This study explored the association between the development of fundamental movement skills (FMS) and mathematics achievement, and whether the understanding of specific spatial concepts mediated these relationships.

FMS are basic locomotor, object manipulation, and stability patterns that lead to complex specialised skills and later physical activity (Gallahue & Ozmun, 2006). It has been well established that FMS have beneficial effects on children’s holistic development (Brown & Cairney, 2020), but research examining other benefits, such as academic achievement, are less established. This is an important avenue to examine as achievement in mathematics has been declining internationally (Wijsman et al., 2016). Within the UK, the Department for Education (2015) reported that many primary school children do not meet the required levels of mathematics needed to be ready for secondary school. Therefore, if factors that may positively affect mathematics performance in young children are identified, then more benefits could occur later in life.

Research has found that overall FMS scores are positively associated with mathematics scores in children (de Bruijn et al., 2019). Spatial ability may be an explanatory factor to explain this association. Spatial ability, as described by Uttal et al. (2013), distinguishes spatial abilities between intrinsic and extrinsic, and static and dynamic skills, resulting in a 2x2 classification of spatial ability. Intrinsic-static spatial ability involves distinguishing the characteristics of a stationary object without the need for mental transformation. The ability to distinguish the characteristics of an object whilst moving it or changing its location, orientation, or dimensions either physically or mentally is defined as intrinsic-dynamic spatial ability. Extrinsic-static spatial ability involves determining the relations among objects in a group relative to one another without mental transformation, whereas extrinsic-dynamic spatial ability involves determining group relations relative to one another whilst objects are moving and require changes in orientation, location, and dimension either physically or mentally. Based on this classification, research has found that FMS are positively associated with spatial ability. For example, children who ran faster scored higher in a test of intrinsic-static spatial ability and children who threw a ball further performed better on a test of extrinsic-static spatial ability (Jansen & Pietsch, 2022). Furthermore, research has found that all four spatial abilities are positively associated with mathematics achievement (Gilligan et al., 2019; Xie et al., 2020). However, there is little research that incorporates all three constructs in one study, with only a few FMS being assessed, extrinsic-dynamic spatial ability not being assessed, or general relationships not being examined.

Therefore, the current study incorporates all three constructs in a single investigation to help clarify the relationships between FMS, spatial ability, and mathematics achievement, and to further understanding of the importance and value of PE in primary schools. Primary PE is often looked upon as a soft subject, with teachers choosing to reallocate PE time to more academic subjects, resulting in less than three quarters of schools participating in two or more hours of PE a week. If participating in PE promotes beneficial effects academically, specifically in mathematics, a valued subject, then high quality delivery of PE in primary schools should become a higher priority.

Participants and Procedure Two hundred and ten Year 3 children from four schools in the UK were recruited. One hundred and eighty children were given parental consent to participate, but only 179 children (mean age: 7.63 years) completed all parts. Eighty-three boys and 96 girls, mostly of White British ethnicity (69.8%), formed the sample. Data collection was conducted, via a cross-sectional correlational design, during the first half of the school year (September to December 2022). Measures FMS FMS were assessed first, using the product-based assessment FUNMOVES (Eddy et al., 2021), during a PE lesson. All children in the class watched the assessor demonstrate the first skill, and five children at a time were assessed on that skill. Once all children completed the skill, the assessor moved on to demonstrating the next skill, and so forth. The skills assessed were running, jumping, hopping, throwing, kicking, and balance. Spatial Ability The following week, spatial abilities were assessed. Each child was individually assessed on four spatial abilities (intrinsic-static, intrinsic-dynamic, extrinsic-static, extrinsic-dynamic) in one sitting, taking approximately 30 minutes to complete. To assess intrinsic-static spatial ability, children completed the Children’s Embedded Figures Task (Witkin et al., 1971). The Picture Mental Rotation Task (Neuburger et al., 2011) using animal stimuli and a two-minute time limit was completed to assess intrinsic-dynamic spatial ability. To assess extrinsic-static spatial ability, children completed the Spatial Scaling Task (Gilligan et al., 2018) and the Perspective Taking Task (Frick, 2019) was used to assess extrinsic-dynamic spatial ability. Mathematics One week later, once all the children had completed the spatial ability tests, mathematics achievement was assessed. In class, children completed the MaLT7 assessment (Williams, 2005), which assessed numerical, arithmetical, and geometrical ability in line with England’s National Curriculum learning objectives. This test is suitable for children aged 6 to 8.5 years old (Williams, 2005). Data Analysis Calculations of means and standard deviations were conducted to examine the descriptive findings. MANOVAs and t-tests were conducted to understand gender differences and Pearson correlations were completed to explore associations between the variables. Mediation analyses in SPSS AMOS were then performed to examine whether spatial ability mediated potential relationships between FMS and mathematics.

MANOVAs and t-tests revealed that there were gender differences in the scores for running, jumping, and balance, with boys scoring higher than girls in running, and girls scoring higher than boys in jumping and balance. There were no gender differences for the remaining FMS skills, total FMS score, spatial ability, and mathematics scores. Total FMS ability (a combined score across the six skills) was significantly positively correlated to overall mathematics achievement (p < .001), highlighting that the more developed and mature overall FMS are in children, the better their overall mathematics achievement. This relationship was mediated by spatial ability performance. All four spatial abilities assessed; intrinsic-static, intrinsic-dynamic, extrinsic-static, and extrinsic-dynamic, mediated the relationship between FMS and mathematics (p <. 001, p = .002, p = .002, and p = .022, respectively). These results suggest that children who have more developed FMS, perform better in tests of spatial ability, which in turn results in higher mathematics achievement. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that intrinsic-static and intrinsic-dynamic spatial abilities mediated the relationship between FMS and mathematics for both girls (p < .006 and p = .003, respectively) and boys (p < .001 and p = .021, respectively). Extrinsic-static spatial ability mediated the relationship between FMS and mathematics in boys (p = .003) but not girls, and extrinsic-dynamic spatial ability mediated the relationship between FMS and mathematics in girls (p = .038) but not in boys.

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