The Effects of Outdoor Play Activities Using Thai Hermit Exercise on Preschool Children’s Use of Gross Motor Abilities, Watphrachetuphon School, Phra Nakhon District, Bangkok.

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to:  1) study the relationships of preschool children’s use of gross motor abilities before and after implementing outdoor play activities using Thai hermit exercise, and 2) compare preschool children’s use of gross motor abilities before and after implementing outdoor play activities using Thai hermit exercise.The population consisted of 18 preschool children, boys and girls, aged between 5-6 years who studied in Kindergarten Year 3 in the second semester of the academic year 2024 at Watphrachetuphon School, Phra Nakhon District, Bangkok.The research instruments were 32 outdoor play activities using Thai hermit exercise with the IOC at 1.00, and preschool children’s use of gross motor abilities test with 3 aspects, 2 items for each aspect comprised of muscular strength aspect, muscular endurance aspect, and muscular flexibility aspect totaled to 6 items with the IOC of 1.00, and a reliability value of 0.79. The statistics used to analyze data were population mean (), standard deviation (), and Chi-square test. 

The research results showed that: 1) the relationships of preschool children’s use of gross motor abilities before and after implementing outdoor play activities using Thai hermit exercise were related with the statistical significance level of .05. When comparing the children’s gross motor performance before and after the activities, it was found that the scores from both periods were clearly correlated in the same direction.
and 2)preschool children’s use of gross motor abilities after implementing outdoor play activities using Thai hermit exercise was higher than before the experiment in overall and each aspect. which indicates that outdoor play activities using Thai hermit exercise were effective in promoting muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body movement control among preschool children.