Background and objective
The purpose of this study was to identify how the difficulty level of the Alternative Hand Wall Toss (AHWT) test changed according to the distance between the wall and the subject (2.0 or 1.2 m) and to determine the proper distance for 11–12-year-old elementary school students.
Material and methods
Fitness measurement data from participants of “A Study on Development of Fitness Accreditation Standards for National Fitness Award 100 Elementary School Students (aged 11 to 12) in 2018” (total n=2753; 2.0 m, n=1428; 1.2 m, n=1325) were selected. The ratios of numbers, means, and stan-dard deviations of subjects who were unable to measure according to distance were calculated. Difficulty levels of six fitness tests including the AHWT test were calculated by applying the Rasch model of the Item Response Theory (IRT), and AHWT test difficulty levels according to distance, 2.0 and 1.2 m, were compared. All statistical significance levels were set at p<0.05.
Results
Our findings were as follows: First, the ratios of subjects who performed 0 point (action) according to distance were 41 and 5.2% at 2.0 and 1.2 m, respectively. Second, there was no difference in the diffi-culty level among five test items except for the AHWT test; the difficulty level of the AHWT test was higher at 2.0 m than at 1.2 m. Third, there was test partiality based on gender when the distance was set to 2.0 m, but there was no test partiality when the distance was set to 1.2 m.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is difficult to discriminate the ability of 11–12-year-old subjects if the distance to the wall is set to 2.0 m in the AHWT test because the difficulty level is too high. Therefore, we recommend setting the distance to 1.2 m for 11–12-year-old subjects.