The fundamental motor skill proficiency among Polish primary school-aged children: A nationally representative surveillance study.

OBJECTIVES: With the premise that physical education classes should promote physical activity by teaching and learning fundamental motor skills, this study aimed to evaluate the fundamental motor skill proficiency of primary school students and determine the level of achievement of established learning outcomes for fundamental motor skills, as specified in the Polish National Physical Education Curriculum. DESIGN AND METHODS: A cross-sectional design was used for this study. The sample consisted of 2605 children and adolescents enrolled in grades 1-3 (ages 7-9, n = 1165), 4-6 (ages 10-12, n = 837), and 7-8 (ages 13-14, n = 603), including 1353 boys and 1252 girls. The Fundamental Motor Skills in Sport test, a qualitative and process-oriented assessment tool, was used to evaluate fundamental motor skills. The Fundamental Motor Skills in Sport test evaluates the following movement skills: hurdles, jumping rope, forward roll, ball bouncing, ball throwing and catching, and kicking and stopping a ball. RESULTS: The desired level of overall fundamental motor skill proficiency was achieved by only 2 % of students. An elementary level of fundamental motor skill proficiency was demonstrated by an additional 3.5 % of students. Further, the results showed that only 10-30 % of students had achieved mastery or were close to achieving mastery in a given fundamental motor skill. The skill with the lowest level of proficiency was jumping rope, which only 11 % of students had mastered or were near to mastering. CONCLUSIONS: The present study of a large, nationally representative sample of primary school students in Poland indicates that the vast majority (approximately 94 %) of them demonstrated insufficient fundamental motor skill proficiency. This may greatly hinder effective, safe, and healthy participation in lifelong physical activity.

Fear of COVID-19 and future anxiety among Polish university students during a pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The pandemic poses a threat to human health and life, and anxiety is the most common psychological problem occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study was to establish the differences in the fear of COVID-19 infection and the future anxiety experienced by students during the pandemic by gender, field of study, place of study and paid employment, and their relationships to psychological well-being. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: The study involved 1294 university students aged 18-30. The Future Anxiety Scale and short version of the Psychological General Well-Being Index were used. In addition, students stated whether they were concerned about the possibility of contracting the coronavirus and falling ill with COVID-19. RESULTS: One-third of respondents stated that they felt fear of contracting the coronavirus. Women experienced a significantly stronger fear of COVID-19 and future anxiety than men. The observed interaction effects show that female students of medical faculties experienced a higher fear of COVID-19 than women studying fields of study related to physical activity and working students experienced a slightly higher future anxiety. A positive, but weak correlation between fear of COVID-19 and future anxiety was found. Psychological well-being correlated poorly with fear of COVID-19 and moderately with future anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Because future anxiety was stronger in women, medical students, some master's students and working people, preventive measures should be taken to prevent excessive anxiety and to promote mental health in these groups.

The fus test: a promising tool for evaluating fundamental motor skills in children and adolescents.

Fundamental motor skills (FMS) are essential for enjoyable, confident and skillful participation in physical activity across the lifespan. Due to the alarming low level of FMS proficiency in children and adolescents worldwide, the development of motor competency is an urgent issue for physical education. The promotion and implementation of a systematic process of teaching and learning FMS should be a physical education priority. Accordingly, effective assessment tools for evaluating FMS should be adopted or developed. Because FMS assessment for both children and adolescents need further effective solutions, the primary aim of this study was to develop the new age-related test of FMS (Fundamental Motor Skills in Sport test, in Polish: Test Fundamentalnych Umiejetnosci Ruchowych w Sporcie, FUS). The secondary aim of this study was to establish validity and inter-rater, intra-rater, test-retest reliabilities and internal consistency of the FUS test. The FUS test involves six sport skill-based tasks: hurdling, jumping rope, forward roll, ball bouncing, throwing and catching a ball, and kicking and stopping a ball. Two hundred sixty-four Polish students in grades 1-3 (7-9 yrs; n = 81), 4-6 (10-12 yrs; n = 89) and 7-8 (13-14 yrs; n = 94), including 139 girls and 125 boys completed the FUS test. The content validity index for all items was notably high. Both inter-rater and intra-rater reliability showed substantial to almost perfect agreement, with observed agreements for FUS skills between 78.5 and 93.1%. Ball bouncing had a moderate correlation with the forward roll and throwing and catching, while other correlations were low or insignificant. ICC values, ranging from 0.95 to 0.97, confirmed excellent test-retest reliability. The results of our study provide evidence that the FUS test is valid, reliable, and feasible to administer in school settings. Therefore, this tool test has the potential to support deliberate practice and improve motor competence by providing a standardized and structured approach to measuring FMS among school-aged children and adolescents.

Optimizing the penalty kick under external focus of attention and autonomy support instructions.

Penalty kicks often play a decisive role in the most prestigious international football tournaments. The present study investigated whether shooting performance of the penalty kick in football would be improved by providing specific attentional and motivational instructions. Twenty-four experienced male volunteers were asked to kick a ball at one of four targets located in a regulation-sized goal. Using a goalkeeper-independent strategy, subjects performed the penalty kicks under external focus (EF; targets in the goal), autonomy support (AS; choice of target order), combining external focus and autonomy support (EF/AS), and control conditions (C). A goalkeeper tried to save the ball during each attempt. The mean number of scored goals and kicking accuracy of goal scored were used to determine penalty kick performance. The EF/AS combination enhanced the number of goals scored compared to the C condition. No other significant differences were observed between the conditions in the number of goals scored. The EF/AS group displayed greater kicking accuracy of goals scored relative to the AS and C conditions. Also, the kicking accuracy of the EF condition was significantly better than the C condition. Additionally, the results demonstrated that the EF/AS condition resulted in fewer missed shots compared to the C condition. There were no significant differences in blocked shots between the conditions. The findings suggest that promoting an external focus of attention and autonomy support collectively may enhance penalty kick performance.

The effects of combining focus of attention and autonomy support on shot accuracy in the penalty kick.

The penalty kick is of great importance in the sport of soccer. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test predictions of the OPTIMAL theory and identify key attentional and motivational factors that impact the accuracy of the penalty kick. The following six groups of moderately skilled participants performed penalty kicks following instructions that directed their focus of attention or impacted their autonomy support: external focus with autonomy support (EF/AS), external focus alone (EF), internal focus with autonomy support (IF/AS), internal focus alone (IF), autonomy support alone (AS) and control (C) groups. The analysis showed that the EF/AS group demonstrated better kicking accuracy relatively to the IF/AS, IF and C groups, but there were no significant differences between the EF/AS and EF or AS groups. Interestingly, the EF/AS group showed higher self-efficacy compared to the EF, IF/AS, IF and C groups. The finding suggest that a combination of attentional and motivational factors may produce benefits in motor performance.