The purpose of this research was to determine the extent to
which parents and professionals were in agreement prior to and
following intervention regarding their Judgement of the gross motor
abilities of the parents' preschool children.
Each child was tested by a professional on the Ulrich Test of
Gross Motor Development (1985). Dependent measures were parents'
perceptions (N = 28 pairs) of their children's gross motor abilities.
Parents were randomly assigned to either an intervention (treatment)
or non-intervention (control) group. The intervention period included
two-ninety minute videotaped observational training sessions, on how
to observe gross motor patterns in a young child, over a two-week
period. At the conclusion of the intervention period, all parents
completed a questionnaire similar to one completed prior to
intervention. Both questionnaires provided information on parents'
perceptions of their children's gross motor abilities.
Paired-t tests were used to determine if significant differences
existed between parents and professionals prior to intervention.
Paired-t tests were also used following observational training
intervention to analyze any changes over time between the pre-intervention
and post-intervention periods for intervention and nonintervention
parents. Student-t tests were used to compare post-intervention
differences between intervention parents and nonintervention
parents. An alpha level of .10 was used in this study.
The results of the study revealed a significant difference
between parents' perceptions and professional assessments. Most
parents tended to overestimate their children's gross motor abilities
relative to the professional standard. Significant differences were
reported for changes occurring over time between the pre-intervention
and post-intervention periods.
Significant differences also were found between groups following
intervention. Parents receiving observational training demonstrated
more realistic perceptions of their children's gross motor abilities
relative to professional assessments than did parents not receiving
observational training.
As a result of these investigations, it was determined that
parents and professionals were generally not in agreement with
respect to children's current level of functioning in gross motor
abilities. Parents, as previous literature has described, also tended to
overestimate their children's abilities. Furthermore, the introduction
of an intervention program, which trained parents to become better
evaluators of motor ability, resulted in positively influencing parents'
perceptions of their children's gross motor abilities. / Graduation date: 1990
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/38229 |
| Date | 03 May 1990 |
| Creators | Groner, Michael |
| Contributors | Dunn, John M. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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