Effectiveness of physical education to promote motor competence in primary school children

Motor skill (MS) competence is an important contributing factor for healthy development. The goal was to test the effectiveness of primary school physical education (PE) on MS and physical fitness (PF) development. 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. 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. PE programs can effectively promote PF and MS development.

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