Individual differences in children's movement variability in a virtual reality playground task

Children's movements are highly complex, and thus require measurements that capture various gross motor strategies. This study examined whether aspects of individual differences in children's gross motor movement patterns could be captured in virtual reality (VR) and how motor movements could be conceptualized through freezing-freeing patterns of degrees of freedom. To this end, a three-minute VR scenario was developed for children to freely explore, play, and move around without further instructions, and their movement strategies were simultaneously captured by a non-invasive inertial motion capture system. Sixty-four children aged 7–10 (boys: n = 37, girls: n = 27) participated. The results of correlational and principal component analysis (PCA) on measures of variability of upper extremities indicated significant relationships between nearly all measures (r = 0.31–0.69, p < 0.05). Similarly, a PCA on variability from joint movements in the lower extremities indicated relatively high intercorrelations (r = 0.31–0.71, p < 0.01). A pattern of four different variability profiles was indicated in the interrelationship between the upper and lower body. These findings emphasize the value of using innovative measurements and whole-body motion capture to disentangle individual differences in children's movement variability in product- and process-oriented assessments of gross motor competence.