Primary School-aged Children and Fundamental Motor Skills - what is all the fuss about?

Abstract

Fundamental motor skills are assumed to hold a key position in the movement education continuum for primary school-aged children. For example, mastery of fundamental motor skills is considered to be a precursor to the application to many sport specific contexts, and conversely a lack of proficiency is lauded as a key reason for attrition from organised sport. The exploration of childrens' coordination levels and their performance on a fundamental motor skill has revealed a significant relationship between these two movement constructs. Primary school-aged children (n=161) were measured using the McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (coordination) and their process performance of the two handed sidearm strike (fundamental motor skill). Using the partial credit form of the Rasch analysis (Quest), the ordinal measures of the process performances were transformed into interval data. Consequently, these data were comparable to the Neuromuscular Development Index from the McCarron, employing multivariate analysis techniques. A significant interaction resulted which provided a sound methodological basis from which to explore the relationships between coordination and process performances on a fundamental motor skill. Implications of the findings focus on various engagements with pedagogies for movement enhancement.