Improving Preschool Children’s Fundamental Movement Skills Through Teacher Professional Development Training

PURPOSE: Preschool children’s proficiency in fundamental movement skills (FMS) is associated with their motivation and participation in physical activity. However, there is currently no structured curriculum on FMS teaching in Hong Kong. Therefore, we developed an intervention to enhance kindergarten teachers’ knowledge and pedagogical skills in FMS through professional development training. A randomized controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. The current report included data collected from the first of two cohorts of the trial. METHODS: 15 kindergartens were randomized to either the experimental or wait-list control group. Teachers for schools allocated to the experimental group received the designed intervention, which was approximately 6 months long. The FMS proficiency of children from these schools (n = 197; 54% boys; mean age = 3.88 years) FMS was measured post-intervention. Specifically, scores for FMS of overhead throw, jump, kick, catch, hope, and skip were measured using the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-3). The one-legged stand test was also administered as a measure of static balance. With data from one cohort only, analyses based on inferential statistics were underpowered, and hence between group differences were compared using Cohen’s d. RESULTS: Compared to the control group, children from the experimental group had higher scores in the FMS of jump (d = 0.28), catch (d = 0.29), and skip (d = 0.49). The effect sizes of these differences were small (i.e., 0.2 < d < 0.5). For overhead throw (d = 0.09), kick (d = -0.07), and hop (d = 0.09), the differences were of negligible size (d < 0.1). As for children’s static balance, children from the experimental group performed better, but the effect size was very small (d = 0.11). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest the intervention was effective in improving some aspects of children’s FMS. However, the effect size was small. Further research will be required to examine whether, and if so how, the intervention modified teachers’ instruction, potentially through class observations and teacher interviews. Results from the first cohort would also inform researchers on ways to finetune the intervention to specifically target the skills that demonstrated smaller positive effects. Research Impact Fund, University Grants Committee, Hong Kong