Author(s): BARBRY, A., COQUART, J., VERHOEVEN, C., KLASS, M., Institution: UNIVERSITÉ DE LORRAINE, 2LPN, F-57000 METZ, FRANCE, Country: FRANCE, Abstract-ID: 1313

INTRODUCTION:
Physical fitness (PF) is a powerful health marker (1,2). Therefore, PF should be regularly monitored to detect children with a low PF and promote healthy behaviors from an early age (1,2), but professionals in primary schools underline the lack of time and resources to implement PF assessment. Consequently, it is crucial to propose a PF battery that is inexpensive, easy, and fast to administer (3). The Diagnoform Kid battery proposes time-efficient PF tests (<1h for a school class) and requires little equipment (4). Although its test–retest reliability has been verified (4), its validity has not yet been established. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aimed to examine the concurrent and construct validity of the 5 Diagnoform tests.
METHODS:
184 children were included and classified into 3 age groups (6-7, 8-9 and 10-11 years). Children performed the Diagnoform and a battery composed of reference tests. The Diagnoform comprised the 6-min shuttle run-walk (cardiorespiratory fitness: CRF), hopscotch (agility), standing broad jump (SBJ, power) without instructions, 5-s sprint (speed) and the simplified-fingertip-to-floor (flexibility) tests (4). The reference battery included well-recognized PF tests: the reduced Cooper (CRF), quadrant jump (agility), SBJ with instructions (power), 20-m sprint (speed) and sit-and-reach (SR, flexibility) tests (2,3,5–8). Concurrent validity was assessed using bivariate correlations between the Diagnoform and the corresponding reference test, and construct validity by examining the responsiveness of both batteries to expected age‑ and sex‑related performance differences through a two‑way ANOVA, or non-parametric tests depending on distribution.
RESULTS:
For all PF components, performances on the corresponding tests of both batteries showed significant correlations (p < 0.001), except for agility at 10-11 years (p = 0.09). For CRF and flexibility, strong correlations (r ≥ 0.70) were found in all age groups. Correlations were moderate in the younger groups (r ≥ -0.45) for agility. For power and speed, correlations were moderate (r ≥ 0.61 at 6-7 and 8-9 years for power, r = 0.58 at 6-7 years for speed) to strong (r ≥ 0.83 at 10-11 years for power, r ≥ 0.70 at 8-9 and 10-11 years for speed). Significant age and sex effects were found for performance on both the Diagnoform and reference tests, except for agility (no sex effect for both batteries), and flexibility (sex effect for both batteries and age effect for the reference test in boys).
CONCLUSION:
Although the flexibility test was slightly less responsive than the reference test to age effects in boys, our results support the concurrent and construct validity of the Diagnoform tests, reinforcing their suitability for routine PF monitoring by professionals.
References
(1) Ortega et al. (2008), (2) Tomkinson et al. (2018), (3) American College of Sports Medicine (2021),
(4) Mouraby et al. (2012), (5) Bergmann et al. (2014), (6) Teich et al. (2023), (7) Tomkinson et al. (2021), (8) Ji et al. (2024)