Different teaching approaches can be employed to facilitate the development of fundamental movement skills (FMS) and rhythmic abilities (RA) in early childhood. This study examined the influence of ...three different educational programmes on the development of FMS and RA. The Test of Gross Motor Development—Second Edition and RA tests were used to assess FMS and the RA development among 62 children (aged 5 to 6 years) before and after implementation of three different programmes: music and movement programme, movement-only programme, and traditional programme according to a standard kindergarten curriculum. Results revealed that music and movement are interrelated curricular areas. In addition to more frequently studied effects of integrating movement into music education, and the effects of music on movement performance, our results demonstrated that movement practice, alone, also facilitates RA development. The results of the present study indicate that the most effective way to promote FMS and RA development in early childhood is to integrate music and movement into a uniform programme.
Existing research provides ambiguous evidence for associations between motor competency and motor creativity. Therefore, this study examined the association between motor skill proficiency and motor ...creativity. The Test of Gross Motor Development (second edition) and Bertsch's motor creativity test were used to assess motor skill proficiency and motor creativity among 39 children aged five to six. Results revealed that motor proficiency and motor creativity are not interrelated traits. Therefore, it is necessary to use different teaching strategies to promote these traits. Teaching with direct instructions and reproduction of demonstrated movement is probably the most appropriate to acquaint children with motor skills. Learning through play with less explicit teaching instructions and emphasis on motivating children to find novel and original solutions to the motor tasks is probably more suitable for facilitating motor creativity.
Motor competence as an indicator of gross motor development is characterized by changes in movement patterns and outcomes. The Test of Gross Motor Development-3 consists of six locomotor and seven ...ball tasks used to assess the quality of fundamental motor skills in children. The purpose of this study is twofold--to produce a Slovenian translation of Test of Gross Motor Development-3 and to evaluate it on a sample of Slovenian children. First, a back translation was carried out with the help of relevant field professionals, thus producing a Slovenian version of Test of Gross Motor Development-3 with excellent content validity. Second, trained assessors rated the video-recorded test tasks of 452 Slovenian children with smaller groups of measured participants repeating the procedure within 2- and 4-week interval to assess reliability. Finally, the collected data were analyzed using several statistical methods. The data showed good to excellent reliability for intrarater, interrater, test-retest reliability, structural validity, and internal consistency for the majority of motor skills, as well as good measurement invariance across genders.
Background: Regular moderate and vigorous-intensity physical activity (PA) is very important for health promotion and prevention of diseases. Frequency and the amount of PA can be monitored with ...direct and indirect measurements; the former is more accurate than the latter, which is, on the other hand, easier to use and more cost-effective. One of the most commonly used indirect methods is a self-report International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), which comes in short (SF) and long forms (LF). Despite its wide cross-cultural use, IPAQ has not yet been adapted for use in the Slovenian language. The main purposes of the study were to produce a reliable Slovenian version of IPAQ-LF for use in education.
Methods: A back-translation method involving four translators and one native English-speaking reviewer was used to adapt an IPAQ-LF questionnaire from English into the Slovenian language. The ease of use and comprehensibility of Slovenian IPAQ-LF was first pilot-tested on four teachers, then the reliability of a questionnaire was tested and retested on a sample of sixty-eight preschool and primary school teachers.
Results: Collected data were analysed with several statistical methods, and the results revealed a high degree of test-retest reliability and internal consistency for both groups of teachers. Preschool teachers reported higher levels of moderate (1138±265 min/week vs. 870±1074 min/week) and vigorous-intensity (446±430 min/week vs. 106±157 min/week) PA as well as walking (996±337 min/week vs. 690±1173 min/week) than primary school teachers.
Conclusions: The study has proven that the Slovenian IPAQ-LF version is reliable for use in education.
Educators' self-efficacy influences their practice and thus determines the quality of teaching in early childhood education and care (ECEC). This study analyzed educators' self-efficacy to teach ...physical education (PE) and the differences between pre-service and in-service early childhood educators. Early childhood educators (N = 381) completed a beliefs survey about their competencies to effectively teach PE in ECEC. Pre-service and in-service educators showed a discrepancy in their self-efficacy to teach PE, which can be attributed to their different conceptualizations of PE in ECEC. Additionally, self-efficacy was affected by work position (core practitioners vs. assistants), age of children taught (1-3 years old, 3-6 years old, or mixed groups of 1-6 years old), or how frequently educators read professional literature (never, rarely, or frequently). We propose pre- and in-service training in Slovenia to (1) promote an understanding of free play and skill-based practices in PE as existing on a continuum, (2) increase attention to educational approaches in PE employed in mixed-age groups, and (3) qualify educators for movement-skill demonstration.
