http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1599-2180
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ABSTRACT
Background: Motor skill (MS) competence is an important contributing factor for healthy development.
Purpose: The goal was to test the effectiveness of primary school physical education (PE) on MS and physical fitness (PF) development.
Methods: Three classes (n = 60, aged 9.0 ± 0.9) were randomly assigned to three diverse conditions during a school year: two PE lessons/week (PE-2), three PE lessons/week (PE-3), and no PE lessons control group (CG). BMI, skinfolds, PF (9-min run/walk, sit-up, modified pull-ups), gymnastics, soccer, handball, basketball and track-and-field skills were evaluated. Effect sizes (d) were reported as magnitude of change.
Results: Skinfolds significantly increased only in CG (d = 1.21). PF composite z-scores improved in PE-3 (d = 0.61), but decreased in PE-2 (d = 0.57), and had no changes in CG. Statistically significant improvement was verified in gymnastics and handball skills in both experimental groups (gymnastic: d = 2.95 and d = 2.61 for PE-3 and PE-2, respectively; handball: d = 1.87 and d = 0.57 for PE-3 and PE-2, respectively), and no changes were seen in CG. In soccer, there were improvements only in the PE-3 (d = 0.55), and in basketball only in PE-2 (d = 0.46). There were no changes in any group for track-and-field skills.
Conclusions: PE programs can effectively promote PF and MS development.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for the support grant (UID/DTP/04045/2013 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006969) and UID/DTP/00617/2013.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Vítor P. Lopes http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1599-2180