Correlations between Motor Abilities, Morphological Characteristics, and Preparedness for School at Pre-school Boys

Abstract

The associations between motor abilities (MA), morphological characteristics (MC), and cognitive preparedness (PP) for school in pre- school aged boys should provide a platform for improved systematic educational work. The main goal of this research is to determine the correlation between children’s MA, MC and PP, using univariate and multivariate statistical methods. Randomized sample of pre-school boys (N=106), aged 6-7, was examined. Eighteen composite motor tests were utilized to measure MA ; Test for School Preparedness (TSS) with five sub-tests was used in estimating boys’ PP ; additionally, 14 morphological characteristics were measured. Findings revealed that all the canonical correlations were statistically significant: between MA and MC, between MA and PP, as well as between MC and PP. Thus, the correlation is the lowest between MC and PP. MC could be a less important factor for estimating the overall preparedness for school, than boys’ MA at the age of six or seven years.