.434, p < .003) (see
Figure 4).

Chapter 6
Figure 4. Mean t-scores for categories and total Brazilian MCA by sex and age group.
Table 8 shows the distribution of the Brazilian sample within the

Portuguese quartiles and chi-square results regarding that distribution. The
frequency analysis indicates that Brazilian boys are evenly distributed among the
Portuguese quartiles of the JS and SP tests. In the other four tests the Brazilian
boys performed significantly better than Portuguese normative values. Regarding
girls, Brazilian girls were unevenly distributed among Portuguese quartiles
presenting poorer scores in all tests when compared to Portuguese normative
values, positioning mostly in the first and second quartiles, except for the SLJ

Chapter 6
where they positioned mostly in the third and second quartiles, performing above
Portuguese normative values.
Table 8. Distribution of the Brazilian sample within the Portuguese normative quartiles
and Chi-square results
Percentage
of
Participants
Sex JS SP SLJ SHR BTV BKV
1st Quartile 20.3 21.3 5.0 22.5 25.0 30.0
nd
2 Quartile 22.8 35.0 23.8 20.0 7.5 15.0
Boys 3rd Quartile 25.3 21.3 23.8 18.8 13.8 6.3
th
4 Quartile 31.6 22.5 47.5 38.8 53.8 48
Chi-square 2.266 4.300 29.100 8.300 40.300 33.300
df 3 3 3 3 3 3
p .519 .231 .000 .040 .000 .000
JS SP SLJ SHR BTV BKV
1st Quartile 45.6 38.8 9.0 36.8 41.2 37.3
2nd Quartile 29.4 40.3 22.4 25.0 16.2 22.4
rd
Girls 3 Quartile 8.8 13.4 23.9 25.0 20.6 23.9
4th Quartile 16.2 7.5 44.8 13.2 22.1 16.4
Chi-square 21.294 22.209 17.587 7.529 10.000 6,254
df 3 3 3 3 3 3
p .000 .000 .001 .057 .019 .100
Legend: Jumping Sideways (JS), Shifting Platforms (SP), Standing Long Jump (SLJ), Ball Kicking
Velocity (BKV), Ball Throwing Velocity (BTV), Shuttle Run (SHR); df (degrees of freedom); p
(significance).
Figure 5 shows the Brazilian mean z-score and 95% confidence intervals
for the six MCA tests in relation to the Portuguese z-scores (M = 0; SD = 1).
Despite age, when compared to the Portuguese normative reference, Brazilians
boys are significantly better in the SLJ, SHR, BTV and BKV tests. On the other
hand, Brazilian girls are significantly worse in the JS, SP, and, BTV tests, and
significantly better in the SLJ, when compared to the Portuguese normative
values. There are no differences between Brazilian and Portuguese girls
regarding SHR and BKV test.

Chapter 6
Figure 5. Brazilian mean z-score and 95% confidence intervals for the six Motor
Competence Assessment
6.5 Discussion
The primary aim of the present study was to compare the motor
competence of 4 to 11-year-old children from Brazil to Portuguese normative
values. We were also interested in investigating differences between sex and age
groups.

