Effect of a 9-Wk. after-School Multiskills Club on Fundamental Movement Skill Proficiency in 8- to 9-Yr.-Old Children: An Exploratory Trial

Abstract

This exploratory study examined the effects of a 9-wk. after-school multiskills club on fundamental movement skill proficiency in 8- to 9-yr.-old children. Two schools were randomly assigned to either a control (n = 15 children) or multiskill club (n = 19 children) condition. The multiskill club received 18 coaching sessions designed to improve fundamental movement skills. The control group followed normal routines. 7 skills were assessed using process-oriented measures with video analysis. Participation in the multiskill club yielded significant improvements in proficiency at posttest only in static balance, while potentially practically important improvements were observed in performance of the catch, throw, and kick skills. The after-school multiskill club offered a viable opportunity for movement skill acquisition, but any such programme would need to run for a longer duration to assess whether this type of activity could benefit all skills.

Fundamental Movement Skill Interventions in Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…33,35,38,[40][41][42]47 The 'Get Skilled Get Active' measure was used to evaluate 2 interventions. 45,50,51 Matvienko et al 37 and McKenzie et al 53 developed product measures designed to assess children' s catching, kicking distance, and throwing accuracy.…”

“…49 On average, interventions offered between 8 and 195 hours of instruction and ran for 12 weeks (median). Many of the interventions followed a structured format and included a prescribed number of lessons per week, although a number did not provide detailed intervention descriptions (eg, 33,41,45,52 ).…”

“…Some were based on 1 approach, and others used a combination of approaches. The following approaches or theories were described: mastery motivational climate, 42,46,47 competence motivation theory, 35,42 hypothetic-deductive, 36,43,44 self-learning, 45 and movement exploration and self-testing. 46,54 Martin and colleagues 47 used a mastery motivational climate that allowed students to move freely throughout FMS stations and were encouraged to self-regulate the time spent at each station, the level of task difficulty, and their grouping.…”

“…The risk of bias was lower than the other studies but still quite high for twothirds of studies. The RCTs evaluated 5 programs in the primary school 33,46,48,53 or after school settings 45 in 5 countries and 1 study for overweight children in a community setting. 35 The schoolbased RCTs were conducted with generally small samples (,100) and differed slightly in terms of their FMS impact, with some reporting effects on overall motor competence (both locomotor and object control), 33,46,53 and others having an impact on a select number of individual skills 45 or in a subgroup analysis favoring girls.…”

“…39 Most interventions were delivered by physical education (PE) teachers [34][35][36][37][38][39]42,43,44,[46][47][48][49]53,54 or experienced coaches, 45 with some using trained classroom teachers 53 or trained preservice teachers 50,51,52 or PE specialists to help classroom teachers. 40,49 Interventions ranged in duration from 4 weeks 37 to 3 years.…”