The Effects of Regular Classes and Classes With Additional Exercises on Students’ Motor Abilities

Abstract

The aim of the research was to examine and compare the effects of physical education (PE) classes with additional swimming training in relation to the regular teaching of PE on the motor abilities of students of a younger school age. A sample of 100 respondents was divided into two sub-samples in relation to the number of weekly exercises: a sub-sample of 50 students (control group-CG) with regular PE and a sub-sample of 50 students (experimental group-EG) who, besides their regular classes, had two additional weekly exercises in the form of swimming training. The training program of swimming courses was conducted for three months in the first semester of the 2015/2016 school year. Five standardized Eurofit battery tests were used to evaluate their motor abilities. The obtained results indicate that two additional weekly exercises in the form of swimming training caused statistically significant differences between the EG and the CG in long distance jogging, sit-ups for 30 s and a 20 m run test with a progressive increase in speed. The results suggest that swimming in addition to the already known impact on physiological characteristics positively influences the transformation of motor abilities in students of a younger school age.

The Impact of Swimming on Fundamental Movement Skill Development in Children (3–11 Years): A Systematic Literature Review

“…What was also highlighted was that many of the papers included in the final analysis made comment on the intervention time being too short to see the full effects of swimming [6,8,45] as well as not allowing time to develop full skill mastery [8,9,46]. This was further supported by research supporting that the development of skills is hindered by the constraints of the school curriculum limiting time and duration of swimming lessons [68]; equally, candidates for the sample were most commonly found through local schools and clubs due to convenience. The sample consisted of 10 studies that met the inclusion criteria for this review and, of these, only two were from the UK, emphasising the scant data within this area and country.…”