Chapter 6
Our findings showed that children’s motor competence increased with age,
and boys outperformed girls (see table 1 and figure 1), which is in line with the
results of previous studies (Luz et al., 2019; Rodrigues et al., 2019). Different
studies found similar results, showing that boys present higher motor
competence compared to girls (Luz, Almeida, et al., 2017; Quitério et al., 2017).
In a systematic review, Barnett et al. (2016) showed that motor competence is
related to age (motor competence increases across time), but also to sex (boys
have higher motor competence than girls), and socioeconomic background
(higher motor competence are associated with higher socioeconomic status). In
addition, the authors emphasized that physical activity and sport participation are
positively correlated to higher levels of motor competence.
Our results showed differences in motor competence of Brazilian and
Portuguese children (see table 8). Brazilian boys were significantly above the
Portuguese normative values for the locomotor and manipulative tasks, whereas
no differences were found in the stability tasks. These results may reflect cultural
bias, particularly those concerning the BTV and BKV. Physical Education (PE)
classes in Brazil are strongly influenced by team ball sports (Darido, 2005; Knuth,
Silva, & Hallal, 2015; Spessato, Gabbard, Valentini, & Rudisill, 2013), such as
futsal, soccer, handball and basketball, which require a wide range of locomotor
and manipulation skills (Azevedo, Araújo, da Silva, & Hallal, 2007; Coledam,
Ferraiol, Pires, dos-Santos, & de Oliveira, 2014). Although the Brazilian culture
of playing at the streets is fading out, it is still present today on the daily life of
many young children, providing huge opportunities to develop a set of motor
skills, independence of mobility and fun (Giglio, Morato, Stucchi, & Almeida,
2008). Thus, these findings are not surprising and highlight the type of games
and exercises that Brazilian children, especially boys, have in their daily activities.
Conversely, Brazilian girls showed poorer results, which raise some
concerns. Their results were significantly lower than Portuguese normative
values in all tests except in the SLJ where they were above Portuguese normative
values. The high values presented in the SLJ by Brazilian girls, particularly the
younger ones, are a little bit surprising and might be related with specific
characteristics of our sample. This finding can also be related to the early

Chapter 6
development among girls in relation to maturation and to muscle gains across

childhood (Gallahue et al., 2013). Kokštejn, Musálek, & Tufano (2017) found that
compared to boys of the same age, 3- and 4-year-old girls had greater balance
scores (which comprises the jumping tests) and, there were no sex differences
for balance scores in 5- and 6-year-olds, showing that girls can perform balance
(including jumping) skills in a similar way as boys. Although Brazilian girls have
the same number of PE classes than Brazilian boys, their levels of motor
competence are below average in most tasks when compared to Portuguese
normative values. Nobre, Valentini, & Rusidill (2020), emphasized that Brazilian
girls have limited opportunities to learn and practice sports skills, presenting
poorer motor scores than boys. Our results support these findings. Also, it is
plausible that Brazilian girls may be less encouraged to engage in sports and
physical programs, which in turn negatively affects their MC. We believe that
differences in the PE curricula and school recess between the two countries might
also explain the results. The physical education curriculum in Portuguese schools
focuses primarily on FMS and games (Luz et al., 2019). During PE classes,
Brazilian girls and boys frequently engage in different activities. While boys
usually play soccer or team sports, girls prefer to run or play games without
contact. During recess, girls are more frequently engaged than boys in social
interactions, pretend play (Gosso, De Lima, & Morais, 2007) and other sedentary
activities (Guerra, Júnior, & Florindo, 2016; Oliveira, Silva, Nunes, Silva, &
Oliveira, 2010). On the other hand, the PE curricula in Portugal, focuses on
developing a multiplicity of motor skills from the age of 3, and the activities that
girls and boys engage in during classes are usually the same. This is probably
one of the reasons why the differences in levels of motor competence between
sexes seem to be smaller in Portugal than in Brazil. Another explanation that
might account for the lower levels of motor competence of Brazilian girls might
be the "oriented recess" or “teaching recess” (Todd, Haugen, Anderson, &
Spriggs, 2002), that has become popular in the last decades in Brazil. During this
type of recess, structured activities (such as puzzles, play with educational toys,
charades, among others) are proposed to children, who have less time to move
freely and engage in physical activity and any kind of sports or active games. In

