An Exercise-based Didactic Strategy In Physical Education Increases Motor Skills In Preschool Children: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Physical education (PE) in preschool aims for the corporal and motor skills development in children, nevertheless the evaluation strategies of acquired skills has been neglected in Mexican public school system. Since 2018 only PE teachers are responsible to teach classes, and a collaboration between public institutions allowed us to launch a pilot study of PE classes based on motor skills circuits called “motor action circuits” as an effective tool to develop motor skills. PURPOSE: To determine the effects of an exercise-based didactic strategy on the PE curricula on motor skills performance in children. METHODS: Five boys (Age = 5.2 ± 0.4 yr.) and nine girls (Age= 5.1 ± 0.3 yr.) participated in the study. Exclusion criteria for children were having a major pathology, pharmacological therapy, and enrollment in after-school physical activity programs. Children attended three 30-min lessons in non-consecutive days per week under the supervision of two trained female PE teachers. Motor skills were measured by the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2) test. Two-way (2 genders x 2 measurements) mixed ANOVA were computed for motor skills performance using the GraphPad Prism software. RESULTS: The assumption of normality was met by the Shapiro-Wilk test for girls (W = 0.849) and boys (W = 0.807). A better performance was found on threading beads (Pre = 1.7 ± 0.5 vs. Post = 1.1 ± 0.5 min, p = 0.0004) and posting coins with the preferred hand (Pre = 26.5 ± 2.1 vs. Post = 21.8 ± 5.0 s, p < 0.0001). A significant improvement was found on throwing at a wall target with the right arm (Pre = 2.8 ± 0.1 vs. Post = 3.8 ± 0.2 hits, p = 0.02), the left arm (Pre = 2.4 ± 0.2 vs. Post = 3.8 ± 0.08 hits, p = 0.0001), throwing a bean bag into a box (Pre = 0.4 ± 0.2 vs. Post = 4.1 ± 1.2 hits, p = 0.0038), maintaining one-board balance with the preferred leg (Pre = 12.3 ± 8.4 vs. Post = 26.7 ± 7.7 s, p = 0.0007), and one-board balance with the other leg (Pre = 10.3 ± 5.9 vs. Post = 23.6 ± 6.9 s, p = 0.0011). CONCLUSION: Significant motor skill performance improvements were observed in children attending an exercise-based didactic strategy on the PE program, which highlights the need to increase physical activity at early ages in Mexican children.