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Journal of Physical Education and Sport

(JPES), Vol 19 (Supplement issue 3), Art 111, pp 781 – 786, 2019

online ISSN: 2247 - 806X; p-ISSN: 2247 – 8051; ISSN - L = 2247 - 8051 © JPES

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Corresponding Author: FRANCESCO SGRO, E-mail:

francesco.sgro@unikore.it

Original Article

Assessing the impact of a physical education project based on games approach on

the actual motor competence of primary school children

FRANCESCO SGRO

, ANTONELLA QUINTO

, FABIANA PLATANIA

, MARIO LIPOMA

1,2,3,4

Faculty of Human and Society Sciences, University of Enna “Kore” ITALY

Published online:May 31, 2019

(Accepted for publication March 15, 2019)

DOI:10.7752/jpes.2019.s3111

Abstract.

The Italian project “Sport di Classe” is supported and implemented at national level by several organizations for

promoting physical education and physical activity in the primary schools. The aim of this research was to

examine the effect of the project on the development of fundamental motor skills by taking into account the level

of motion in extra-time activities of the sampled participants and their gender. The research involves 100

children (57 males and 43 females; mean age: 10 years old). A proxy-report version of the CLASS

questionnaires was used to estimate how children spent their extra-school time. According to these data, children

were grouped into two levels of motion (i.e., High and Low) and, for each group by gender, paired-samples t-test

was performed for assessing the actual motor competence developmental level pre- and post-project. The males

who have been included in the low level of motion group had a significant improvement in locomotion and in

gross-motor development quotient scores (most-likely and very likely positive effect, respectively). A contrary

effect it was estimated for the females: only the girls included in the high-level motion group showed significant

and very likely positive effect of the treatment in their locomotion scores. These results highlight the effect of the

analysed physical education project, although the relative positive results on the selected participants is not

sufficient to overcame the problems about the worsening in children’s FMS that the literature always underlines.

Keywords: Test of Gross Motor Development; CLASS questionnaire; teaching methods; extra-school activities;

teaching-learning processes.

Introduction

It is well known that the fundamental motor skills (FMS) is related with the physical activity and the

sport practice. For this reason, in 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of

Nutrition and Physical Activity organized a workshop where the future directives of the research in these fields

were determined. Particularly, the importance of motor development and its impact on the physical activity were

regarded as the focus point of the research (Logan et al., 2015; Fulton et al., 2001). In this respect, some authors

hypothesized that a greater commitment in physical activity is linked with a good level of FMS (Clark &

Metcalfe, 2002; Seefeldt, 1980; Stodden et al., 2008) and that a child skilled in physical activities will be more

active people as well (Clark, 2005). The importance of FMS is also supported by the large amount of studies that

investigate several aspects related to the teaching-learning process, such as the usefulness of several and various

assessment methods (Sgrò, Nicolosi, Schembri, Pavone, & Lipoma, 2015; Sgrò, Quinto, Pignato, & Lipoma,

2016; Sgrò, Mango,Pignato, Schembri, Licari, & Lipoma, 2017, Sgrò, Pignato, & Lipoma, 2018).

However, recently data provided by the European Commission outlined as almost everywhere in

Europe children fail to meet the recommended 60-min of moderate to vigorous physical activity everyday

(WHO, 2018). Several reasons are indicated as the causes of this issue: time spent playing videogames, low

availability of physical activity and sport fields, and low level of impact of physical and sport education process

during school time. On the contrary, the school is widely recognized as an important setting for supporting the

skills, knowledge and behaviours oriented to physical activity and sport across lifespan. In this respect, physical

education (PE) lessons require high-quality teaching-learning methods, more lessons per week and a strong

relationship with extra-school physical activity and sports clubs for providing additional opportunities.

In Italy, as well as in other European countries, physical education lessons in primary school level are

not assigned to well-trained teachers, are not regularly, and the effect of such lessons on the development of

adequate FMS level is significantly limited (Sgrò, et al. 2016; Sgrò, Quinto, Messana, Pignato, & Lipoma,

2017). Recently, for overcoming the aforementioned issues, a physical education project has been supported and

implemented by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research and the Italian National Olympics

Committee in the Year 4 and Year 5 of Italian primary schools. Anyway, for the best of authors’knwoledge, unit

now no scientific analysis has been performed for measuring the impact of that project on the development of

FMS in Italian primary school students. So, by considering that similar initiatives can be implemented in the

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further years as well as in other European countries, the aim of this study was to examine the effect of

aforementioned project on the actual motor competence of the students who attended the related physical

education and sport lessons by taking into account the level of motion in extra-time activities of the sampled

participants and their gender.

