The impact of play based movement education practices on the motor and attention skills of preschool children

This study aims to examine the effects of play-based movement education on the motor and attention skills of preschool children. It also investigates whether demographic factors such as gender, birth order, and screen time have an impact on these skills. The research was conducted with 40 children aged 60–72 months attending a public preschool in Istanbul. Participants were assigned to an experimental group (n = 21) and a control group (n = 19). The experimental group received a play-based movement education program for eight weeks, with two 45-minute sessions per week, while the control group continued with the standard preschool curriculum. A non-equivalent pretest–posttest control group design was employed. Data were collected using a personal information form, the Test of Gross Motor Development–2 (TGMD-2) for motor skills, and the Frankfurt Attention Test for Five-Year-Olds (FTF-K) for attention. The results indicated that the experimental group showed improvements in both motor and attention skills. In contrast, some areas of decline were observed in the control group. While gender did not lead to a statistically significant difference in either motor or attention skills, girls outperformed boys in locomotor skills, whereas boys had higher scores in object control. Birth order and screen time did not show significant effects on the measured skills; however, first-born children had higher average motor skill scores. In conclusion, play-based movement education significantly improved the motor skills of 60–72-month-old children and had a limited yet positive effect on their attention skills. Although demographic variables generally did not produce significant differences, notable variations were observed in some specific skill areas.