Validity of the Dickson index regarding primary school physical education

Abstract

PurposeThe paper is dedicated to the problem of testing physical capacity in primary school with the use of the Ruffier-Dickson test. The research aimed to verify the Dickson index corrected for the children’s age with the intention of usage in primary school physical education.MethodsFour groups of healthy males – aged 6, 7, 8, and 18 years – were randomly selected, 30 participants in each. One way ANOVA, t-test for independent samples, and intra-correlation coefficient were used to evaluate the validity of the Dickson index for the original and age-corrected functions. It was assumed that Dickson index values should not depend upon age among healthy participants in normal physical capacity.ResultsInvalidity of the original Dickson index for 6–8-year-old children was shown, with a significant difference of their results from those of the adults (<i>p</i> < 0.001). The use of the index formula corrected for the age of children gives no significant difference between all the groups (<i>p</i> = 0.817) and a good level of validity, taking into consideration the corresponding intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.688. This conclusion is supported with t-test results (<i>p</i> = 0.915), which show a rather good level of the test validity.ConclusionsTo guarantee the validity of the Dickson index, the results of heart rate measurements should be reduced proportionally to the ratio of a normal heart rate of the young patients’ population to the normal heart rate in adults.