Examination of the Relationship Between Existing Playground Designs and Children’s Fundamental Movement Skills

Abstract

A limited number of children receive proper physical education between the ages of 0-6 which is the main period for children to learn fundamental movement skills (FMS). In contrast to physical education opportunities, most of the children have access to neighborhood playgrounds. Proper interventions and improvements to playground designs may be the easiest and most efficient way to provide for many children to develop the FMS they need to acquire in their early years. This study aims to investigate the efficiency of the existing playground equipment and to provide an answer to the question regarding the qualification of existing playgrounds in terms of children’s FMS. The method of this study consists of three main steps; the first step is to analyze the commonly used assessment tools for FMS development to generate a list of mostly assessed movement skills. The second step is to inspect the mostly preferred playgrounds in the study area and analyze every piece of equipment they have, and finally to correlate the results from the first two steps. The results reached in the study were evaluated based on the level of competence gained by playground designs in terms of providing opportunities for necessary physical movements and their support rates for basic movements. It is thought that the interpretation of the study results will provide insight and a detailed guide in the early stages of the design process for future playground designs.