Methods

Participants and procedures

The participants of this study were sampled from a primary school of a city located in the South of Italy.

The participants were 100: male: 57; female:43; mean age:10 years old; mean height: 1.40 m; mean weight:

38.05 Kg. The participants were involved in a physical education curriculum that will be described in the

following sections of this manuscript. The project was administered for 5 months and the levels of actual motor

competences were verified pre- and post-project’ teaching activities. The assessment procedures were performed

at the gym of the school, where almost four skilled operators met the participants. Overall, the assessment period

was along six days. For each day, in order to guarantee valid and reliable assessment procedures, the participants

were divided in smallest group (i.e., five children per group). Anthropometric measures were carried out from

the same operator for all participants by means of a wall-mounted meter for the height and an electronic

weighing scales for the weight; these measures were used to estimate the Body Mass Index (BMI) as Kg/m

each child.

Actual motor competence assessment

Gross-motor developmental level was measured by means of the Test of Gross-Motor Development

(TGMD) (Ulrich, 1985). TGMD is composed by 12-item test divided into locomotor (run, gallop, hop, leap,

standing horizontal jump, slide) and object control (strike, stationary ball bounce, catch, kick, overhand throw)

subtests. Three to four skill criteria characterized each item and the operators have to identify if a child mastery

or not each item’s criteria. For each item, the participants performed three trials; before the assessment began,

participants were involved in a low-intensity warm-up program for ten minutes. For each trial, the raw score for

locomotor subtest ranges from 0 to 26, while the raw score for object control subtest ranges from 0 to 19. The

raw scores of each participant was converted to the standard score for each subtest, separately, according to the

age of each child. Next, the standard scores have been used to estimate the Gross Motor Development Quotient

(GMDQ). The GMDQ was used to explain the level of actual motor competence of the child according to the

normative data provided within TGMD (i.e., very low, low, under the mean, mean, over the mean, high, very

high). In the current research, four operators were involved in the assessment of gross-motor development by

means of TGMD. The operators followed the execution of each item in the gym and they video-recorded the

performance of each child. Then, the evaluation of each trial was performed by each operator, separately, by

means of the software Longomtach (LongoMatch, Ver. 0.20.8, http://longomatch.org) that accounts for several

procedures (i.e., slow-motion, move the video forward and backwards frame-per-frame) useful for providing

valid and reliable evaluation of the participants’ performance. The inter-raters reliability ranged from 0.87 for

locomotor subtest to 0.91 for object control subtest.

Children's Leisure Activities Study Survey (CLASS)

CLASS is a questionnaire used to investigate the children’s extra-school daily routine in terms of

physical and sport activities (i.e., 30 items like dance, tennis, soccer, to ride a bike, etc.) and recreational

activities (i.e., 14 items like playing a musical instrument) (Telford, Salmon, Jolley, & Crawford, 2005). For

each activity, it is necessary to report the frequency (how many times from Monday to Friday and how many

times on weekend) and the total time spent by the child in these activities (minutes or total hours from Monday

to Friday and from Saturday to Sunday). The version of CLASS used in this study was the proxy-report, since

the parents filled the questionnaire according to the activities performed by their child during the aforementioned

periods. According to cultural and geographical location of the participants engaged in this study, some physical

activities were selected and grouped together into three categories with homogeneous characteristics: sport,

physical activity, and leisure. This procedure agreed with the one used in previous studies (Howley, 2001; Bush,

et al., 2008). Moreover, for overcoming statistical problem related to a lot of structural zeroes obtained for many

activities, the next step was to commute the time spent for each of the aforementioned three categories in

dichotomous variables: a) from 0 to 120 minutes; b) more than 120 minutes. Finally, two levels of motion were

defined according to the obtained time: a) Low Level of Motion (LLoM): participants were included in this

category if their physical activity and sport time were from 0 to 120 minutes; b) High Level of Motion (HLoM):

participants were included in this category if their physical activity and sport time were more than 120 minutes;

The Italian project “Sport di Classe”

“Sport di Classe” (SdC) is a physical education project that promotes physical activity and the

educational values of sport as a means of growth of individual and collective expression in the Italian primary

school. It requires the involvement of a specialized expert in physical education, called “school sport tutor”, who

is appropriate trained for the project and works alongside the teacher for one hour a week, collaborating in

planning and implementing motor activities. As regard to the teaching-learning activities considered in this

study, the tutor developed a teaching plan following the Italian National Guidelines for the development of the

curriculum of physical education in primary school and he has carried out PE lessons based on games activities.

