Investigating levels and determinants of primary school children’s basic motor competencies in nine European countries

WÄLTI, Marina, Harald SEELIG, Manolis ADAMAKIS, Dario COLELLA, Arūnas EMELJANOVAS, Erin GERLACH, Irene KOSSYVA, Jana LABUDOVÁ, Dana MASARYKOVÁ, Brigita MIEŽIENĖ, Remo MOMBARG, Domenico MONACIS, Benjamin NIEDERKOFLER, Marcos ONOFRE, Uwe PÜHSE, Ana QUITÉRIO, Jeffrey SALLEN, Claude SCHEUER, Petr VLČEK, Jaroslav VRBAS and Christian HERRMANN. Investigating levels and determinants of primary school children’s basic motor competencies in nine European countries. Zeitschrift für Grundschulforschung. Springer Nature, 2022, vol. 15, No 3, p. nestránkováno, 21 pp. ISSN 1865-3553. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42278-022-00155-w.

Basic information

• Original name: Investigating levels and determinants of primary school children’s basic motor competencies in nine European countries
• Authors: WÄLTI, Marina (guarantor), Harald SEELIG, Manolis ADAMAKIS, Dario COLELLA, Arūnas EMELJANOVAS, Erin GERLACH, Irene KOSSYVA, Jana LABUDOVÁ, Dana MASARYKOVÁ, Brigita MIEŽIENĖ, Remo MOMBARG, Domenico MONACIS, Benjamin NIEDERKOFLER, Marcos ONOFRE, Uwe PÜHSE, Ana QUITÉRIO, Jeffrey SALLEN, Claude SCHEUER, Petr VLČEK (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution), Jaroslav VRBAS (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution) and Christian HERRMANN.
• Edition: Zeitschrift für Grundschulforschung, Springer Nature, 2022, 1865-3553.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 50301 Education, general; including training, pedagogy, didactics [and education systems]
• Country of publisher: Switzerland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14410/22:00126603
• Organization unit: Faculty of Education
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42278-022-00155-w
• Keywords in English: motor competence; physical education; learning objectives; curriculum; physical activity
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

Basic motor competencies (BMC) belong to the key learning goals of Physical Education (PE) in primary school curricula in Europe. These competencies are necessary to participate in sports inside and outside of school. Children should therefore achieve age-adequate BMC in PE and any need for educational motor support should be identified at an early stage. Studies in German-speaking countries showed that various endogenous and exogenous factors are related to children's BMC, but international studies are missing. In the present cross-sectional study, the two BMC areas object movement (OM) and self-movement (SM) as well as the associations with endogenous (age, sex, body mass index) and exogenous (participation in extracurricular sports) factors were investigated in 1721 8- to 10-year-old primary school children from nine European countries. Over 25% of the children showed need for educational motor support in OM and 20% in SM. BMC levels differed significantly between the country-specific subsamples. In all subsamples, boys showed better performances in OM, while girls scored better in SM. Older children performed better in OM and SM than younger children. Higher body mass index predicted lower BMC scores in both competence areas. Participation in ball sports was positively associated with OM and SM, and individual sports participation was a significant predictor of SM. As exogenous and endogenous variables consistently predicted BMC in all subsamples, there must be other reasons for variation in BMC levels. Future studies should address country- and school-specific characteristics like content and amount of PE.