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Dear Authors,
I would like to express my grateful thanks for your patience and efforts to improve the quality of the manuscript. Your submission is now endorsed by two experts for acceptance of publication in PeerJ. Congratulations!!!
Thank you for submitting your interesting article to PeerJ. I look forward to receiving your future research and review articles for consideration.
Best Regards
Ph.D. Yung-Sheng Chen
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Mike Climstein, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
There are no further comments to add.
There are no further comments to add.
There are no further comments to add.
You have carefully reviewed the article, which I believe has the potential to be published in PeerJ.
Dear Authors
One reviewer has suggested minor changes of revision. We invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised by the reviewer.
We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.
Best regards
Yung-Sheng Chen, Ph.D.
no comment
no comment
no comment
The authors have carefully reviewed their work. Several aspects of the manuscript have been clarified, which has greatly contributed to its improvement. The authors have considered all my previous observations and commentaries, and I don't have any major revisions to make. However, there are a few imprecisions or typos that should be corrected. Moreover, citations in the text must be reviewed (include spaces and follow the norms strictly).
Some minor revisions and suggestions:
Abstract
Ln32-34. ]) – why?
Introduction
Ln 47. Min change to minutes
Ln 68. Were instead of was
Ln 102-104. This instead of shis; were instead of was; to explore instead of explored
Methods
Ln 124. No need to include both boys and girls, one of them is enough, including percentage.
Ln 164. Repeated reference
Ln 213. Both is used for two cases, and you are referring to three
Ln 228. Why to include .33 instead of .3?
Discussion
Ln 312. I would say that the study has some limitations, not several. But it is up to the authors.
Abbreviations
There are some that are missing (e.g., CRF).
Nothing else to add.
Nothing else to add.
Dear Authors
Two experts in the study field have reviewed the manuscript. Your study provides valuable input for our current understanding of motor performance and physical activity in Chinese children. The reviewers have addressed several issues for the next round of revision. We invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised by the reviewers.
We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.
Best regards
Yung-Sheng Chen, Ph.D.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should only be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
no comment
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no comment
This manuscript is clearly stated, the research methodology used are appropriate, and the charts and figures are relevant to the content of the article. However, there are some issues that need to be modified.
Introduction：
Paragraph begins with no space.(line 44);
A blank page appears.(line 103);
The significance of Moderate to vigorous physical activity needs further;
explanation.Balance skills not included in the FMS study scope need to be explained in the introduction.
Materials & Methods:
Although scoring criteria are included in the supplemental instrument , labeling and instructions are lacking in the content of the methods section.
Results：
The values of the mediation effect and the complete mediation effect obtained by the model should be explained in the table in the supplementary file;
Model 1-6 use may cause confusion, it is recommended to use the legend number, because all the analysis of mediation effect is Process model 4.
Discussion：
Paragraph begins with no space.(line 245);
In the first paragraph, whether the overall results of the study match the previous results needs to be explained rather than a direct conclusion.
It is recommended to add whether the actual sports participation in boys and girls in the study is consistent with the situation cited literature.(lines 261-263 );
A repeated period appears in line 278;
A blank page appears.(line 337);
In terms of reporting, I have some comments for the authors to consider.
The English language could be improved. Some examples where the language could be improved include lines 20-22, 180, 209 – the current phrasing makes comprehension difficult. I suggest you have a colleague who is proficient in English and familiar with the subject matter reviewing your manuscript. You can also contact a professional editing service.
It should be clear which guidelines are you referring in the introduction (ln 47-50). Support the guidelines with high-relevant references (World Health Organization, or other relevant). Considering that important paragraph (ln 47-50), referring to data from Chinese children and adolescents’ physical activity, there is more recent references than the cited in your article (please check: Liu, Y., Ke, Y., Liang, Y., Zhu, Z., Cao, Z., Zhuang, J., Cai, Y., Wang, L., Chen, P., & Tang, Y. (2023). Results from the China 2022 report card on physical activity for children and adolescents. Journal of exercise science and fitness, 21(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesf.2022.10.004). I suggest referring to the most recent data.
Regarding the relationship between fundamental motor skills and physical activity (introduction, ln 55-74), there is a need of a meticulous review. There were already few studies which addressed this relationship using Chinese children’s data. I suggest exploring two references: Han et al., 2022 (Han S, Li B, Meng S, Li Y, Tong W. Bi-Directionality between Physical Activity within School and Fundamental Movement Skills in School-Aged Students: A Cross-Lagged Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(13):7624. Published 2022 Jun 22. doi:10.3390/ijerph19137624) and He et al., 2024 (He Y, Zhou L, Liang W, Liu Q, Liu W, Wang S. Individual, family, and environmental correlates of fundamental motor skills among school-aged children: a cross-sectional study in China. BMC Public Health. 2024;24(1):208. Published 2024 Jan 17. doi:10.1186/s12889-024-17728-2).
The article mentions the sex of the participants at times, and gender at others. Clarification of these terms is necessary (for further information, check: Kaufman MR, Eschliman EL, Karver TS. Differentiating sex and gender in health research to achieve gender equity. Bull World Health Organ. 2023;101(10):666-671. doi:10.2471/BLT.22.289310).
**PeerJ Staff Note:** It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should only be included if the authors agree that they are relevant and useful.
A further description of the participants in the sample (gender and age) can be included in the methods section of the article, instead of in the results.
The article matches the aims and scope of the journal. It presents an adequate methodology, with high-quality technical and ethical standards, that correspond to the needs and gaps in the literature. However, I have some concerns that I would like to see clarified.
“The minimum number of valid days for inclusion were four days, including three weekdays and one weekend day” (ln 159-160). Which reference did you use for supporting this decision?
Have you included age in its continuous form to use it as a co-variable in the analysis?
How did you perform the bootstrap? How many bootstrap samples did you to perform your analysis? Which theoretical reference did you use?
Methodologically, the article was well conducted. The statistical analyses are consistent with the aim of the article. A similar number of girls and boys were studied. The supplementary materials enrich the article's comprehension.
It would be desirable to have a larger sample size to be more representative of the Chinese population, however it is a substantial sample, considering that accelerometry was used.
Awareness of the article's limitations, which do not affect its conclusions.
The authors have carefully conducted their research. The paper was conducted under STROBE guidelines. Important material related to the data analysis and ethical procedures was correctly presented.
I have a few considerations that you should consider for your article.
It's not recommended to put references in the abstract. I suggest you remove them (you can just highlight that there is a relationship between these variables).
Please review the keywords. Do not repeat words that were already used in the title (e.g. physical activity).
You use a lot of abbreviations throughout the text, which can make it difficult to read and understand. I suggest trying to minimise some of the less necessary and used ones (e.g. OCS). However, this is a suggestion - I leave it up to the authors.
It would add to the article if you reported the percentage value of the inter-reliability of the video analysis (ln135-136).
There is no need to refer to the model used in the PROCESS macro in your article, since you refer that is a mediation analysis (line 193).
Why did you not use the symbol for Beta? Check results.
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