Identifying the improvement of Gross Motor Skills of preschool children in Monaragala District

Abstract

Gross Motor Skills (GMS) are the foundations for more complicated motor abilities and movement patterns, and the underlying performance competency required for many types of physical exercise. This study was to identify the improvement of GMS of preschool children in the Monaragala district. Forty Students (n=40) participated from two preschools (30 in the treatment group and 10 in the Control group). GMS was tested using the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2). Including six skills per subset and there were two subsets. Loco Motor Skills(LMS) (run, gallop, hop, leap, horizontal jump, and slide) and Object Control Skills (OCS) (striking a stationary ball, stationary dribble, catch, kick, overhead throw, and underhand roll). The gathered data were analyzed using, Pearson correlation, paired-sample T-test, and independent T-sample test in SPSS (V22) software and Microsoft Office 2013. According to the results, the paired t-test and independent t-test were utilized to achieve the main objective. Paired t-test showed that there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test in the LMS score (P-value 0.000<0.05), OCS score (P-value 0.000<0.05) in the treatment group, and LMS score (Pvalue 0.024<0.05) in the Control group. There is no significant difference in the OCS score (P-value 0.274>0.05) in the Control group. Finally, an independent t-test revealed that the mean difference of the treatment group is greater than the control group in both LMS (11.87 > 0.60) and OCS (11.03 > 0.30). It could be concluded that there is an improvement in the GMS of treatment group because of the training.