The Influence of a University Homeschool Physical Education Program on Fundamental Motor Skills and Self-Confidence

Individuals are both more likely to participate in sports, exercise, and physical activity when they are skilled. Therefore, motor skills and skilled movement should be viewed as prerequisites to a physically active lifestyle. Children and adolescents who have achieved fundamental motor competence are also believed to perceive themselves as being competent although there is inconsistency in the results so far reported in the literature. Despite the unprecedented growth home homeschool education, studies have not examined the development of motor competency of homeschool students or its relationship to confidence. The current investigation examined the influence fundamental motor skill development and self-confidence of students enrolled in a university homeschool physical education program. Results from the pre-test (M = 13.92, SD = 2.8) and post-test (M = 20.75, SD = 3.5) fundamental motor skill observations indicate that the homeschool program led to an improvement in overall skill, t(52) = 12.05, p< .001 (E.S. = 1.06). Dependent-samples t-test produced significant results from pre to post for research participants [t (1,52) = 27.26 , p<.05, E.S. = 1.10], who improved their self-efficacy over the course of the study [baseline M self-efficacy = 71.92, SD= 16.52, endline M self-efficacy = 88.87, SD =15.34]. This study showed that a university homeschool physical education program can lead to improvements in the developmental of fundamental motor skills and self-confidence.


Introduction
Historically, the role of physical education in the school curriculum is to help students develop the competencies and beliefs necessary for incorporating regular physical activity into their daily lives (Siedentop, 2002). Traditional physical education programs have typically emphasized the development of fundamental motor skills (running, catching, throwing, etc.) as the foundation for more complicated sport and movement skills later in life (Rink, 1993). Without fundamental motor kill competence, students are less likely to learn related sport and movement skills. Theefore, skilled movement is viewed as a prerequieste to a physically active lifestyle.
The scientific basis of skill acquisition and the development of expertise has been examined from a number of perspectives. Skill acquisition is a gradual process and becoming proficient requires opportunities for practice and feedback (McKenzie et. al, 1998). Older children are typically more skilled than those who are younger, and males tend to perform better on motor skill tests than females (Haubenstricer & Seefeldt, 1986). Gender differences before puberty not thought to be linked to biology, rather are the result of varying opportunities, expectations, and encouragement (Thomas, Thomas, & Gallagher, 1993), raising the likelihood that gender differences can be reduced through increased practice and improved instruction.
Studies have also investigated how confidence and other psychological variables are associated with mastery of fundamental motor skills during childhood. Individuals who have developed higher levels of fundamental motor competence are believed to be more confident to have a positive attitude towards physical activity (Nobrea, Bandeira, & Valentini, 2016). However, there is inconsistency in the results so far reported in the literature: sometimes they provide support to the relationships between motor performance and confidence (Weiss et al, 2005) and, in other occasions, they question it (Spessato, et al., 2013). This disparity has been attributed to the poor specific of scales of children's self-efficacy which likely reflects on the weakened relationships with motor skills.
Universities are actively seeking new ways to provide meaningful field experience opportunities for students. One such opportunity includes partnerships with community homeschooling parents and children (Buns, Pettit & Blanton, 2017). According to the National Home Education Research Institute (2010), homeschooling has grown from nearly extinct in the United States in the 1970's to now over two million school-aged students. The same report states the seven percent growth rate for homeschool education far exceeds the 0.59 percent growth rate of traditional school enrollment (from 2007-2010).
It is important to note that fundamental motor skills are not acquired naturally and they must be taught (Isaacs & Payne, 2002). Without access to a physical activity program such as public school physical education, homeschool children may forego an opportunity to improve health and consequently be at greater risk for cardiovascular disease and adiposity (Long et al., 2010). Unfortunately, studies investigating the efficacy of homeschool physical education programs are scare, inconclusive, and the results tend to focus on physical activity rather than fundamental motor skill (Swenson et al., 2016;Welk et al., 2004;Devoe & Kennedy, 1995).
Studies investigating skill levels of homeschool children are extremely rare. Research suggests that as children gain confidence in performing fine and gross motor skills, and build a sufficiently diverse movement repertoire, they acquire a high level of movement proficiency that is positively associated with quality of their psychomotor and cognitive health (Chaddock-Heyman et al., 2013). When low skilled students experience failure, their most common response is to stop engaging in the activity (Portman, 1995). Bandura (1977) has suggested that it provokes behavioral change. For this reason, it is important to assess fundamental motor skill proficiency and self-efficacy towards skill to gain a better understanding of this emergent relationship between skill proficiency and self-confidence. However, the influence physical self-efficacy has on fundamental motor skills in homeschool children and adolescents is uncertain because research examining the competency-confidence relationship has been riddled with methodological shortcomings.
Understanding how critical fundal motor skill development is to a physically active lifestyle, there is a need for better understanding the motor competency of homeschool students and capture the effective of homeschool physical education programs. Despite the unprecedented growth home homeschool education, studies have not examined the development of motor competency of home school students or its relationship to confidence. With this in mind, the current investigation focuses on fundamental motor skill development of students enrolled in a university homeschool physical education program. A secondary purpose was to investigate the relationship between motor competence and self-efficacy related to the task. A tertiary purpose of the study was to explore the development of children's motor skills by age and gender.