Abstract
Crayfishes are rather rare in the fossil record, limiting our understanding of their evolutionary history. We describe and discuss a fossil crayfish from the Miocene of Slovenia. This ...fossil, comprising only the cephalothorax, first pereiopod, and another cheliped, seems closely allied to AustropotamobiusSkorikov, 1907, but also bears an epistome and postorbital carina reminiscent of AstacusFabricius, 1775. For these reasons, it is tentatively assigned to Austropotamobius. It differs from all other Austropotamobius species by the shapes of its epistome cephalic lobe, and postorbital carina, and resemble Austropotamobius torrentium (von Paula Schrank, 1803) most due to its ornamentation. It is therefore described as a new species, Austropotamobius plenicarisp. nov. The new species is associated with brackish water ostracods, most likely reworked from slightly older sediments, suggesting a late Miocene (Messinian) age. The origin of this species and its age show it lived long after the split between Astacus and Austropotamobius, and also probably after the split between the two Austropotamobius species (Au. pallipes and Au. torrentium), and may have been contemporary to, and lived in the area of the diversification of Au. torrentium haplotypes.
The purpose of this study was to identify the ostracod assemblage from a 43 m thick section of the Bizeljsko Formation, which constitutes the middle part of the Upper Miocene Posavje Group. The ...succession comprises sandstone, siltstone, and marlstone, deposited in a delta front environment. The determined ostracods belong to the families Cyprididae, Cytheridae, Darwinulidae, and Loxoconchidae. In total, 30 species were identified. Additionally, 8 morphotypes were determined at the genus level. The most common genera are Candona, Hemicytheria, and Cyprideis. The assemblage belongs to the Caspiocypris labiata subzone from the upper Pannonian. The ostracod assemblage from the Krško Basin is similar in species composition to Pannonian ostracod assemblages from Croatia and Serbia.
Despite significant advances in the knowledge and understanding of associations between the phenomenon of excess body weight (hereafter “overweightness”) and fundamental movement skill (FMS) ...proficiency, the question of how overweightness affects critical features of movement remains unanswered. This study examined the differences in the proficiency of FMS between boys and girls with different weight status on the level of critical features. Three hundred and twenty-two boys and girls aged 5 to 10 years were assessed in eight FMS (run, vertical jump, long jump, ball catch, ball kick, ball pass, ball bounce, and forehand strike) and were assigned to non-overweight and overweight groups according to their waist-to-height ratio, with a cut-off point of 0.5. FMS score differences (p < 0.05) between boys and girls that can be frequently observed in the non-overweight group of children were not determined in the overweight group of children (p ≥ 0.131). Overweight boys performed worse in a higher number of skills’ critical features than overweight girls did when compared to non-overweight groups. With weight gain, boys might experience a more significant decline in FMS proficiency than girls do because of the higher scores when non-overweight. The critical features of FMS indicate that overweightness might affect postural control and coordination, which this paper discusses.
The purpose of the study was to determine whether take-off asymmetry affects landing asymmetry. Eleven male gymnasts performed forward and backward somersaults with 1/2, 1/1, and 3/2 twists. The ...leading leg for each participant was defined according to the twisting direction. Ground reaction forces under each foot were measured with Parotec insoles. Absolute and relative measures of lateral asymmetry were used as dependent variables. Three-way ANOVA and a series of one-way ANOVAs were used to determine the main effects between take-off and landing. A series of paired t-tests with Bonferroni corrections were used to find differences between the leading and non-leading legs. Maximal ground reaction forces showed that the leading leg was set out to a higher load at take-off than the non-leading leg for twisting somersaults. There were no statistically significant differences found in the maximal ground reaction force between the legs at landings. Index of bilateral asymmetry indicated landings with negligible asymmetry. However, the maximal force differences between the legs in somersault 3/2 were higher when compared to other somersault variations. No evidence was found to affirm that the asymmetry at take-off affects asymmetry at landing in a twisting somersault. Presumably, gymnasts can take corrective measures during the aerial phase of the twisting somersault that effectively diminish the tilt of the body and enable gymnasts to prepare for the landing with small proportional asymmetry. Prudence is required as these proportions rise in the quantity of load with the height of the somersault.
This study examined the association between muscles’ contractile properties and jumping skill performance in gymnasts. Thirty-nine internationally experienced female (56%) and male (44%) gymnasts ...participated in the study. Radial displacement and contraction time of the biceps femoris, rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and erector spinae were collected to assess muscles’ contractile characteristics using tensiomyography (TMG). Additionally, peak power, jump height, vertical take-off velocity, and vertical peak force in squat jump, countermovement jump, and drop jump were recorded. The TMG parameters did not predict jumping performance in our sample of female and male gymnasts. Associations between TMG parameters and jumping performance are discussed in the article.
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