The Influence of Traditional Games on the Perceptual Motor Skills

and Skill-related Physical Fitness

Sudardiyono

, Hari Yuliarto

, Yudanto

and Sujarwo

Faculty of Sports Science, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: Traditional Games, Perceptual Motor Skills, Physical Fitness, Elementary Students.

Abstract: Perceptual motor skills and skill-related physical fitness are crucial to be developed by the elementary

students. The development can be achieved by freely doing the interesting physical activities. Traditional

games are sorts of enjoyable and exciting games which can be done by the elementary students. The objective

of this research is to find out the influence of traditional games on the perceptual motor skills and skill-related

physical fitness of the elementary students. It was pre-experimental research with one group pretest and

posttest design. The subjects of the research were 30 elementary students. In collecting the data, perceptual

motor test by Rachman (2004) was administered as the research instrument. Speed was measured by doing

40-meters run. Power was measured by performing standing board jump. Furthermore, agility was measured

by doing 4x10 shuttle run (Nurhasan, 2004). The data were analyzed by administering a t-test by comparing

mean scores in the pretest to that in the posttest. The research findings showed that the mean scores in the

posttest were higher than that of in the pretest: 1) Perceptual motor skills: posttest mean score 23,70 > pretest

mean score 18,90, p < 0,05, 2) Speed: posttest mean score 8,16 < pretest mean score 8,86, p < 0,05, 3) Agility:

posttest mean score 12,67 > pretest mean score 13,46, p < 0,05, and 4) Power: posttest mean score 1,44 >

pretest mean score 1,33, p < 0,05. In conclusion, there was influence of traditional games on perceptual motor

skills and skill-related physical fitness.

1 INTRODUCTION

Physical fitness and motor skills development are part

of the objectives of Physical Education, Health, and

Sports. Physical fitness is one of the physical aspects

of the total fitness which allows a person to

productively live the life and adapt to the physical

load properly. Previous research revealed that there

was significance correlation between physical fitness

and the involvement of physical activities. The more

the students actively involved in the physical

activities, the fitter, slimmer, and less healthy risk

would be (Thomas, Lee, Thomas, 1998:10). In

addition, some prior research about the physical

fitness showed that the physical fitness status of

Indonesians including the students was in the low

level. The followings are some previous research: 1)

the research by Depdiknas in Mutohir (2009) about

the level of physical fitness of elementary, junior and

senior high school students. For the elementary

students, it revealed the following percentage: 15%

(very poor), 48% (poor), 31% (fair), 6% (good), and

0% (very good); for junior high school students, there

were 8% (very poor), 46% (poor), 40% (fair), 6%

(good), and 0% (very good); for senior high school

students, there were 7% (very poor), 40% (poor),

46% (fair), 7% (good), and 0% (very good); and for

vocational high school students, there were 11% (very

poor), 45% (poor), 39% (fair), 5% (good), and 0%

(very good), and 2) the research conducted by

Mutohir and Maksum (2007) about the people

physical fitness level which found that there were

37,40% (very poor), 43,90% (poor), 13,55 % (fair);

and 5,15% (good and very good).

One of the causes of the students’ low physical

fitness-with its all risks- is the lack of the physical

activities. The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention or CDC (2006) states that the children

who are physically passive tend to be the same when

they are adult.

As a result, it can increase the risks of obesity and

comes to the chronic-degenerative disease prevalence

such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. In

relation to the physical fitness, it consists of physical

fitness components which are related to health:

cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, muscular

440

Sudardiyono, ., Yuliarto, H., , Y. and , S.

The Inﬂuence of Traditional Games on the Perceptual Motor Skills and Skill-related Physical Fitness.

DOI: 10.5220/0009788304400443

In Proceedings of the 3rd Yogyakarta International Seminar on Health, Physical Education, and Spor t Science in conjunction with the 2nd Conference on Interdisciplinary Approach in Sports

(YISHPESS and CoIS 2019), pages 440-443

ISBN: 978-989-758-457-2

endurance, flexibility, and body composition. On the

other hands, the physical fitness components which

are related to skills are speed, explosive power,

balance, agility, coordination, and reaction time.

The improvement of the students’ motor skills,

primarily in relation to the perceptual motor skills is

also believed to be one of the important aspects.

Perceptual motor skills reflected in the children’s

motor development help them explore the knowledge

from the environment which is then formulated to be

the concepts expressed by the motor ability. The

children who easily and quickly move the body tends

to have self-confidence and positive self-conception.

