Configurational paths to promoting children’s agility and balance quality: based on fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Early childhood is a sensitive period for the development of agility and balance quality. Currently, children’s agility and balance quality are gradually declining, and the pathways for enhancing these qualities are limited. In light of this, the study adopts a set theory perspective to explore the configurational pathways through which subsystems of gross motor skills can promote children’s agility and balance quality.

This study incorporates test data from 84 children aged 3 to 6 years, employing fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to examine how configurations of six subsystems within gross motor skills (running, jumping, throwing, catching, kicking, and striking) influence the promotion of children’s agility and balance quality.

Necessary condition analysis reveals that individual subsystems of gross motor skills alone cannot determine the promotion of agility and balance quality in children. Further configuration analyses identify two paths for promoting agility quality ( Overall Consistency = 0.889, Overall Coverage = 0.337 ) and two paths for promoting balance quality ( Overall Consistency = 0.875, Overall Coverage = 0.346 ).

Subsystems of gross motor skills can promote children’s balance and agility quality through configurational effects. Specifically, promoting agility quality should primarily involve combined exercises of jumping, running, and catching actions, while promoting balance quality should focus on combined exercises of kicking, jumping, and running actions. Furthermore, prioritizing children’s balance quality can support the children’s agility quality. These findings offer important practical guidance for promoting children’s agility and balance quality.