Construction and content validation of the Motor Development Assessment Questionnaire for Children, based on social isolation

Social isolation due to COVID-19 has made it difficult for children to interact in different environments, restricting the opportunity for motor development in the home. The impact of social isolation on children's motor development was analyzed based on the construction and administration of the Motor Development Assessment Questionnaire for Children aged three to 10 years, answered by their guardian. This cross-sectional, observational study took place in three stages: 1) construction of the questionnaire; 2) content validation by judges; and 3) data collection-pilot test with the target audience (children's caregivers). Four judges took part in evaluating the content of the questionnaire and the items were assessed using the Content Validity Coefficient (CVC) and it was found that the total CVCt of t of the questionnaire was 0.92. In the application phase, 45 caregivers answered the questionnaire. The caregivers were mainly women (91%), had completed higher education (73%) and a monthly family income of more than six minimum wages (31%), while the children were predominantly female (56%) and aged between seven and eight (36%). The result of the Mann Whitney U test showed a marginally significant difference between the motor development score between boys (M = 126.6 +/- 10.7) and girls (M = 132.7 +/- 9.8) (t(43) = 1.976, p = .055), indicating that girls had less impact on motor development. The content validation process and the pilot study indicated a high-quality theoretical construction, and its items proved to be suitable for use in the Brazilian context. The questionnaire scores indicated that the assessed children did not show deficits in motor development stemming from the period of social isolation.