The impact of the motivational intervention on students' motor abilities

Abstract

The Object of the present study was primary school students' motivation in physical education classes. The Study aim was to test genuine motivational program in physical education classes and assessment of its contribution to improvement of motor abilities and decrease of truancy. The Participant sample was made of two classes from each grade of primary school: sixth, seventh and eighth (N=127; 63 boys and 64 girls) for the experimental group and the same number of classes in the control group (N=128; 70 boys and 58 girls). The assessment of the motor abilities has been done at the beginning and at the end of the experimental treatment, which lasted for whole second semester, 17 weeks, and two school hours per week. We have applied earlier verified tests that estimate coordination, flexibility, strength and speed. The number of truancy from physical education classes has been recorded at the end of first semester and at the end of the experiment. Apart from descriptive statistics, we utilized T-test for independent samples and Mann-Whitney test. The students from the experimental group had significantly larger improvement of motor abilities than students from the control group are. At the same time, they had significantly less truancies.

Keywords

• experiment
• motivation
• motor abilities
• truancy