A percepção do autoconceito e sua influência no desempenho motor em crianças e adolescentes

The objective was to investigate the relationship between the self-concept perception and the motor performance in adolescents analyzed by gender and age. We evaluated 144 adolescents between 10 and 14 years (65 boys). The measurement of self-concept was performed by an inventory (PIERS; HARRIS; HERZBERG, 2002); the motor tests used for the assessment of motor performance were the agility and vertical jump (AMERICAN ALLIANCE FOR HEALTH, PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION AND DANCE, 1988), the dynamometer strength (SOARES; SESSA, 2001) and the aerobic endurance test (LÉGER et al., 1988). For the equivalence of results produced by the motor tests Z score was used. Descriptive statistics were performed for stratify the sample by age and gender. The intragroup comparison of motor performance (DB low, DM medium, DA high) and the self-concept was performed by procedures non-parametric Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA (p <0.05). The final results showed that age negatively influences the self-concept perception, and students with better motor performance also had higher values in the perception of self-concept in relation to their peers.