The impact of an exergame-based intervention on children's fundamental motor skills

• We examined the impact of exergames on children's object control skills (OCS).
• Children were randomly divided into three groups: traditional, Xbox, control.
• Traditional & Xbox students scored higher than control on post & retention OCS tests.
• Xbox students scored higher than traditional on enjoyment scale.
• Xbox intervention is a valuable, feasible & pleasant approach in order to improve OCS.

The purpose of this study was to use the Dynamical Systems Theory as a framework to examine whether there is a difference between an exergame-based and a traditional object control (OC) skills training program, in early elementary school children. In addition the children's enjoyment while playing Xbox Kinect (XbK) games compared to traditional approaches (TA) was also investigated. Sixty-six elementary students were randomly divided into three individual groups of 22 children each, one control group and two experimental groups (TA, XbK). The control group did not receive any structured OC skills training program, while the two experimental groups performed a specific OC skills training program for 8 weeks, two times per week, and 30 min per session. The test of gross motor development 2 was used to assess the OC skills of the participants at the pre-test, post-test and retention test. At the end of each OC training session (XbK and TA) participants completed the modified Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale. Two-way analyses of variance with repeated measures, were conducted to determine effect of training program groups (XbK, TA, Control) and measurements (pre-test, post-test, retention test) across time on OC skills performance. Analysis of the data illustrated that the post-test OC scores and the 1-month retention test OC scores were remarkably greater than pre-test OC scores for both experimental groups and not for the control group. In addition, the XbK approach mean scores on enjoyment were slightly higher than the TA approach. Conclusively, findings suggest that the use of XbK gaming console as an intervention is a valuable, feasible and pleasant approach in order to improve OC skills of elementary school children.