| The reliability and validity of an instrument measuring risk-taking behavior of 104 3- to 6-year-old boys and girls was investigated. Justification for instrument development was: (1) no such instrument is currently available. (2) the instrument might access motor/physical activities' contribution in enhancing risk taking, (3) the instrument might aid early identification of low risk-taking children requiring intervention, (4) it might facilitate evaluation/design of how conducive playgrounds are to risk taking, (5) it might stimulate research on children's risk taking.;Content validity was established via subjects' identification/rating various illustrated motor tasks for relative risk. Based on this, three dependent variables were used: (1) The Pictorial Risk-Taking Preference (PRTP), wherein subjects indicated preferences for illustrated gross motor tasks recorded as the Risk-Taking Index with higher scores denoting greater willingness to take risk, (2) The Live Preference (LP), entailing the same procedure as in PRTP except the apparatus were presented live in the gymnasium, (3) The Movement Confidence (MC), containing the tasks in LP which the subject performed physically, with performance being videotaped and analyzed.;Statistical analysis, using correlational, regression analysis, and ANOVA techniques, was performed to verify the assumption that if PRTP, LP, and MC are valid their results will be identical. The contribution of gender, age, skill level, and birth order to dependent variables scores was assessed.;Dependent variables correlated significantly (moderately to highly) with each other. LP best predicted MC, and 63.84% of MC's variance was explained by the set of independent variables. Gender differences were insignificant regardless of assessment used. Age differences were significant on LP and MC, and skill level significantly contributed to scores on all methods. First-borns were significantly higher risk-takers on MC, but not on LP or PRTP.;The PRTP was highly reliable and moderately valid. Results could be attributed to children's unique development, nonrandomization, and nonhomogeneous age groups of this study. Instrument refinement may produce increased significance and consistency. |
