Exploring the Development of Children's Learning and Psychological Skills in Preschool Education

ABSTRACT Preschool education is important for the development of children's cognitive, psychological and social skills. To examine how the physical activity‐based learning affects the learning environment and to determine the mediation of cognitive development and psychological skills development on increasing the children's learning foundation in early childhood. An explanatory sequential mixed‐methods design is employed involving pre‐ and post‐test intervention. A total of 742 preschool education stakeholders in China were targeted and sampled to obtain quantitative data through the application of pre‐ and post‐structured questionnaires carried out after a 2‐week Movement‐Based Learning Camp. Semi‐structured interviews with 18 purposely selected participants followed and were analysed using thematic analysis as a method to explain and enrich the quantitative results. The findings showed that the learning environment significantly positively mediated children's early childhood learning foundation via the cognitive development ( β = 0.092) and psychological skills development ( β = 0.076) with a significance level of p < 0.001. From the qualitative findings, the following themes emerged as significant for children's holistic development: movement‐based learning, emotional safety, peer interaction, learning motivation, critical thinking and school readiness. It introduces and validates an integrated framework that combines sociocultural theory, ecological systems theory and executive function theory to demonstrate the positive impact of physical activity learning on the foundation of children's early learning through improvements in cognition and psychological skills. Pedagogies based on movement create supportive learning environments that facilitate cognitive and psychological development, thereby forming the foundation of early learning.