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Motor development is affected by maturation and growth but also influenced by the specific environmental and cultural context. Therefore, cross-cultural research can provide information about how different cultural contexts, lifestyles, and physical activity contexts can influence the process of developing motor competence. The purpose of this study was to evaluate aspects of motor competence among children from different cultural backgrounds. The sample of 463 children from 6 to 8 years consisting of 132 Greek children (52.3 % boys), 126 Italian children (53.9 % boys), and 205 Norwegian children (52.7) completed the Test of Motor Competence (TMC) including two fine motor tasks-Placing Bricks and Building Bricks-and two gross motor tasks-Heel to Toe Walking and Walking/Running in Slopes. The results indicate that the Norwegian children performed better in all tests; the differences were statistically significant in all four tasks compared with Italian children and in two tasks compared with the Greek children (Building Bricks and Heel to Toe Walking). Greek children performed significantly better than the Italians in two tasks: Placing Bricks and Heel to Toe Walking. Italian children were significantly faster than the Greek ones in one task: Walking/Running in Slopes. The differences in terms of levels of basic fine and gross motor skills between children from the different countries may be a consequence of both different physical activity contexts and cultural policies, attitudes, and habits toward movement.

The purpose was to examine the sport orientations and goal perspectives of wheelchair adult athletes who differed on gender and type of sport. Participants were 34 male and 14 female marathoners and 166 male and 29 female basketball players. Instruments were the Sport Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ) and the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ). Separate 2 × 2 (Gender × Sport) multivariate analysis of variance revealed that on the SOQ, males scored higher on competitive orientation, females scored higher on goal orientation, and no gender differences occurred on win orientation. Basketball players scored higher on win orientation, marathoners scored higher on goal orientation, and no differences occurred between sport groups on competitiveness orientation. On the TEOSQ, there were no gender differences; marathoners scored higher on ego orientation, and no differences occurred between sport groups on task orientation.

Differences in sport achievement orientations between 31 recreational wheelchair and 76 able-bodied basketball athletes were tested. Athletes from the New England region completed the three subscales of the Sport Orientation Questionnaire (competitiveness, win orientation, and goal orientation). Wheelchair athletes responded higher on the Competitiveness and Goal Orientation subscales. In discriminative function analysis competitiveness scores were the only significant discriminator between the two groups.