Chapter 6
contrast, boys are less likely to participate in these activities, choosing, in most
cases, to practice sports, run and play. Thus, our results are in accordance to the
literature (Blatchford et al., 2003), who found similar results in an English sample,
showing that children spent far more time in social activities during recess than
free play (vigorous, sedentary, and fantasy play) or games (chasing, catching,
seeking, racing, ball games, jump skipping, and games with materials). Our
results are even more worrying if we consider Luz et al., (2019) findings. The
authors showed that Portuguese girls, who outperform Brazilian girls, have lower
motor competence scores than North American girls. Other studies have reported
the influence of cultural differences on children’s levels of motor competence
(Bardid et al., 2015; S. Chow, Henderson, & Barnett, 2001).
A broader view shows that the PE curricula and recess time in Brazilian
schools should provide better opportunities for their students, particularly girls, to
move, to learn and acquire a wide variety of motor skills. In fact, nowadays, in
Brazil, recess and PE classes are being reduced in time, which is being allocated
to other subjects, such as mathematics, physics and languages. Thus, the recess
time is frequently sacrificed due to the wish of increasing class time because of
the growing academic concerns, putting recess (and children) at risk (Knuth et
al., 2015; Ramstetter, Murray, & Garner, 2010b). Participation in moderate to
vigorous physical activity during recess is important for children’s health (Mota et
al., 2005), and helps to develop motor competence (Stodden et al., 2008). Thus,
the differences among PE curricula in Portugal and Brazil, the different kinds of
engagement and opportunities on recess, and the culture itself may have
contributed to the differences among Brazilian and Portuguese girls.
Luz, Cordovil, Almeida, & Rodrigues (2017) analyzed the relation between
the motor competence and the Health-Related Fitness (HRF) of Portuguese
children. The results showed that the motor competence is associated with the
HRF, being strong and stable across childhood and early adolescence. The
literature also indicates that the low levels of motor competence among Brazilian
girls are a widespread problem (Cohen, Morgan, Plotnikoff, Callister, & Lubans,
2014; Ferreira, Gabbard, Vieira, & Tamplain, 2020; Spessato et al., 2013). Other
studies in the area of motor behavior found similar results, showing that girls have

Chapter 6
poorer scores of motor learning (Flôres, Menezes, & Katzer, 2016; Flôres et al.,
2015), FMS development (Goodway, Robinson, & Crowe, 2010; Kelly, O’Connor,
Harrison, & Ní Chéilleachair, 2019), and motor competence (Ferreira et al., 2020;
Rodrigues et al., 2019).
The sedentary behavior of children has been increasing in the last years
(Tremblay et al., 2011). The increase time in sports participation and free play
activities and the decrease in screen time, inside and outside the school are vital
to counteract the sedentary behavior trend and to increase moderate to vigorous
physical activity levels in children. Motor competence has a particularly important
role for developing healthy trajectories of life (Robinson et al., 2015; Stodden et
al., 2008) since different studies indicate that good levels of motor competence
during childhood are vital for better levels of children’s physical activity
participation (Clark & Metcalfe, 2002; Logan et al., 2015; Lubans et al., 2010).
According to Stodden’s model (Stodden et al., 2008), children and adolescents
who perceive themselves as having low motor skill competence will more
probably become involved in a negative spiral of disengagement of physical
activities. In fact, this model argues that reduced levels of motor competence can
enhance lower levels of physical activity, physical fitness and perception of motor
competence, and high levels of obesity (Robinson et al., 2015; Stodden et al.,
2008). In this model, although it is considered that there is a reciprocal
relationship between the variables, motor competence is situated as the main
variable influencing a positive or negative lifestyle.
Understanding the cultural differences between the PE classes,
playgrounds, and other activities that children are involved in can be important to
explain our findings, especially the lower levels of Brazilian girls’ motor
competence. The literature shows that girls are less active than boys at different
ages and cultures (Goodway et al., 2010; Tsuda et al., 2019), showing that
teachers, parents and all the responsible school staff should pay more attention
to this fact. In addition, the expected behaviors for boys and girls have the
potential to promote (or not) the development of a set of skills (Bronfenbrenner &
Morris, 2006; Nobre et al., 2020). Thus, developmental processes are different
regarding sex, and when it comes to motor competence during schoolyears, it is

