The effect of movement education activities on the development of motor skills of pre-school children (5-6 years old)

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of movement education activities on the motor skill development of preschool children (5-6 years old). The research was conducted using the real experimental design, a pretest-posttest control group model, which is one of the full experimental designs. The study sample of the research consists of 34 students studying at Aktaş Kindergartenaffiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Bolu in the fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. Using the random method, the experimental group consisted of 17 people, 11 boys and 6 girls, and the control group consisted of 17 people, 5 boys and 12 girls. Movement education activities in the study were planned to be 2 days a week and 1 hour a day and were applied to the experimental group for 12 weeks. At the beginning and end of the study, Hermann et al. (2018) MOBAK-KG (Basic Competencies in Pre-school) scale was used to measure students' motor skill levels and development. In the study, skills in object movement (throwing, catching, bouncing, dribbling) and self-movement (balance, jumping, rolling, running) groups were examined. A data analysis program was used to analyze of the collected data and the level of significance was assumed as 0.05 in statistical analysis. It was determined that the data did not show normal distribution and therefore the data were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests, which are nonparametric tests. When the measurement results of the experimental group participating in the movement education activities and the control group not participating in the movement education activities were examined, no statistically significant difference was found in the jump parameter, while a statistically significant difference was found between the groups in favor of the experimental group in all other parameters (p<0.05). It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the posttests in the pretest-posttest comparison of the students who participated in the study as an experimental group. These results; showed that the movement education activities applied positively affect the motor skill development of children. KEYWORDS: Movement Education, Preschool Education, Motor Skill, Self Movement, Object Movement