Abstract
Physical education (PE) is acknowledged as a relevant context for holistic child and youth development promotion. However, interventional research mostly builds on individual theories focused on specific outcome domains. This study presents a multisport enriched PE intervention that capitalizes on the intersection of different theory-based approaches to motor, cognitive and socio-emotional skills development promotion. With a cross-over design, 181 fifth graders, coming from a past class-randomized trial of enriched or traditional PE in their 1st–3rd grade, were stratified (based on their previous PE experience) and class-randomized to multisport enriched PE or control group. They completed pre-post assessments in motor and sport skills, cool (inhibition, working memory) and hot (decision making) executive functions, prosocial (empathy, cooperation) and antisocial (quick-temperedness, disruptiveness) behaviors. Children in the enriched PE group showed advantages in motor and prosocial skills after the intervention, which were linked by a mediation path, and an interactive effect of past and actual PE experience on decision making but no differential effects on other variables. The results suggest that a PE intervention designed with an integrative theory base, although not allowing disentangling the contribution of individual components to its efficacy, may help pursue benefits in motor and non-motor domains relevant to whole-child development.
Highlights
Post-intervention (t2) values of motor skill competence, sport skills, cool executive functions, hot executive functions, self-rated and peer-rated prosocial behavior and antisocial behavior of 10–11 year-old children assigned to the multisport enriched physical education (PE) intervention or traditional PE
The primary hypothesis found confirmation for motor and prosocial life skills: the results showed diverging trends of change between the enriched and traditional PE group, which led to better motor competence, cooperation and empathy in children who participated in the enriched multisport intervention as compared to those involved in traditional
The exploratory hypothesis found partial confirmation: only the gain observed in cooperation skill was associated with and mediated by the increment in motor competence, whereas the gains in empathy and decision making of the enriched PE group were unrelated to the improvement in motor competence
Summary
There is consensus that PE encompasses objectives in physical-motor and socio-emotional outcome domains, even though cross-country differences exist in the prioritization of aims and objectives of current PE curricula [2]. Parents reported the number of days their child spent at least 10 min playing in locations such as their yard at home, a friend’s or neighbor’s yard, their street or court or footpath, a park or playground in out-of-school hours on weekdays (8 items on a five-point scale) and weekend days (8 items on a six-point scale) during a typical week. Parents filled in a questionnaire regarding their children’s actual practice (e.g., number of days/week, session duration) of after-school sports or any other structured PA training
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