A Critique of the Dragon Challenge

Dear Editor-in-Chief,

The concept of physical literacy (PL) and developing physically literate youth has become a topic of discussion among many researchers, across a plethora of disciplines. PL is often used to describe the characteristics of an individual who has the knowledge, physical competence, motivation, and confidence to be physically active for life (¹). Measuring this construct will ultimately prove to be difficult, as the multifaceted nature of physically literacy is hard to capture in one assessment tool. Given our research group’s keen interest in PL and the measurement of PL, we were extremely interested to read about the Dragon Challenge, a dynamic assessment tool of physical competence for children 10 to 14 yr of age (²). Although the Dragon Challenge is not a comprehensive assessment of all domains of PL, the authors certainly provide a novel and interesting approach to measuring one of the core domains of the concept—physical or motoric competence.

Unlike most movement skill assessments, the researchers state that the Dragon Challenge provides a comprehensive measurement of physical competence as multiple series of motor skills are assessed (i.e., simple, complex and combined) in an authentic environment, thereby ensuring the most accurate measure of PL. This is in opposition, the authors argue, to assessments that measure discrete skills in isolation, performed in static, limited environmental conditions. It is here that they identify a number of different assessments such as the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (³), Bruninks–Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (⁴), Movement Assessment Battery of Children-2 (⁵), and the Physical Literacy Assessment for Youth (PLAYfun) (⁶). Indeed, this represents a broad category of measures, some of which were developed for clinical purposes, whereas others were more consistent with assessment of motor competence in general populations. We contend that the authors have not accurately represented several of these measures and as a result overstate the novelity and uniqueness of their new measure. For instance, the PLAYfun tool is not simply a measure of movement competence. The tool also quantifies other domains of PL such as competence and confidence. In addition, although the authors imply that PLAYfun is a test that involves discrete skills, this is an oversimplification. The PLAYfun tool examines multiple facets of each of the 18 movement skills included in the battery. For example, when assessing running in a square, assessors look for not only proper running form but also the ability to pivot and speed of the movement (⁶). Even with a test such as the BOTMP, which focuses mainly on motor proficiency, skills are combined together. For instance, upper body limb coordination, wherein skills such as the dribble are tested, requires bilateral coordination of the hands (⁴).

Although the Dragon Challenge certainly adds an important, alternate approach to the assessment of PL, we must be careful not to set up false propositions about the novelty or uniqueness of the approach. This tends to exaggerate differences between measures and may lead to unnecessary confusion among researcher and practitioners who are looking for measures to use.

Laura St. John
John Cairney
INfant and Child Health (INCH) Laboratory
Department of Family Medicine
McMaster University Hamilton
Ontario, CANADA