Participants
The participants in this study consisted of homeschool students aged between 6 and 16 years old from four developmentally-appropriate classes at a university homeschool sport development program. The classes met once per week during a period of eight weeks each semester (fall and spring) for a total of 16 lessons over two semesters. Each lesson was scheduled for 60 minutes located at a university setting a large metropolitan area in the upper Midwest. The teachers of all four classes consisted of physical education pre-service teachers with faculty supervision. The project was approved by the Institutional Review Board, Human Subjects Review Committee. Informed consent (and assent for minors) was obtained from all participants.

Procedures
Three types of data were collected: 1) participants experience with sport and physical activity, 2) participant's self-efficacy towards performance in physical education, and 3) participant's technical performance in five fundamental motor locomotor skills (catching, throwing, running, jumping, and kicking). Data was collected prior to the first lesson (baseline) and following completion of the 8-week program (endline). See Figure 1 for a complete overview of lesson content for each grade level.

Session
Lesson Focus  Participants were asked questions regarding their physical education and physical activity experiences. Other questions will related to demographic information such as age, gender, etc.

Self-Efficacy Scale (Pre-and Post)
Participants self-efficacy towards understanding, performance, and enjoyment in physical education was assessed following Bandura's (1995) guidelines for assessing the strength of efficacy beliefs ( Figure 2). Responses were recorded using a 100-point scale, ranging in 10-unit intervals from 0 ("Cannot do"); through intermediate degrees of assurance, 50 ("Moderately certain to do"); to complete assurance, 100 ("Certain can do").  Crouch with knees bent and arms behind body Forceful upward thrust of arms and legs straighten to take off Contact ground with front part of feet and bend knees to absorb force of landing Balanced landing with no more than one step in any direction

Overhand Throw
Eyes are focused on the target throughout the throw Stand side-on to the target Throwing arm nearly straightened behind the body Step towards the target with foot opposite throwing arm during the throw Marked sequential hip to shoulder rotation during the throw Throwing arm follows through down and across the body

Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics captured critical participant characteristics. The study design was a simple pre-post design with an intervention of eight homeschool sport development sessions. Dependent-sample t-tests were used to test differences in self-efficacy and skill from baseline to end line. Pearson product-moment correlation analyses were conducted to identify the participant correlates (e.g., age, gender, self-efficacy) related to the psychomotor performance outcomes. All statistical analyses were completed using SPSS (version 25.0; IBM, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) with an alpha of p ≤ 0.05. Values are expressed as mean ± SD.

