Transitional Movement Skill Dependence on Fundamental Movement Skills: Testing Seefeldt’s Proficiency Barrier

ABSTRACT

Purpose: In 1979 Vern Seefeldt postulated that individuals that did not achieve a given level of proficiency in the fundamental movement skills (FMS) would be limited in performance on new and more complex skills during development. This hypothesis, the proficiency barrier, inspired research in motor development but, to the best of our knowledge, was never empirically tested. The present article tested three potential mathematical functions (linear, sigmoidal and piecewise) describing the proficiency barrier relating FMS with a transitional movement skill (TMS, a more complex movement skill). Methods: 87 children aged 7 to 10 years were tested on six skills of the TGMD-2 test battery (running, hopping, leaping, kicking, catching and stationary bouncing) and dribbling (a combination of running and stationary bouncing). Results: The results showed evidence for the proficiency barrier based on a specific sigmoidal relation. We also identified critical movement aspects from FMS that seem to induce this relation. Conclusion: There is some evidence supporting Seefeldt’s Proficiency Barrier.

KEYWORDS:

• Motor development
• motor performance
• sport skills

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ This recent consideration of the proficiency barrier is best exemplified in the NASPSPA 2017 session on Motor Development—Exploring Seefeldt’s Proficiency Barrier.

² Seefeldt’ writings are not formal or directly testable as he offers a number of concepts or phenomena (some of which we are addressing here) without fully specifying/characterizing them. In fact, Seefeldt’ writings can be considered as directed to advertising, for physical education teachers, possible ways to evaluate and intervene, in broad terms. These two requirements described in the text are those that an attentive reader could extract from Seefeldt’s writings.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001 and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).