Teachers’ Perceptions and Students’ Performances of Fundamental Motor Skills Using the “Ladders to Success”

Abstract

The development of fundamental motor skills is essential for youth’s ability to participate efficiently in physical activity. Their levels of daily physical activity and motor skills, however, both in and out of the K-12 Physical Education setting have been slowly decreasing over the past decades (Friel et al., 2020). In Physical Education, teachers are tasked with the assessment of students’ motor skills (as reflected by SHAPE’s 2020 National Learning Standard as well as students’ progress toward meeting program goals. The field of physical education, though, lacks practical assessment tools that teachers can use to easily and efficiently measure students’ progress in these areas. Therefore, this exploratory, mixed methods study assessed select students’ abilities to perform the fundamental skills of overhand throwing, jumping rope, striking with a paddle, and kicking while using the respective “Ladders to Success” (Graham et al., 2023). Quantitative data was collected from 22 fifth-grade students, and their two physical education teachers were then interviewed to gain their qualitative perceptions about their students’ motor abilities. Results show that students who participated in this study do not appear, overall, to have the necessary fundamental motor skills needed to be successful in a variety of physical activities commonly found in childhood. Boys were overall more successful than girls in completing a majority of the given tasks. Teachers believe that the increased use of technology, COVID-19, and a lack of family involvement, and play contribute to children lacking these necessary fundamental motor skills. They also believe that the “Ladders to Success” provides both benefits and challenges for use in a physical education setting. Recommendations for future research include the replication of this study in a variety of contexts across the United States as well as to determine if similar similarities and differences of results continue to be found.