Comparison of product and process oriented model accuracy for assessing countermovement vertical jump motor proficiency in pre-adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to compare the level of accuracy of two different approaches, product- and process-oriented, for assessing the proficiency level of vertical jump skill in pre-adolescents. Ninety-one children were sampled from four schools and were invited to perform three countermovement vertical jumps. The jumps were initially assessed by two assessors with an observation criteria-based approach for ranking the children in three developmental levels. The performances were also acquired by means of the sensor Microsoft Kinect and its signals were used for estimating a set of temporal and kinematic parameters. The height of jump was used as proxy of the product-oriented assessment approach, while the other parameters were used for the process-oriented ones. Discriminant analyses were carried out separately for the two aforementioned approaches by using the developmental levels as dependent variables. The process-oriented approach resulted in a higher level of accuracy than the product-oriented approach and the temporal parameters were the best predictors for ranking the children in their developmental levels. These findings seem to be useful for overcoming several limitations related to the assessment of fundamental movement skills and for providing new perspectives for physical education teachers.