Chapter 6
important to find strategies to counteract what it seems to be a girls’

disadvantage, trying to identify which opportunities can be available for girls to
develop their motor competence in the environments they attend to more
frequently. Thus, promoting more opportunities for girls can enhance their
participation in more active and vigorous activities, increasing motor competence,
levels of physical activity, learning, development, satisfaction and decreasing
obesity levels.
6.6 Conclusion
Our results show that there is a cultural influence on the levels of motor
competence among Brazilian and Portuguese children. Brazilian boys presented
better results in four of six the motor competence tests (SLJ, SHR, BTV, and
BKV), whereas Portuguese girls outperformed the Brazilians also in all tests
except for the SLJ. The PE curricula, school and recess organization in Brazil
probably contribute to these results, providing better opportunities for boys than
girls to engage in tasks that develop their motor competence. In Brazil, girls use
their opportunities (to move and play) in a different way than boys to enroll into a
variety of movements, sports and physical activities. In addition, during recess
girls tend to engage in social activities that do not involve physical activity, instead
of playing games, running or playing sports, as boys usually do.
The present study showed some limitations. First, we did not assess the
number and type of regular activities done by children on their daily routine, which
could help us to understand our findings, specially concerning girls in the SLJ
test. In addition, the environments and the quality of the settings that children
regularly attend to (i.e., their home, school, and places where they have
extracurricular activities), were also not investigated. The quality of these settings
is probably another determinant of children’s motor behavior.
The present study provides information on cross-cultural comparison of
motor competence levels in children using the Motor Competence Assessment.
Understanding the mechanisms related with the differences in motor competence
performance between countries and genders is important to devise strategies to

Chapter 6
tackle low levels of motor competence in target groups that seem to be at greater
risk of engaging negative spirals of disengagement of physical activities.
6.7 References
Azevedo, M., Araújo, C., da Silva, M. C., & Hallal, P. (2007). Tracking of
physical activity from adolescence to adulthood: A population-based study.
Revista de Saude Publica, 41(1), 69–75. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-
89102007000100010
Bardid, F., Rudd, J., Lenoir, M., Polman, R., & Barnett, L. (2015). Cross-cultural
comparison of motor competence in children from Australia and Belgium.
Frontiers in Psychology, 6(July), 1–8.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00964
Barnett, L., Lai, S., Veldman, S., Hardy, L., Cliff, D., Morgan, P., … Ridgers, N.
(2016). Correlates of gross motor competence in children and adolescents:
a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 46(11), 1663–
1688.
Blatchford, P., Baines, E., & Pellegrini, D. (2003). The social context of school
playground games: Sex and ethnic differences, and changes over time
after entry to junior school. British Journal of Developmental Psychology,
21(4), 481–505.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. (2006). The bioecological model of human
Chow, S., Henderson, S., & Barnett, L. (2001). The Movement Assessment
Battery for Children: A comparison of 4-year-old to 6-year-old children from
Hong Kong and the United States. American Journal of Occupational
Therapy, 55(1), 55–61.
Clark, J., & Metcalfe, J. (2002). The mountain of motor development: A
metaphor. Motor Development: Research and Reviews, 2, 163–190.
Cohen, K., Morgan, P., Plotnikoff, R., Callister, R., & Lubans, D. (2014).
Fundamental movement skills and physical activity among children living in
low-income communities: A cross-sectional study. International Journal of

Chapter 6
Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 11(1).

https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-11-49
Coledam, D., Ferraiol, P., Pires, R., dos-Santos, J., & de Oliveira, A. (2014).
Prática esportiva e participação nas aulas de educação física: Fatores
associados em estudantes de Londrina, Paraná, Brasil. Cadernos de
Saude Publica, 30(3), 533–545. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-
311X00087413
Darido, S. (2005). Os conteúdos da Educação Física na escola. Educação
Física Na Escola: Implicações Para a Prática Pedagógica. Rio de Janeiro:
Guanabara Koogan, 64–79.
Ferreira, L., Gabbard, C., Vieira, J., & Tamplain, P. (2020). Associations
Between the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire–Brazilian
Version (DCDQ-BR) and Motor Competence in School-Age Children.
Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 40(2), 121–133.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01942638.2019.1665154
Flôres, F., Menezes, K., & Katzer, J. (2016). Influences of gender on attention
and learning of motor skills. Journal of Physical Education, 27(1), e2706.
003151251982927. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031512519829271
Fransen, J., D’Hondt, E., Bourgois, J., Vaeyens, R., Philippaerts, R. M., &
Lenoir, M. (2014). Motor competence assessment in children: Convergent
and discriminant validity between the BOT-2 Short Form and KTK testing

Chapter 6
batteries. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 35(6), 1375–1383.

