FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT SKILLS PROFILE OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN BASED ON TGMD-3: A DESCRIPTIVE PROFILE OF THE LOCOMOTOR DOMAIN

Abstrak

Fundamental movement skills (FMS) provide an important foundation for children's motor development, physical activity participation, and subsequent acquisition of more complex movement skills. This study aimed to describe the locomotor profile of elementary school children using the Test of Gross Motor Development–Third Edition (TGMD-3), with particular attention to descriptive differences between boys and girls. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used with 60 elementary school children aged 8–10 years from grades III and IV, comprising 30 boys and 30 girls. Six locomotor skills were assessed: run, gallop, hop, skip, horizontal jump, and slide. Data were analyzed descriptively using means, standard deviations, minimum and maximum scores, and mean differences between boys and girls. The overall locomotor score was 32.95 ± 2.78. Boys obtained a mean score of 33.77 ± 3.05, whereas girls obtained 32.13 ± 2.26, representing a mean difference of 1.63 points. At the individual skill level, boys tended to obtain higher mean scores across the locomotor skills, although the magnitude of the differences varied between skills. Skipping showed the lowest overall mean score (4.03 ± 1.12), whereas running showed the highest mean score (6.30 ± 1.12). The findings provide a descriptive picture of locomotor competence among elementary school children and indicate that skill-specific profiling may be useful for identifying learning priorities in physical education. Gender should be considered as a descriptive characteristic rather than as a basis for restricting movement-learning opportunities.