"Physical, sport and life skills education: Promoting the individual person, and not only the athlete
through Life Skills and multi-sports training in Physical Education."
Author Rosalba Marchetti
Abstract
Given the social importance of the relevance of the development and life of children and
adolescents, a multi-faced study of movement components is essential to design relevant aspects
of quality Physical Activity contributing to the promotion of children's and adolescent's
development.
First cross-sectional study: the situational differences created by significant others in family and
sport settings, such as parents and coaches, are reflected in the motivational climate perceived by
youths; these affect their individual characteristics, such as achievement goals, self-determination,
self-efficacy in life skills, and adaptive/maladaptive behaviours. There still is scarce evidence on the
potential associations between mastery versus performance oriented climate generated by coaches
and parents, and youths’ self-perceptions in life skills, which are considered protecting factors
against maladaptive behaviours (WHO, 2003). This study examines if the motivational climate
created by significant others (coaches and parents) and the individual motivational orientation in
sports are associated with youths’ self-awareness in intra-and interpersonal life skills. Results
highlight the role played by both individual goal orientations in sport and the motivational climate
generated by significant others in the development of youths’ life skills. Then suggest that task
orientation and a mastery, learning and enjoyment climate may contribute to their development,
while ego and performance orientation, a climate oriented to worry conducive and reinforces
success without effort may be detrimental.
Second cross-sectional study: recent evidence suggests that fitness and sport expertise may jointly
benefit cognition (Chan, Wong, Liu, Yu, & Yan, 2011) and expertise in cognitively demanding
strategic sports is linked to performance advantages not only in domain-specific cognition (Williams
& Ericcson, 2005), but also in domain-general cognitive function, the executive (Vestberg et al.,
2012). However, there still is a paucity of research focusing on whether physical fitness, motor and
sport skill proficiency are independent determinants of executive function efficiency, or interact
within each other determining a more complex pattern of moderated prediction. This crosssectional study is aimed at investigating this issue in preadolescents and adolescents. The present
findings support the hypothesis that there may be different pathways through which PA and sport
practice influence executive functions: the well-known linkage between physical fitness and
executive functions. Other putative pathways seem to be those linking executive function to the
ability to perform coordinated movements in response to environmental cues and to the ability to
perform cognitively challenging, strategic game actions. Also, the findings highlight that different
executive function are differently linked to physical fitness and motor and sport proficiency.
First intervention study: the effectiveness of life skills programmes in Physical Education (PE) and
youths sport for promoting skill development in motor and non-motor domains has been proved by
a number of evaluation studies (Goudas, 2010). Thus (PE) and sport education may be regarded as a
very appropriate field for introducing life skills training. Evidence consistently showed enhanced
knowledge and improved confidence in applying life skills which was paralleled by gain in physical
fitness and motor/sport skills. However, the potential role of life skills development as a mechanism
mediating the effects of a life skills training program on motor and sport skills has not been
investigated yet. Thus, the aim of the present study was to verify (1) the outcomes of a life skill
programme in PE on physical fitness, cognitive efficiency, motor and sport skills and (2) whether
such outcomes are mediated by gains in life skills and cognitive life skill components operationalized
not only as self-evaluation, but also behavioural application in sport game situations. As compared
to traditional PE without life skill training, a life skill programme integrated in a multi-sport PE
setting seem to have a wide range of positive outcomes in motor and non-motor domains which are
relevant to personal development. The study highlighted the usefulness of behavioural measures of
life skills to identify pathways through which a life skill programme positively impacts sport game
skill development.
Second intervention study: in the last decades, school age youth have demonstrated declines in
measures of aerobic fitness and muscle strength and in fundamental motor skills. To counteract
these trends, not only an adequate amount of physical activity (PA), but also a qualitative variety of
PA tasks should be ensured. While there is a claim for and evidence in favour of varied multi-sports
approaches to PA for pre-adolescent children, the adolescent age is mostly considered a sport
specialization age. The aim of the present study was to verify whether (1) a multi-sports PE
programme benefits adolescents’ physical fitness, cognitive efficiency, motor and sport skills over a
two-year intervention time and (2) whether the motor and sport skills outcomes are mediated by
gains in physical fitness or cognitive efficiency. As compared to traditional PE without a special focus
on multi-sport, a PE programme centred on multi-sport diversification extended over two years
seems to have selective beneficial outcomes on sport skill proficiency and cognitive efficiency. Also,
it seems to help females compensate the lower proficiency in stereotypically masculine sport skills
as dribbling.
A relevant improvement was found also in cases involving disabled students who worked in
integrated groups. These students highly benefited from this equal opportunity situation and
developed their motor, sport and cognitive profile.
These findings highlight the importance of quality PA until adolescence and the specific role of
multi-sport, skill-based curricula centred on variability of practice to obtain positive outcomes in
motor and non-motor domains that may facilitate adolescent physical and mental health
development and create equal opportunities of motor skill development across genders and across
persons with disabilities.
Key words: Life Skills, Diversification, Perceived Motivational Climate, Executive Function, Physical Fitness,
Coordinative Abilities, Sport Skills.