Self-Reported Assessment Tools for Physical Literacy Levels Among Youth: A Scoping Review Protocol

This scoping review will follow the PRISMA methodology — Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (Moher et al., 2009) — along with the specific extension for scoping reviews (Tricco et al., 2018) and the Joanna Briggs Institute guideline (Peters et al., 2020) in order to develop our research question. These recommendations emphasize the need for a rigorous, transparent, and reliable methodology for this type of knowledge synthesis. Scoping reviews enable the mapping of the key concepts underpinning a research field and clarify working definitions and/or the conceptual boundaries of a topic (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). They are based on a five-stage methodological framework (Levac et al., 2010), (1) Identification of the research question ; (2) Identification of relevant studies ; (3) Study selection ; (4) Charting of the data ;(5) Collating, summarizing, and reporting the results. This review aims to identify existing self-report instruments that are designed to assess the physical literacy of young people aged 8 to 17 years. It will document the characteristics of each tool and the dimensions it assesses, including physical, cognitive, affective, behavioural, and social dimensions, as well as any other dimensions identified. It will also document the psychometric properties of each tool. By providing a structured overview of the available measures, the review will support researchers and practitioners in selecting appropriate assessment instruments. In cases where suitable tools are lacking, the review will also provide a foundation for developing new instruments to assess physical literacy in young people. A comprehensive search will be conducted across five the following five databases: PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, SPORTDiscus and ERIC. For this first step, the PCC approach (Peters et al., 2020), will be used to help define key criteria regarding the population (i.e., young people aged 8–17 years), the concept (i.e., physical literacy), and the context (i.e., self-report tools). The five stages proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) will be carried out independently by two of the authors. All steps will be conducted using Covidence©. Extracted information will include the tool characteristics (e.g., type, number of items, response format), the study populations, the physical literacy domains assessed, the contexts of use, and the methodological quality. The results will be presented in the form of a descriptive synthesis, a narrative discussion, graphical summaries, and a PRISMA flow diagram. The aim is to identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities for future research in this field.