Trial reportInternational journal of environmental research and public health2022
Effects of Free Play and Partly Structured Playground Activity on Motor Competence in Preschool Children: A Pragmatic Comparison Trial.
Trial report in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Can active play replace skill-oriented physical education in enhancing fundamental movement skills among preschool children? A systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of structured and unstructured interventions on fundamental motor skills in preschool children: a meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of learning, exercise, and game curriculum model on the physical fitness of preschool children aged 3-6: a cluster-randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Methodological strengths and weaknesses of nature based intervention: a systematic review.Cognitive processing · 2026Review
- Motor Skill Development at Preschool Age in Girls and Boys: The Role of Outdoor Free Play.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The LEG program promotes the development of physical activity and fundamental movement skills in preschool children aged 3-6 years: a Delphi study.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The role of playgrounds in promoting children's health - a scoping review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Article
- Effects of Structured Physical Activity on Motor Fitness in Preschool Children.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- I-MovE. An intervention to promote movement at childcare centers: Benefits for motor cognitive and socio-emotional development.PloS one · 2024Article
- The role of playgrounds in the development of children's fundamental movement skills: A scoping review.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Both the indoor and the outdoor environments and their organization exert pronounced influence upon physical activity behavior and motor development of preschool children. The aim of this study was to explore whether partly structured activity or free play in a specific playground had different impacts on motor competence development in 4-6-year-old preschoolers. The study had a pretest-post-test design, with two intervention groups and one control. Sixty-two children were included in a partly structured activity group and forty-three children in a free-play group. Both groups participated in playground activities consisting of 10 sessions (once a week), each lasting 1 h, in a specific playground setting. For the partly structured activity group, activities in each session consisted of a combination of both structured and free activity while the free-play group were engaged in unstructured play only. The control group did not attend the playground activities (N = 36). To assess levels of motor skills, each child completed pre- and post-tests using the Movement Assessment Battery for children (MABC-2), the Test of Motor Competence (TMC) and two playground-specific tests. A 3 (study group) and X 2 (gender) ANCOVAs were conducted on post-test scores on each of the test items from TMC, MABC-II and playground tests, with pre-test scores as covariates. Post hoc pairwise multiple comparisons were conducted with the alpha Bonferroni corrected, and the partial eta-squared (
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.