There is a global issue with movement competence development and associated with this increasing sedentary behaviour

 Movement competency development and the mastery of what is sometimes called “fundamental” or “essential” movement skills during childhood is suggested as the foundation or “building blocks” of an active lifestyle during adolescence and into adult life.The area of movement competency development is an important area of physical literacy discussion and PE to focus on as alarmingly, it is suggested that in some countries as many as fifty percent of children will leave school without the “fundamental” or “essential” movement skills competency required for successful recreation games, sport, and physical activity (MacNamara, Collins, & Giblin, 2015; Morgan et al., 2013). There are also suggestions that poor motor coordination is often associated with poor academic attainment and cognitive deficits (Giblin, Collins, MacNamara, & Kiely, 2014). The importance of children attaining movement skill competency is indicated by research findings demonstrating that children with high “fundamental” or “essential” movement skills proficiency show little decline in physical activity as youth (Morgan et al., 2013).

It is generally acknowledged that while children may develop movement skill by being encouraged to “get outside and play”, movement competency is more likely to be achieved with appropriate practice,encouragement, feedback, and instruction (Lubans et al., 2010). PE teachers, youth sport coaches, and those trained in the teaching of “fundamental” or “essential” movement skills competency have been shown to significantly improve this proficiency (Morgan et al., 2013). However, the only place where all children can be assumed to get deliberately constructed learning environments for movement skill development is within their school PE programs.

"Fundamental" movement competence attainment is one of the most extensively researched physical education areas. In the period 1997-2017 the most common reported upon factor in movement competence was gender. Boys outperformed or achieved better movement competency scores in some or all of the tests when compared to girls. Research during this period also showed evidence of an association between weight status and motor competence. For example, overweight students were more likely to be less competent than non-overweight children across all grades and genders. Interestingly, maybe surprisingly, in our review of literature we found conflicting findings regarding the influence of SES on movement competency.

Some correlation with movement competence and physical activity was found in our review. Movement competence was associated with MVPA in some studies and physical activity correlated with motor competence in other studies. High motor quotients were associated with sport participation, and positive association between sport club participation and predictions of movement competency were identified .

The relationship between perceived competence and actual competence seemed equivocal in the literature. This may be because as previous researchers have suggested, children are not necessarily good at assessing personal motor competence and may lack the reasoning capacity to correctly assess their own competence.

The body of research in movement competence attainment 'paints a picture' that it would appear many children progress to secondary school having not met the movement competence and motor control benchmarks established in standardised HPE curriculum frameworks.

Extract adapted from Pill, S., & Harvey, S. (2019). A narrative review of children's movement competence research 1997-2017. Physical Culture, Sport Studies and Research, 81, 47-74. Paper available free - open access at:
 https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/pcssr/81/1/article-p47.xml?language=en



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