Moving Well-Being Well: Investigating the maturation of fundamental movement skill proficiency across sex in Irish children aged five to twelve

ABSTRACT

Fundamental movement skills (FMS) are the basic building blocks of more advanced, complex movements required to participate in physical activity. This study examined FMS proficiency across the full range of Irish primary school children (n = 2098, 47% girls, age range 5–12 years). Participants were assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development, 3rd edition (TGMD-3), Victorian Fundamental Movement skills manual, and the balance subtest from the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency 2 (BOT-2). Independent sample t-tests and a one way between groups ANOVA with planned comparisons were used analyse sex and age differences. Mastery or near mastery of skills ranged from 16% for overhand throw, to 75.3% for run. Girls scored significantly higher than boys in the locomotor and balance subtests with the boys outperforming the girls in object control skills. Improvements in ability can be seen over time (F(8,1968) = 70.18, p < 0.001), with significant increases in FMS proficiency seen up to the age of 10, after which proficiency begins to decline. The findings demonstrate the low levels of FMS proficiency amongst Irish primary school children, the differences between sex that exist, and highlights the need for more programmes that focus on developing these FMS at an early age.     

Research Abstracts

Abstract

Retention and relearning of five novel gross motor skills after a long period of no practice were studied. College women were classified into high, average, and low skill groups in a previous experiment, and this classification of 36 of the original subjects was retained in the present retesting study. A high degree of skill was retained after approximately one year of no practice. Relearning to previously attained skill levels was rapid. There were significant differences among classified high, average, and low skill groups in learning, retention, and relearning.     

Power,consent and resistance: an autoethnography of competitive rowing

This study builds upon existing socio-cultural work into sports coaching by probing the meanings and varieties of the shared coach–athlete experience. Specifically, the paper utilises an autoethnographic approach in an attempt to chart the complex and dynamic relationship that existed between me, the principal author, as a rowing coxswain and my coach during the preparation for a national rowing championship. Data were drawn from a training diary, emails (both sent and received) and memories during the six months I spent with Coach. The data are presented through three separate yet inter-related stories. Here, the plot of the tale hinges on the tension between my personal perceptions of effective coaching and those employed by Coach. The findings are principally theorised through Nyberg's and Giddens’ concepts of power and resistance, as a fruitful relationship between Coach and me (and the crew) soon turned into a dysfunctional one. The conclusion emphasises the importance of recognising the power-ridden nature of coaching and the value of the autoethnographic genre in exploring it.     

Cultural and situational influences on the process of persuasive strategy selection

This investigation explored compliance gaining attempts by members of two cultures: Asian and North America. Using the 16 Marwell and Schmitt compliance-gaining strategies, this study found significant differences in strategy use based on culture, but was unable to find a consistent underlying dimensionality for the Marwell and Schmitt typology. Effects for communicative context and locus of benefit were also found, indicating that strategy selection is influenced by situational as well as cultural variables. The results show that these latter two variables operate similarly in both cultures.     

No Country for young people? Anxieties in Australian society and education

Australia is often portrayed as a place in which young people are in jeopardy. In 19th century literature and art, the recurring motif of a child lost in “the bush” became an increasingly significant dimension of European settlers’ experiences of Australia, whereas during the latter half of the 20th century analogous cultural narratives shifted towards urban environments and the plight of young people endangered by their parents’ generation. In contemporary popular culture, Australia’s cities and suburbs are places where children are aborted, abandoned, exploited, murdered or never conceived. Like the bush-lost children before them, these “at risk” young people symbolise adult fears of self, society, and the future. My concern is that the most common public policy response to these persistent fears and insecurities is to retreat to a politics of complexity reduction. Many politicians and public opinion leaders see teachers and schools as being in the vanguard of people and institutions dedicated to Australian children’s educational ruin, and simplistically seek to “protect” them with blunt instruments such as back-to-phonics literacy and a national curriculum. I argue that Australia’s young people are much more seriously endangered by the symbolic violence of those who position them as docile receptors of whatever schools and teachers serve up to them, and who treat them as passive screens upon which to project their own anxieties.