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These lessons included team and individual games and they differ from the sport-based training approach

because the rules of the games are not codified, they do not cause early selection neither specialization, and

small-sided games and circuit were used as prominent teaching approach. Circuits have been developed using

available tools, such as cones, mats, over, balls, obstacles, and rope, while SSG was used following the

indications provided by Sgrò and colleagues (2018). The participants involved in this project were year 9 to10

students and they followed the treatment for twenty weeks during the last school’s year.

Data analysis

First, data related to motor competence were checked for verifying whether they were normally

distributed or accounted for some univariate outliers. Then, according to the level of motion and gender,

student’s t tests for paired samples were conducted for verifying if exist a significant effect of the SdC project on

the level of actual motor competence. If significant effect was found, the size of that effect was established by

means of the non-clinical magnitude-based inference method (Hopkins, Marshall, Batterham, & Hanin, 2009).

The interpretation of the effects in a negative, trivial, or positive practical sense on the dependent variables (i.e.,

Locomotor score, Object control score, and GMDQ) was based on the following thresholds: <0.5 % most

unlikely; 0.5-5% very unlikely; 5-25% unlikely; 25-75% possibly;75-95% likely; 95-99.5% very likely; and

>99.5% most likely (Batterham & Hopkins, 2006). For each significant effect, we reported the t-value (t), the

degrees of freedom (df), p-value, 90% confidence limits (CI90%), and the practical inference true effect, as

suggested by Hopkins and colleagues (2009). The analyses were conducted using SPSS 20 and the alpha level

was set to 0.05 in all tests.

Results

Data screening revealed thirteen subjects were univariate outlier, so their data were discarded from

further analysis. Because no other violations were verified, parametric analyses were carried out. Table 1

described the anthropometric characteristics of the children according to their level of motion.

Low Level of Motion High Level of Motion

[n=48] [n=39]

M SD M SD

Age (year) 10.20 0.61 10.08 0.66

Height (m) 1.39 0.78 1.41 0.80

Weight (kg) 36.04 11.65 39.20 10.36

BMI (kg/m

) 1.82 0.43 1.94 0.41

The further results are presented by following the analysis according to the participants’ level of motion and, for

each level, to participants’ gender.

Participants with low level of motion

By considering the overall sample classified in the low level of motion, no significant differences were

noted between the score pre- and post-project for the three parameters considered as proxy of the actual level of

motor competence. If the gender was used as factor, significant effect of the lessons on motor competence was

identified only for the male. In detail, significant differences were noted for:

-) locomotor score (t= 3.71, df= 23, p=0.001, 90% confidence limits 2.0 to 5.4, most likely): the score related to

these abilities was higher in the post- than in pre-lessons assessment;

-) GMDQ (t= 2.10, df=23, p=0.046, 90% confidence limits 0.4 to 3.8, likely: the score used for quantifying the

overall level of gross-motor skills development was higher in the post- than in pre-lessons assessment;

The images in Figure n.1 show the impact of the treatment according to the GMDQ’s aforementioned levels.

Figure 1 – GMQD level’s in low level of motion participants (LLoM) pre- and post-lessons

Participants with high level of motion

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By considering the overall sample classified in the high level of motion, significant differences were

noted between the score pre- and post-lessons for the following parameters:

-) locomotor score (t= 3.72, df= 25, p=0.001, 90% confidence limits 2.0 to 5.4, most likely): the score related to

these abilities was higher in the post- than in pre-lessons assessment;

-) GMDQ (t= 2.39, df=25, p=0.025, 90% confidence limits 0.7 to 4.1, very likely: the score used for quantifying

the overall level of gross-motor skills development was higher in the post- than in pre-lessons assessment;

If the gender was used as factor, significant effect of the teaching-learning project on motor competence was

identified only for the female. In detail, significant differences were noted for:

-) locomotor score (t= 3.30, df= 11, p=0.007, 90% confidence limits 1.5 to 5.1, very likely): the score related to

these abilities was higher in the post- than in pre-lessons assessment;

The images in Figure n.2 show the impact of the treatment according to the GMDQ’s aforementioned levels.

