Department of Team Sports Games, Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Mickiewicza 58, 51-684 Wroclaw, Poland.
Learning Laboratory, Faculty of Educational Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Szamarzewskiego 89, 60-568 Poznan, Poland.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jan 24;19(3):1275. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19031275.
Studies suggest that incorporating core academic subjects into physical education (PE) stimulates the development of both motor and cognitive skills in primary school students. For example, several experiments show that children's participation in Eduball, i.e., a method that uses educational balls with printed letters, numbers, and other signs, improves their physical fitness while simultaneously developing their mathematical and language skills. However, the question of who should conduct such classes to make them most effective (regular classroom teachers, physical education teachers, or maybe both in cooperation?) remains unanswered. Here, we replicated a previous Eduball experiment, but now, instead of one experimental group, there were three. In the first, Eduball-classes were conducted by the classroom teacher, in the second, by the physical education teacher, and in the third, collaboratively. After one year intervention, all experimental groups significantly improved both their cognitive (mathematical, reading, and writing) and gross motor (locomotor and object control) skills, and these effects were larger than in the control group participating in traditional PE. Importantly, there were no differences in progression between the Eduball-groups. Thus, our study demonstrates that methods linking PE with cognitive tasks can be effectively used by both PE specialists and general classroom teachers.
研究表明，将核心学术科目融入体育教育（PE）可以激发小学生运动和认知技能的发展。例如，多项实验表明，儿童参与 Eduball（一种使用印有字母、数字和其他符号的教育球的方法）不仅能提高他们的身体素质，还能同时发展他们的数学和语言技能。然而，谁应该教授这些课程以使其最有效（普通课堂教师、体育教师，还是两者合作？）的问题仍未得到解答。在这里，我们复制了之前的 Eduball 实验，但现在有三个实验组。在第一个实验组中，由课堂教师教授 Eduball 课程，在第二个实验组中，由体育教师教授，在第三个实验组中，由两者合作教授。经过一年的干预，所有实验组的学生在认知（数学、阅读和写作）和大运动（移动和物体控制）技能方面都有显著提高，这些效果都大于参加传统体育教育的对照组。重要的是，Eduball 组之间没有进展差异。因此，我们的研究表明，将 PE 与认知任务相结合的方法可以由体育专家和普通课堂教师有效地使用。
