The Effectiveness of a Formal Physical Education Curriculum on the Physical Ability of Children in a Preschool Context

Abstract

Studies have pointed to the benefits of physical activity (PA), yet the level of PA participation among preschoolers islow. This in turn could have resulted in the limited research literature on the PA level or physical educationcurriculum (PEC) of preschool children. Those reviewed here are mostly from countries in the West, as those fromAsia are unavailable. To fill this gap, the present study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of a formalPEC on the physical ability of a sample of five-year old children from several preschools in Singapore. Using aPhysical Ability Assessment (PAA) tool with five variables, a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design was usedto measure the effectiveness of the PEC with control and experimental groups for the comparative analysis. Theresults of the PAA are presented and the implications from the findings and analysis are discussed.