Body ball Coordination Test: A Valid and Reliable Test for Brain-Body Motor Control

Abstract

The Body Ball Coordination Test for Motor Control is a newly developed assessment that aims to measure individuals' ability to utilize multiple body parts, proprioception, balance, vision, and other coordination elements to prevent a ball from touching the floor. This study focuses on evaluating the test's psychometric properties, specifically its known-group validity and split-half reliability. Selected through the purposive sampling method, participants included college-level students, with 30 experienced student varsity athletes and 23 Service Physical Education (PE) students. The test’s known-group validity was established by comparing the performance of these two distinct groups using independent samples t-test and Cohen’s d effect size (t [51] = -3.188, p= 0.002, d= -0.884), demonstrating its capacity to differentiate between individuals with varying levels of motor control skills. The experienced Varsity athletes outperformed the novice Service PE students on the test, confirming their ability to assess coordination skills effectively. Furthermore, the split-half reliability analysis using Pearson r correlation revealed a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.547) between odd and even sets of test scores, indicating good internal consistency and reliability. Despite not yielding an exceptionally high correlation coefficient, the test remains a reliable tool for measuring coordination skills consistently over time. This comprehensive assessment, which requires precise coordination of various body parts, provides valuable insights into motor control and brain-body coordination abilities. As such, the Body Ball Coordination Test can benefit coaches, educators, researchers, and practitioners in sports, education, and research, assisting in talent identification, skill development, and studying the relationship between motor coordination and various factors.