McGuckin, Teneale, Turner, Denise, Jones, Tamra, Crowther, Fiona, Eagers, Jackie, and Connor, Jonathan (2024) Impact of a fundamental movement skills program on educator practice in early learning centres. Discover Education, 3. 94.

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Abstract

Introduction: Early development of fundamental movement skills (FMS) has various health, social, emotional, cognitive, and physical benefits. However, reports indicate children’s motor skill proficiencies are diminishing. Therefore, the early childhood years and early childhood educators are vital for providing opportunities for FMS development, which may enable children to acquire a lifelong positive relationship with physical activity (PA).

Methods: Educators at early learning centres (ELC) in a regional city were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews and complete a FMS diary. Following the initial data collection, a university student-led FMS focused PA program was delivered. After the completion of the program, educators were invited to participate in a follow-up interview and to complete another FMS diary. The interviews were thematically analysed and the FMS diaries were descriptively reported.

Results: From pre-program interviews, three themes were identified including “educator training and recall”, “environmental moderators”, and “expanding knowledge”. Educators indicated they had some formal training regarding physical education, but their knowledge was limited or difficult to recall. Educators suggested increasing their knowledge would be a valuable future enabler to advance FMS outcomes. After the completion of the program, interviews with the educators identified “program impact on practices” as another surfacing theme and is indicative the program elicited reflection of educators about their practices.

Conclusion: A university student-led FMS focused program provoked reflective practices of educators about FMS proficiency and programming. Educators identified challenges, enablers, and opportunities for facilitating FMS activities at ELC.

Item ID:	83079
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2731-5525
Related URLs:	Publisher
Copyright Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	09 Jul 2024 23:28
FoR Codes:	39 EDUCATION > 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy > 390111 Physical education and development curriculum and pedagogy @ 50% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4207 Sports science and exercise > 420703 Motor control @ 50%
SEO Codes:	16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1603 Teaching and curriculum > 160303 Teacher and instructor development @ 100%
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