Results
Of the 68 participants that started the study, 53 participants (mean age = 10.47, SD = 2.81) that were able to complete all sessions and therefore included in the analysis. There was an unequal number of males (n = 32) and females (n =21). Table 1 shows descriptive data for the participants in this study. Outcome measure were deemed normally distributed after examining skewness, kurtosis, and Q-Q plots within each group.  Pearson product-moment correlation regression equation analyses were conducted to identify the participant characteristics and correlates contributing to psychomotor skill (Table 3). The correlation analysis revealed a number of statistically significant relationships. The strongest relationship to psychomotor skills identified was that baseline total skill score (pre) was significantly related to weight (r = 0.48, p=.01) and height (r=0.45, p=.01) but there was not relationship between self-efficacy and motor competency.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to address the question of whether a university sponsored homeschool physical education program can influence fundamental motor skill competency or self-confidence. To the best of our knowledge, no previous studies have examined the relationship between physical education participation and achievement of motor competency among homeschool children and adolescents. This research suggests that homeschool physical education programs can be an effective mechanism for increasing both fundamental motor skill and self-confidence in children and adolescents. Results indicate that the five fundamental motor skills assessed were positively influenced by a 16-week homeschool physical education program. The effect sizes in Table 2 show that the program had a large and meaningful effect of skill improvement (Cohen, 1977). The large effect sizes for running (1.39), catching (1.27), kicking (1.00), jumping (0.95), and throwing (0.67) suggest the program also had a meaningful influence on the outcome of fundamental skill development. This is noteworthy because the time for the intervention was relatively short (eight 60-minute sessions) and the intervention was led by non-certified pre-service teachers (with faculty supervision).
Previous literature has shown that university homeschool physical education programs may contribute to increasing physical activity levels (Swenson et al., 2016) and fitness (Long et al, 2010) but research has not examined the development of motor competency for homeschool students. These results demonstrate meaningful differences in the skill test scores from pre-to post intervention. There were no skill-related differences between boys and girls at baseline or endline. This study supports previous research that intervention effects did not differ by gender or age. Contrary to the findings of this study, previous literature suggests gender differences in fundamental motor skills (McKenzie et al., 1998). This study supports the idea that university homeschool physical education programs can be used to increase physical movement skills from fall to spring.
Fundamental motor skills have been described as the basic observable building blocks for movement (Cohen et al., 2014). These provide the foundation for the specialized, and sport-specific movement skills required for participation in a variety of physical activities including games, sports, and recreational activities. Despite fundamental motor skills contributing to the general development and wellbeing of children and adolescents, previous literature consistently illustrates that proficiency in fundamental motor skills is low, with only 50% of children demonstrating competency in a broad range of skills (Gallahue et al., 2012). Participants in this study met 48% (M=13.92) of the 29 skill performance criteria required for mastery (from Table 3) at baseline and improved to 71% at endline (M=20.75). This 23% percent improvement in skill for homeschool children is larger than the 13-21% gain scores noted in the classic physical education program intervention conducted by McKenzie et al. (1998). One possibly for this rapid growth is that homeschool children may report lower motor proficiency at baseline compared to public school children who receive more structured physical activity opportunities. Despite these findings, questions still remain with respect to uncovering those aspects of the teaching and learning dynamics within any instructional model that promote homeschool student's skill development. This research should be accomplished using a more sophisticated design including qualitative analysis and a control group to further establish a cause-effect relationship.
The lower levels of fundamental motor proficiency at baseline may have translated into a lack of confidence in performing fundamental motor skills. Previous research suggests that without fundamental motor skill proficiency and a positive perception of such, children may be less likely to engage in physical activity (Lubans et al., 2010). Various studies have examined the relationship between self-confidence and actual movement competence (Babic et al., 2014), generally noting a positive relationship between skill and fundamental motor skill competence. Self-efficacy scores did improve significantly (by about 17%) from pre to post (effect size = 1.10). This is consistent with previous research suggesting perceived competence can improve the acquisition of fundamental motor skills, because performers are more likely to engage in activities for which they feel skillfull and competent (Stodden et al., 2008).
In this study, no correlation was found between self-efficacy and actual motor competence (Table 3). Contrary to previous research involving public school children, there was not a relationship between pre or post self-efficacy and motor competency for participants in this study. This suggests that homeschool student perceptions of fundamental motor patterns are not associated with their actual proficiency. This lack of association in the current study can perhaps be explained by the mean age of participants ( M =10.47 years; SD = 2.81). It is also possible that younger children may not have the developmental or cognitive capacity to effectively perceive skill-related competence (Barnett et al., 2015).

Limitations
One limitation of the study is that the fundamental motor skill evaluations were not conducted by ceritified physical education instructors or professional movement professionals. Furthermore, motor skills were assessed in isolation and not during game play which is generally considered a more valid measure of program effectiveness (Rink et al., 1996). The measurement of the skills in controlled conditions (low external validity), however, was a strength, in that the established performance setting was standardized across all participants during two different measurement periods (high internal validity). Another limitation of this study is the use of a convenience sample, which can lead to the under-representation or over-representation of particular groups within the sample. In addition, the skill analyses were performed by pre-service physical education majors and not highly qualified or certified professional physical education teachers or movement experts. A final limitation of the present study is its lack of a control group, making it statistically impossible to establish a cause-effect relationship. To gain more understanding of the nature of these associations and to understand how relationships between these variables may change over time, experimental and longitudinal studies should be conducted.

Future Research
Future investigations should work to increase the understanding of homeschool children's perceived and actual movement skill proficiency with validated instruments for skill and self-efficacy during this phase of development. The elementary years are considered a "window of opportunity" for children (even if low-skilled) can be eager participants in physical activity (LeGear et al., 2012).

Summary
This study showed that a university homeschool physical education program can lead to improvements in the developmental of fundamental motor skills. This study also suggests that certain structural features of the program provide higher levels of self-efficacy which may explain some of the improvements made by lower-skilled students. It is important that homeschool children learn fundamental skills early in life, because they are prerequisites to successful participant in many sports and may be associated with increased health-related physical activity that continues into adulthood. The role that university homeschool partnerships play in develop skills and self-confidence appears to be strong.