Teachers’ Perceptions of Preschool Children’s Psychomotor Development in Spain

Abstract

This study analyzed the psychomotor profiles of preschool stage students and to determine how these data agreed with the students' teachers' subjective assessment. We also correlated these data with other variables such as age, gender, and family influence. A total of 211 children aged 3 to 6 years, in the second cycle of preschool from 30 classes of 10 schools in Spain participated. Additionally, 30 preschool teachers from these classes participated. Study results revealed serious teacher misperceptions regarding their students' psychomotor development, with low agreement rates between students and teachers in the motor dimension and slight agreement rates in communicative, cognitive, and social areas. The reasons for and implications of these misperceptions are discussed.

Association Between Preschoolers’ Specific Fine (But Not Gross) Motor Skills and Later Academic Competencies: Educational Implications

“…So, one of the clear highlights of our study is that it offers a tool (and even better, a free tool) that permits to objectively assess motor skills in the children's natural educational context (see the ad hoc observation instrument, available in the Supplementary Material). So, our study responds to the current need to construct practical tools that permit the assessment of motor skills by ECE teachers (Cueto et al, 2017); and more specifically, the need to increase the limited number of observational tools currently available to teachers in order to identify children having motor problems (Figueroa and An, 2017). Based on these assessments, it would be possible to design and implement teaching practices and interventions that are suited to the specific needs of the students.…”

“…Furthermore, early education teachers form a part of the children's micro context, monitoring these children for longer periods of time and gaining the trust of their families. This makes them the ideal candidate to promote motor skills and identify early motor problems, and to implement planned programs that prevent or mitigate them (Cueto et al, 2017;Tsangaridou, 2017). These planned movement activities should form a routine part of the preschool curriculum and should be based on play, more specifically, guided play (in which an adult selects or arranges a context for learning but the children direct the play; although the adult may provide scaffolding and guidance), since this is the most natural way of learning and developing in children (Weisberg and Zosh, 2018;Yu et al, 2018;Zosh et al, 2018).…”

“…But in order to plan successful opportunities to promote the development of children's motor skills, adequate prior assessment is necessary. ECE teachers have declared that they lack the skills and knowledge necessary to assess children's motor skills and therefore, may be unable to engage in appropriate motor practices for young children (Gehris et al, 2015;Cueto et al, 2017). This may be one of the reasons why motor skills are not being promoted in ECE to the extent that they should be.…”

“…However, the literature indicates that many motor skill assessments carried out by the ECE teachers are based on impressions and personal subjectivity, given a lack of training on the same. Teachers indicate that their limited knowledge, especially of assessment techniques, significantly limits their use of measurement tools which may provide objective and precise information (Cueto et al, 2017). In fact, the literature indicates that only 54.7% of the ECE teachers are capable of correctly assessing their students' motor skills.…”

“…Of those committing assessment errors (improperly assessing their students' motor skills), 91.5% overestimate their students' abilities. And even more alarmingly, 13.27% of the teachers assess their students' motor skills as being normal when in fact, they suffer from deficits (Cueto et al, 2017). This may have major consequences on the student's development and learning over the short, medium and long term, since they may be denying the possibility of necessary intervention that would improve their motor skills, thus, limiting their later academic achievement.…”