Abstract:

This study aimed to determine the motor skill interventions for preschoolers in Turkey and to examine the findings of interventions. The literature review was conducted using the Turkish Academic Network and Information Center (ULAKBİM), Dergipark Academic, and EBSCOhost research databases. The following keywords were selected to find the related articles: early childhood, preschoolers, motor skill intervention, motor skill program, fundamental motor skills and their combinations. Studies were included if any motor skill program was instructed in the studies, if the participants were between ages 3 and 7, and if the interventions were applied in Turkey. Conference papers, thesis, or dissertations were not included in this study. Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria. The review of these studies showed that a) a total of 1419 children between ages 3 and 7 participated in these intervention studies, a) the majority of participants were typical children, b) the pretest/posttest with control group design was generally used in the studies, c) the motor skill programs were delivered in 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 weeks or 6 months, d) the independent variables were locomotor skills, object control skills, vision perception, balance, quickness, speed, coordination and others, e) only one study had retention test, and f) the studies generally reported that motor skill interventions were effective for their participants. However, there were unclear points in some studies. For example, it is not clear how the experimental groups were constituted or what type of instructional approaches and theoretical frameworks were used in the interventions, or who applied them. The number of participants in the experimental groups was low in some studies. The validity of the motor skill assessment tools and appropriateness of the statistical analyses in experimental studies were also other problematic issues in some studies. On the other hand, it is promising that different types of motor skill interventions exist and their contributions to motor development are valuable despite the low number of motor skill interventions. In conclusion, it is important to increase the quality and the quantity of the motor skill interventions for children’s motor skill development in Turkey.

Keywords: