Enhancing Gross Motor Skills in Early Childhood through Structured Play: A Quasi-Experimental Study Using TGMD

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-591-1_35How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Gross motor skills; structured play activities; Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD); early childhood development; motor learning; physical literacy; quasi-experimental design; sport pedagogy

Abstract

This study investigates the effectiveness of structured play-based activities in enhancing children’s gross motor skill development, as measured using the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD) framework. Employing a quantitative quasi-experimental approach with a one-group pretest–posttest design, the research involved 20 early childhood participants selected through purposive sampling. The intervention consisted of systematically designed play activities implemented over four weeks, with two sessions per week, emphasizing locomotor and object control skills aligned with developmental motor learning principles [1], [2]. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Shapiro–Wilk normality testing, and paired sample t-tests at a significance level of α = 0.05. The findings indicate a substantial improvement in gross motor performance, with mean scores increasing from 45.30 (pretest) to 65.75 (posttest). The inferential analysis confirmed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05), demonstrating the positive impact of the intervention. Furthermore, the calculated effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.25) suggests a large practical effect, indicating that structured play contributes meaningfully to motor skill acquisition. These results support contemporary perspectives in sport pedagogy and motor development theory, which emphasize the role of active, play-centered learning environments in optimizing neuromuscular coordination and physical literacy in early childhood [3], [4]. The study highlights the pedagogical value of integrating structured play into early education curricula as an evidence-based strategy to foster children’s physical development. Future research is recommended to incorporate control group comparisons and longitudinal tracking to strengthen causal inference and developmental generalization.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Zulfan Heri
AU  - Imran Akhmad
AU  - Hariadi Hariadi
AU  - Novita Novita
AU  - Muhammad Reza Destya
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/24
TI  - Enhancing Gross Motor Skills in Early Childhood through Structured Play: A Quasi-Experimental Study Using TGMD
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of Sport Science, Sport Coaching Science, and Physical Education, and Recreation 2025 (ICOSSCOPER 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 358
EP  - 367
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-591-1_35
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-591-1_35
ID  - Heri2026
ER  -