Abstract

Motor competence is an important factor for the participation in the culture of play, sports and physical activity, so their development during the first years of school is essential. The purpose of this study was to describe performances in the motor competencies Object Control and Self-movement of first and second grade students, to establish the relationship between motor competence and the students' age, and to determinate possible differences according to gender. A quantitative approach was used, being a non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive-correlational study. A total of 289 schoolchildren (51.2% girls, 48.8% boys) between the ages of six and eight of five schools from the La Araucania Region, Chile, participated. The MOBAK 1-2 test was used to evaluate motor competence in two dimensions (Object Control and Self-movement). To establish the relationship between motor competence and age, Spearman's rho coefficient was used, and to determine the existence of differences according to gender, the Mann-Whitney U test was used, determining the effect size by calculating the probability of superiority (PS). The results indicate that the age is positively related to Object Control (p<0.001, r=0.315) and Self-movement (p<0.001, r=0.261). Comparing the motor performance by gender, the boys showed better results than the girls in motor tasks associated with Object Control (U=13533.000, Z=4.439, p<0.001, PSest=0.61), while no statistically significant differences were found in the dimension of Self-movement. Both age and gender of students are variables associated with the development of motor competence. These results provide relevant information that should be considered in the design of pedagogical strategies that seek to promote an optimal and equitable development of motor competence.