Abstrak

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Fundamental Motor Skills (FMSs) are considered as the building blocks to more advanced movement patterns like sport-skills and later can be combined or modified for playing in games or sport-related activities. FMS are categorized into object control or manipulation skills, locomotor skills, and stability skills. The development of locomotor and object control skills competence along with stability during movement is a key developmental milestone important to the early childhood years. There is little FMS data in Indonesia to inform the development of motor skill programs for young children. The body of evidence within the United States of America suggests that young children who are poor and grow up in urban environments are developmentally delayed in their FMSs. It was conclusively found that there are no gender differences in locomotor skills but the literature consistently reports gender differences in object control skills with boys outperforming girls. Dynamic System Theory and Newell’s Constrain Perspective highlight the influence of environment, including culture, on motor development. Thus, it is highly possible that children’s actual motor competence will be different in nature among countries around the world based on the culture differences. As actual motor competence relates to perceived motor competence, the culture would also possibly affect children’s perceived motor competence. Actual motor competence includes locomotor skills and object control skills. The aims of this study was to identify the differences of locomotor skills, object control skills and perceived motor competence of American and Indonesian children. A 2 group (American, Indonesian) x 2 gender (boys, girls) x 3 Variables (Locomotor skills, Object Control skills, Perceived Motor Competence) research design was conducted in this study to compare American and Indonesian children on their object control skill competence and perceived motor competence. This two-year project found that Indonesian young children performed significantly lower than American young children in both locomotor skills and object control skills. On the other hand, there was no significant difference on perceived motor competence, in which both Indonesian and American young children perceived themselves “pretty good” in motor competence. In America, it was found that there was no gender difference on children perceived motor competence, while in Indonesia it was found there was gender difference. Based on these findings, it is recommended that Indonesian young children should receive appropriate motor skill intervention as a part of their daily curriculum in early childhood education. As Indonesian children perceived themselves “pretty good” in their motor competence, this is a benefit as they have motivation to learn motor skill through intervention. The results of this study will serve as important information to design curriculum for motor development at schools and sport-related skill practice training for coaches. Future research is needed to expand the age comparison between Indonesian and American children to develop a standard norm of Indonesian children motor developmental sequence. Furthermore, articles will be published in accredited national journals and Scopus Indexed international journals. In addition, the results of this study will be presented in international and national conference.