Giglio, S., Morato, M., Stucchi, S., & Almeida, J. (2008). O dom de jogar bola.
Horizontes Antropológicos, 14(30), 67–84. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0104-
71832008000200003
Goodway, J., Robinson, L., & Crowe, H. (2010). Gender differences in
fundamental motor skill development in disadvantaged preschoolers from
two geographical regions. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport,
81(1), 17–24.
Gosso, Y., De Lima, M., & Morais, S. E. (2007). Pretend play of Brazilian
children: A Window Into Different Cultural Worlds. Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology, 38(5), 539–558. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022107305237
Guerra, P., Júnior, J., & Florindo, A. (2016). Sedentary behavior in Brazilian
children and adolescents: a systematic review. Rev. Saúde Pública, 50(22).
Kelly, L., O’Connor, S., Harrison, A., & Ní Chéilleachair, N. (2019). Does
fundamental movement skill proficiency vary by sex, class group or weight
status? Evidence from an Irish primary school setting. Journal of Sports
Sciences, 37(9), 1055–1063.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2018.1543833
Knuth, A., Silva, I., & Hallal, P. (2015). Description of the school environment
related to physical education classes, recess, extracurricular activities and
physical spaces in the city of Pelotas, RS, Brazil. Rev. Bras. Ativ. Fís.
Saúde, 20(5), 524–533.
Kokštejn, J., Musálek, M., & Tufano, J. J. (2017). Are sex differences in
fundamental motor skills uniform throughout the entire preschool period?
PLoS ONE, 12(4), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176556
Logan, S., Kipling, W., Getchell, N., Pfeiffer, K., & Robinson, L. (2015).

Chapter 6
Relationship Between Fundamental Motor Skill Competence and Physical

Activity During Childhood and Adolescence: A Systematic Review.
Kinesiology Review, 4(4), 416–426. https://doi.org/10.1123/kr.2013-0012
Lubans, D., Morgan, P., Cliff, D.., Barnett, L., & Okely, A. (2010). Review of the
benefits associated with fundamental movement skill competency in youth.
Sports Med, 40(12), 1019–1035.
Luz, C., Cordovil, R., Almeida, G., & Rodrigues, L. P. (2017). Link between
Motor Competence and Health Related Fitness in Children and
Adolescents. Sports, 5(4), 41. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports5020041
Luz, C., Cordovil, R., Rodrigues, L. P., Gao, Z., Goodway, J., Sacko, R. S., …
Stodden, D. (2019). Motor competence and health-related fitness in
children: A cross-cultural comparison between Portugal and the United
States. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 8(2), 130–136.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2019.01.005
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.
https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2015.07.005
Luz, C., Rodrigues, L. P., De Meester, A., & Cordovil, R. (2017). The
relationship between motor competence and health-related fitness in
children and adolescents. PLoS ONE, 12(6).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179993
McKenzie, T., & Lounsbery, M. (2013). Physical Education Teacher
Effectiveness in a Public Health Context. Research Quarterly for Exercise
and Sport, 84(4), 419–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2013.844025
Morgan, P. J., Barnett, L., Cliff, D. P., Okely, A. D., Scott, H. A., Cohen, K. E., &
Lubans, D. R. (2013). Fundamental movement skill interventions in youth:
A systematic review and meta-analysis. Pediatrics, peds. 2013-1167.