Figure 2 – GMQD level’s in high level of motion participants (HLoM) pre- and post-lessons

Discussion and conclusion

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the project “Sport di Classe” had an impact on the

FMS development of Italian children according to their level of motion and gender. Overall, the current results

highlighted statistically significant positive differences in locomotion scores and GMDQ for the males. Girls

showed a significant improvement only in locomotion scores. No significant differences were found in object

control scores. 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; Sgrò et al. 2017). 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). Bryant and

colleagues (2016) found that one day per week of physical education protocol performed by a class of Year 4

and Year 5 (experimental group) increased significantly mastery of fundamental movement skills, pedometer

step and physical self-perception in comparison with a peer-age class enrolled in a game-based physical

education process (control group). As regard to the evidences of the CLASS questionnaire and their relationship

with the scores obtained in the TGMD, the current result show that the males, who have been included in the

Low Level of Motion group (LLoM) had an improvement more significant than the ones of the High Level of

Motion (HLoM) group both in locomotion and in GMDQ scores. A contrary effect it was estimated for the

females: only the girls classified in the HLoM were affected by a significant and very likely positive effect of the

treatment in their locomotion scores. In line with these results, the impact of the SdC project seems to be

different according to gender, level of motion, and skills typologies and this evidence need to be considered for

developing effective curriculum and teaching strategy.

However, the overall level of gross motor development remains under the mean provided by Ulrich’s

normative data both in the assessment performed before and after the PE lessons, as shown in the figures 1 and

2. The result agreed with previous studies (Hardy, et al., 2012). FMSs development should be a key strategy in

childhood interventions aiming to promote long-term physical activity, especially in primary school. Indeed, an

appropriate development of FMS can affect the extent to which abilities are really carried out, and this could

affect the potential level of activity achieved during the educational physical activities as well (Fairclough e

Stratton, 2005). For this reason, the expectation is that more skilled children are more active than children less

experienced. In fact, in Hardy and colleagues’ analysis, low scores in object control and in locomotor abilities

were related to inactive subjects. In a review written by Logan and colleagues (2015), the studies examined

found positive relationships between FMS and physical activity, except for the study developed by Erwin and

Castelli (2008). However, although there is an increased number of evidences about the importance of the FMS

and its link with the physical and psychosocial development of the children (Logan et al., 2012; SHAPE

America, 2014), the literature always underlines a worsening in these abilities among children and adolescents

(O’Brien et al., 2016). The most disturbing feature is the alert that, over the generations, the worsening trend of

the overall motor performance capacity indices is change in anticipation respect the age. So, “in accordance with

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the trends identified by Dordel (2000), as the decades passed, there is a lowering of the critical age where the

children motor performances taking negatives features in respect with the past standard values” (Filippone, et al.,

2007; Sgrò, et al., 2017). It is possible to assume that this worsening, in light of the relationship between

physical activity and FMS, is due at the failure satisfy of the physical activity guidelines by the children and

adolescents. In particular, these new guidelines recommend accumulating at least 60 minutes of MVPA each day

for children and adolescent school aged (Tremblay et al., 2011; US Department of Health and Human Services,

2008; WHO, 2010). In this respect, some researches underlined that children spend most of their sedentary day

watching tv or playing with videogames (Tremblay et al., 2011) and they spend less than 5% of the day in

MVPA (Basterfield, et al., 2011; Pate et al., 2004). The current results are in line with the aforementioned

analysis and they confirm as a spot-check protocol of physical activity is not sufficient to improve the FMS

developmental level to an adequate score. Furthermore, it was verified as the development of FMS needs to be

supported by means physical education process really based on students’ motor competence and it needs to

account for the students’ gender and level of motion or sport history. However, the current results are affected by

some limitations, such as the low sample size and the lack of any elements useful for verifying the effect of the

project on cognitive and social-relationship domains of learning. These elements need to be strongly considered

for planning new studies with aims strictly related to the ones addressed in this study.

Since, the key points resulted from the current study and useful for the practitioners are:

1) the low level of FMS development remains a critical issue that needs to be faced by all the stakeholders

involved in the educational planning;

2) the effect of the analysed physical education lessons, although the relative positive results on the selected

participants, is not sufficient to overcame the aforementioned problems and to establish a heterogeneous impact

for supporting a healthy lifestyle across the lifespan;

3) physical education aims can be reached if they are supported, also in primary school, by effective teaching-

learning curriculum based on well-known teaching strategies such as game-centred and tactical approach.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to “Martin Luther King” primary school in Enna, Italy, for participation in this intervention and

to Roberto Coppola for his role as “sport class tutor”.

Author Contributions

Francesco Sgrò was the lead researcher, designing, analyzing the data and writing the paper. Antonella

Quinto and Fabiana Platania J. were involved with the collecting and analysis of the data and writing of the

paper. Mario Lipoma was involved with the study design and writing of the paper.

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