The Skilled Kids (Taitavat tenavat) is a Finnish research project conducted in the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the Ģֱ during the years 2015-2018. The project is funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. The primary aim of the study is to investigate young children's motor competence, perception of motor competence and physical activity parenting. The data consists of children aged 3 to 7-years who all attended early childhood education in childcare centres in Finland. The study design bases on geographical cluster-randomization of the child care centers with an overall target of a 1000 children. The cluster‐random sampling was carried out on the basis of the Finnish national registry of early educators which included 2600 childcare centers. Childcare centers were chosen randomly from the metropolitan area, Southern, Central, and Northern Finland based on postal codes. The number of childcare centers involved in one region was weighted with the population density of the area. The recruitment took place in the autumn of 2015. Altogether, 37 childcare centers participated: six from the metropolitan area, eleven from Southern, thirteen from Central, and seven from Northern Finland. In total, 1239 children (parental agreement rate 78.5%) received consent for study participation. The measurements were conducted in childcare centers’ between November 2015 and September 2016 by two researchers (Donna Niemistö and Arja Sääkslahti), along with two research assistants.