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Oliveira, T., Silva, A., Nunes, C., Silva, J., & Oliveira, S. (2010). Physical activity
and sedentary lifestyle among children from private and public schools in
Northern Brazil. Rev Saúde Pública, 44(6).
Quitério, A., Costa, J., Martins, M., Martins, J., Onofre, M., Gerlach, E., …
Herrmann, C. (2017). Educação física: Avaliação das competências
motoras em alunos de seis anos, do primeiro ano de escolaridade. Retos,
31(January), 259–263.
Ramstetter, C. L., Murray, R., & Garner, A. S. (2010). The crucial role of recess
in schools. Journal of School Health, 80(11), 517–526.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1561.2010.00537.x
22, 1038–1043.
Spessato, B., Gabbard, C., Valentini, N., & Rudisill, M. (2013). Gender
differences in Brazilian children’s fundamental movement skill performance.
Early Child Development and Care, 183(7), 916–923.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2012.689761
60(2), 290–306.

Chapter 6
Todd, A., Haugen, L., Anderson, K., & Spriggs, M. (2002). Teaching Recess:
Low-Cost Efforts Producing Effective Results. Journal of Positive Behavior
Interventions, 4(1), 46–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/109830070200400108
Tremblay, M. S., LeBlanc, A. G., Kho, M. E., Saunders, T. J., Larouche, R.,
Colley, R. C., … Gorber, S. C. (2011). Systematic review of sedentary
behaviour and health indicators in school-aged children and youth.
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 8(1), 98.
Tsuda, E., Goodway, J. D., Famelia, R., Brian, A., Tsuda, E., Goodway, J. D.,
… Brian, A. (2019). Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport
Relationship Between Fundamental Motor Skill Competence , Perceived
Physical Competence and Free-Play Physical Activity in Children
Physical. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 0(0), 1–9.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2019.1646851

Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
7.1 General findings
In the previous chapters, we aimed to understand how the environments

experienced by school-aged children can influence motor competence. To
achieve our main goals, in chapter 2 we showed a literature review, presenting
the existent gap concerning the assessment of the available affordances in the
school-aged children's microsystems, such as the home, school, and sports
environments. This review highlighted that there are some instruments capable
of assessing the affordances in children’s microsystems, but they are developed
to assess younger children or only evaluate one context at the time (frequently
the home environment).
To fill this gap and answer our second problem (to create a reporting
research questionnaire to assess the quality and quantity of affordances in
different environments), in chapter 3 we proposed the Affordance for Motor
Behavior of Schoolchildren instrument. This tool is a parental report questionnaire
designed to assess school-aged children’s interdependent systems, composed
of 72 items containing dichotomous questions, 7-point Likert-type scales (with
figures), and description-based queries. The results showed that the AMBS is an
important, valid and reliable instrument to gather information regarding the
opportunities for action provided to children by their home, the materials in the
home and their school. Chapter 4 provides information regarding the scoring
system and standardization of the AMBS. The AMBS total score is the result of
the sum of the three sub-scales standard scores (i.e., home, materials, and
school), and can be classified into three categories (low, average, and high).
Having standardized values and a scoring system established allows the AMBS
to be used in different studies, for instance to explore the relation between the
quality and quantity of the microsystem’s affordances and its influence on
schoolchildren’s motor competence.
To answer our fourth specific goal, in chapter 5 we tested the relationship
between the affordances provided to children (assessed with the AMBS) and

Chapter 7
children’s motor competence (assessed with the MCA). The results showed that
the AMBS can assesses and discriminate among different motor affordances
profiles and that microsystems with better conditions (i.e., with richer affordance’s
landscapes) are associated with higher levels of motor competence.
Finally, our last specific goal was to verify the association between motor
affordances and motor competence in different cultural realities (presented in
chapter 6), in which we compared motor competence levels of Brazilian and
Portuguese children, aiming to comprehend the influence of cultural contexts and
how regular environments can influence children’s motor competence. Results
confirmed that motor competence increases with age for both countries, and boys
outperform girls. Also, Brazilian boys presented higher levels of motor
competence compared to Portuguese boys. Controversialy, Brazilian girls
performed below the Portuguese normative values.
The present thesis helps us to understand how cultural and close contexts
are associated with school-aged children’s motor competence. We believe that
the new assessment tool designed to evaluate the quantity and the quality of the
affordances in children's microsystems (AMBS) has the potential to identify
strengths and weaknesses of the environments the child attends to, which can
help to develop appropriate interventive strategies. It can also be used in studies
that relate different contexts that children live into their levels of motor learning,
motor competence, and motor development, providing a better understanding of
how children are developing and learning.
7.2 Limitations
The present study showed some limitations. First, as the AMBS

