Children
Structured Motor Play and Preschool Task Performance: An Exploratory Single-Site Randomized Pilot Study in Tunisian Children
By Loussaief R, Tannoubi A, Chikha AB and 6 others.
Abstract
Background
Cognitively enriched motor play activities may engage movement, rule following, attention, response inhibition, spatial processing, and early mathematical concepts during early childhood. Experimental evidence from preschool settings remains limited, particularly in North African contexts. This study examined short-term between-group differences associated with a structured motor play program in Stroop interference, response inhibition, intervention-aligned mathematics performance, and immediate affective valence among Tunisian preschool children.
Methods
This exploratory randomized pilot study included 40 preschool children (mean age = 4.06 years, SD = 0.17) from a single preschool in Tunisia. Children were allocated to either a structured motor play group (n = 20) or a usual preschool activities group (n = 20). The intervention was delivered twice weekly for 12 weeks. Outcomes were assessed at baseline and immediately post-intervention. Between-group differences in change scores were examined using Welch's t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Hedges' g effect sizes. A Benjamini-Hochberg false-discovery-rate procedure was applied across the four exploratory outcome comparisons.