The Fundamental Movement Skills of a Year 9 Group and a Gifted and Talented Cohort

Abstract

Physical Education is often viewed as the place where Fundamental Motor Skills (FMS) are developed. These skills underpin the development of motor competence and perceived competence, therefore impacting on participation and physical literacy. Within education, Gifted and Talented (G & T) and inclusion agendas have been high profile yet research has shown that children across the world are not reaching expected levels of skill mastery at primary level (5-11 years). The aim of the research was therefore to investigate the levels of mastery at secondary level (11-16 years) and within a G & T cohort to establish their levels of mastery, and investigate how this may relate to their participation in physical activities. Forty five children, 19 Year 9 pupils (13.24 ± 0.2 years) and 26 G & T pupils (13.24 ± 0.2 years) were evaluated performing a combination locomotor, manipulative (object control) and balance skills (n = 5). 5 trials of each skill were recorded and graded against the performance criteria by one experimenter. Mastery or near mastery were only achieved, if, in 4 out of the 5 trials, 5 of the 6 component criteria were present. If this was not attained, non-mastery was designated. Results revealed that the G & T pupils had greater overall mastery of the 5 skills, however they did not master all skills. All G & T had significantly increased jumping and throwing skills, and males significantly increased kicking skills. In both groups the majority of participation outside the school curriculum was related to games activities and was dominated by invasion games however no males participated in "aesthetic" activity outside school. These results indicate that development of FMS may not be occurring in children at KS3 and there is both an invasion games bias and a gender bias in the activities accessed out of school.

Determining Motor Development Status of 3-10 years old Children in Ahvaz City Using TGMD-3 Test

“…Some gender-related studies have reported that boys have often higher levels of performance in FMS. [12][13][14][15] Some other studies have shown that boys are better at object control skills while girls have better locomotor skill proficiency. 16,17 Yang et al 18 and Li 19 suggested that there was no significant difference between boys and girls in locomotor skills.…”

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“…These results are in partial agreement with previous similar studies which have shown that male are more skilled than females. (Barnett et al, 2011;Goodway et al, 2010;Griffiths & Billard, 2013;Valentini et al, 2016;. Other studies that have addressed the effect of physical activity interventions on fundamental movement skills underlined an improvement of such skills (Brusseau, et al, 2016).…”

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“…This possibility is very likely in terms of effects size. These trends are discussed extensively in the scientific community and the researchers suggest that males show fundamental motor skills better than female in different motor tasks (Barnett, et al, 2010;Goodway, et al, 2010;Hardy et al, 2012;Griffiths & Billard, 2013;Spessato, Gabbard, & Valentini, 2013;Sgrò, et al, 2017). Particularly, males have OC abilities better than females (Robinson, 2011;LeGear, et al, 2012;) while these ones show LO abilities better than males in some studies (Hardy, et al, 2010;LeGear, et al, 2012;).…”