questionnaire is a parental report, the physical environments could not be
verified. This means that the responses provided are related to parental
perception and can have an inconsistency between the actual environment and
the perceived. In second, despite being an important tool, the AMBS cannot
assess all the microsystems that the child attends. As our third limitation, the
AMBS was not designed to assess the child’s real interaction within those

Chapter 7
environments, thus we cannot evaluate how children engage with the available
affordances and the use of AMBS should be complemented with information
gathered by other instruments. In chapter 5 we concluded that the quality of the
settings needs to be understood as a determinant of children’s motor
competence. However, in chapter 6 parents did not answer the AMBS. Thus, we
cannot really know if the differences between Brazilian and Portuguese children's
motor competence can be explained by the quality of the affordances available.
7.3 Theoretical and practical implications
This thesis is grounded on Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory

complementing its theoretical framework with Gibson’s concept of affordances.
Bronfenbrenner’s theory considers that children’s development occurs through
an evolving process of reciprocal interactions between the child and
multidimensional levels of the environment, ranging from proximal to distal, such
as home, school, friends or relatives’ houses and culture. At a proximal level, the
microsystem refers to the immediate context in which face-to-face interactions
occur (e.g., the home, neighborhood, day care center, school). The mutual
interaction between the child and these different environments will affect his or
her development. The person-environment relationship is also the focus of
Gibson’s theory of affordances. This theory states that the affordances are the
possibilities for action provided by the environment to the person. The
development of the AMBS highlights the complementarity between
Bronfenbrenner’s and Gibson’s theories, considering the need to characterize
different microsystems that affect children’s development by assessing the
opportunities for action (i.e., affordances) that are available in those
microsystems.
Considering the practical implications of this thesis, the development of the
AMBS and the relation found between the children’s regular contexts and their
motor competence expand the previous understanding regarding the importance
of the children’s surrounding environments. The thesis results address an

Chapter 7
important issue, showing that children’s microsystems can boost or hinder their
levels of motor competence. By using the AMBS, parents and teachers can
assess the quantity and the quality of the affordances provided to children in
different environments and identify which changes should be made. Our findings
suggest that higher levels of AMBS total, which are related with richer affordances
landscapes, are associated with higher levels of motor competence in school-
aged children. Information gathered using the AMBS questionnaire can be
particularly beneficial for children with low levels of motor competence, since this
tool can help to identify the strengths and weaknesses in the child’s regular
contexts, helping to develop interventive strategies.
7.4 Future research
Previous chapters raised some questions that might provide interesting

topics for further studies. First, future research can use the AMBS to evaluate
children’s microsystems and relate them to their levels of motor learning, motor
competence, and motor development. Relating the AMBS scores to other
instruments and tests, should provide a better understanding of how children are
developing, learning and acquiring lifespan motor competence within the
environment. Understanding how different contexts influence these variables can
provide a full picture of children’s motor behavior. In second, comparing boys’
and girls’ regular contexts can help to perceive the differences found in this thesis
and other studies regarding their different levels of motor competence. In third, it
can be interesting to evaluate children’s routines, such as their levels of
independent mobility in the city and relate it to children motor competence and
available affordances in their environments.
7.5 General Conclusion
After an extensive review of the literature, in the previous chapters, we

showed our efforts to develop the AMBS, a new tool to assess the quantity and
quality of the affordances in children’s microsystems. This instrument is

