Teaching Games for Understanding versus differentiated instruction: Manipulative fundamental movement skill outcomes across motor educability levels in first-grade students

Abstract

Background: Differences in motor learning capacities among primary school students highlight the need for adaptive instructional strategies to support manipulative funda-mental movement skills.
Objective: This study aimed to examine the effects of instructional strategies, motor edu-cability, and their interaction on manipulative fundamental movement skill outcomes among first-grade primary school students.
Methods: A 2 × 2 factorial design was employed involving 36 students selected through purposive sampling and divided into four groups (n = 9 per group) according to instruc-tional strategy (Teaching Games for Understanding [TGfU] and differentiated instruc-tion) and motor educability level (high and low). Motor educability and manipulative skills were assessed using motor ability tasks and a manipulative skill assessment in-strument. Data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey's honestly significant difference test.
Results:  Significant main effects were observed for instructional strategy (F(1, 32) = 24.623, p < 0.001, η²p = .435) and motor educability (F(1, 32) = 152.141, p < 0.001, η²p = 0.826), alongside a significant interaction (F(1, 32) = 4.523, p = 0.041, η²p = 0.124). Among students with low motor educability, differentiated instruction yielded higher scores than TGfU (22.78 vs. 17.22, p < 0.001), whereas the difference was not statistically significant among those with high motor educability (p = 0.207).
Conclusion: These findings indicate that differences in manipulative skill outcomes be-tween instructional strategies vary according to students' motor educability levels. Fu-ture studies should employ larger samples, pretest–posttest assessments, and follow-up measurements to evaluate skill retentio.