Chapter 7
composed of items that allow gathering data of the child’s and family
characteristics and the attendance of extracurricular activities. The AMBS is valid
and reliable, being able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the child’s
regular environments.
Our main results showed that contexts that children regularly attend to are
associated with their motor competence. In fact, our findings showed that
environments with richer affordance’s landscapes are associated with higher
levels of children’s motor competence. Thus, the use of the AMBS questionnaire
can have important implications to develop interventive strategies during child
development and growth. Finally, we also showed that the cultural differences
can be an important factor to understand children’s motor competence.
7.6 References
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Critical hours: physical activity and sedentary behavior of adolescents after
school. Pediatric Exercise Science, 20(4), 446–456.
Azevedo, M. R., Araújo, C. L., da Silva, M. C., & Hallal, P. C. (2007). Tracking
of physical activity from adolescence to adulthood: A population-based
study. Revista de Saude Publica, 41(1), 69–75.
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Bailey, R. (2006). Physical education and sport in schools: A review of benefits

Chapter 7
and outcomes. Journal of School Health, 76(8), 397–401.

Bardid, F., Rudd, J., Lenoir, M., Polman, R., & Barnett, L. (2015). Cross-cultural
comparison of motor competence in children from Australia and Belgium.
Frontiers in Psychology, 6(July), 1–8.
Barnett, L., Hinkley, T., Okely, A., & Salmon, J. (2013). Child, family and
environmental correlates of children’s motor skill proficiency. Journal of
Science and Medicine in Sport, 16(4), 332–336.
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Barnett, L., Lai, S., Veldman, S., Hardy, L., Cliff, D., Morgan, P., … Ridgers, N.
(2016). Correlates of gross motor competence in children and adolescents:
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Requerimento de Entrega de Teses/Relatórios Definitivos de Doutoramento

Fábio Saraiva Flôres

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence

Fábio Saraiva Flôres

1.  Disponibilização imediata do conjunto do trabalho para acesso mundial;

Faculdade de Motricidade Humana

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence

Fábio Saraiva Flôres

Orientadores: Professora Doutora Rita Cordovil de Matos e Professor Doutor

Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor em

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence

Fábio Saraiva Flôres

Orientadores: Professora Doutora Rita Cordovil de Matos e Professor Doutor

Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor em

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence i

À Mariana, que me apoia em todos os momentos, não me deixa desistir e faz

Aos pais, crianças, professores e funcionários das escolas, pela disponibilidade

Aos meus professores do doutoramento. As conversas, debates, e

A todos vocês, meu eterno agradecimento!

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence ii

Keywords: affordances; environment; motor competence; children; assessment

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence iii

Esta tese aborda a importância de avaliar os contextos que as crianças

Palavras-chave: affordances; competência motora; crianças; avaliação

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence iv

Some parts of this thesis have been published in book chapters:

Some parts of this thesis have been presented in congresses:

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence v

Fábio Saraiva Flôres (2019). Affordances para o comportamento motor em

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence vi

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence vii

3.3.4 Initial Exploratory Analysis ...................................................................................... 36

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence viii

6.2 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 68

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence ix

Figures were numbered following chapter number.

Figure 1. Examples of the three types of questions: dichotomous questions, Likert-type

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence x

Tables were numbered following chapter number.

Table 1. Descriptive values of the items. ..................................................................... 38

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence xi

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor competence xii

Current investigations in child motor behavior suggest that stimulating

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 1

1.2 Thesis general and specific goals

(b) to create an innovative parental reporting research questionnaire to assess

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 2

1.3 Structure of the thesis

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 3

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). The bioecological model from a life course

Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1993). Heredity, environment, and the

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological model of human

Burton, A. W., & Davis, W. E. (1992). Optimizing the involvement and

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 4

Education, 30(e3024), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.4025/jphyseduc.v30i1.3024

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The theory of affordances: The Ecological Approach to

Rodrigues, L. P. (2005). Development and validation of the AHEMD-SR

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 5

Affordances for schoolchildren's motor 6

Affordances for motor behavior in home, school, and sport environments:

Through development, a child’s varied movement contexts provide different

Keywords: affordances; children; environment; motor behavior.