Cratty (1967) highlights that the children who cannot

manage their movement well have low self-

conception and often get difficulty to socially and

emotionally adapt (Laszlo & Bairstow, 1985).

Moreover, Edwards (2010) in Rachman (2018)

explains that first to third-grade students who get

difficulty in studying at school also get difficulty in

the perceptual motor development. As a result, the

difficulty in the perceptual motor skills has the basic

correlation to the school achievement. In line with

this, Thomas, Thomas and Lee (1998) show the

influences of perceptual motor skills on the cognitive

function encompassing: (1) the consequences and the

correlation between perceptual motor skills and

academic achievement, (2) perceptual motor skills as

the basic of the academic readiness and performance,

for example the good eye-hand coordination for the

good writing ability. In addition, Morales, et.al (2011)

also state that the performance of perceptual motor is

closely related to the academic achievement. They

highlight that the children who are good in the

perceptual motor skills are also good in their cognitive

aspects. Therefore, it is assumed that every response

yielded by the interaction with the environment

produces the response of the motor perception.

Although there are some responses which are more

complex, basically, perceptual motor skills are the

performances which involve the ability to interpret

the whole information (visual, kinesthetic, audio, and

tactile) which is transferred to the central nervous

system. In line with this, perceptual motor skills are

believed as the ability produced by the interaction

with the environment which involves the process of

observation and mobility. It is identified as a term

used to correlate between cognitive functions and

motor skills on the children. The concept of

perceptual motor skills deals with the process of

capturing information from the environment to

produce the motor behavior. Perceptual motor skills

can influence other skills in life such as cognitive

functions, academic skills, social and emotional

development, and self-concept.

Perceptual motor skills are constructed by the

movement components consisting of (1) body

awareness, (2) spatial awareness, (3) qualities of

movement, (4) directional awareness, (5) temporal

awareness, and (6) relationships. Based on the

previous research, developing the perceptual motor

for children was fundamental to supporting the

children’s academic skills (Nourbakhsh, 2006). To

develop the perceptual motor skills and physical

fitness, it can be done by doing the physical activities.

One of the physical activities, generally in Physical

Education, Health, and Sports and specifically in

elementary school is playing the traditional games.

The traditional games are the local and regional

games which have unique names and ways of playing

in each region. There are some examples of traditional

games such as Bentengan, Gobak Sodor, Balap

Karung, Lompat Tali, Kasti, and so forth.

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The design of the research was pre-experimental

research. It used one group pretest and posttest

design. The subjects of the research were 30

elementary students. The traditional games played

were Hadang, Benteng, Lari Karung, Tujon, Nini

Thowok, and Gateng. The traditional games were

played three times a week for 8 weeks. Each meeting

lasted for 60 minutes. In collecting the data, the

perceptual motor test by Rachman (2004) was used as

the instrument. The speed was measured by doing 40-

meters run; power was measured by doing standing

board jump; and agility was measured by doing 4x10

shuttle run (Nurhasan, 2004). The data were analyzed

by administering a t-test by comparing mean scores

in the pretest and the posttest.

3 RESULT

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistic of the raw data

of the perceptual motor components and skill-related

physical fitness development in the pretest and

posttest.

Table 2 shows the value of sig. 0,000 > 0,05.

Therefore, it could be concluded that there was no

significance influence of traditional games on the

perceptual motor skills.

The Inﬂuence of Traditional Games on the Perceptual Motor Skills and Skill-related Physical Fitness

441

Table 1: Descriptive statistic of the perceptual motor

components and skill-related physical fitness development.

Compon

ents

Pretest

Posttest

Impro

veme

Percept

ual

Motor

Skills

18,90

1,47

23,70

1,32

25,40

Speed

8,86

0,68

8,16

0,54

7,81

Agility

13,46

0,68

12,67

0,52

5,78

Power

1,33

0,15

1,44

0,12

8,14

Table 2. t-Test of perceptual motor components.

Asymp. Sig (2-2 tailed)

-4.813

.000

Table 3: t-Test of speed.

Paired Differences

Sig.

Mean

Std.

Error

Mean

95 %

Confidence

Interval of the

Difference

Lower

Upper

.6916

.2987

.0545

.5801

.8032

12.67

.000

Table 3 shows the sig. value 0,000 < 0,05. In

conclusion, there was significance influence of

traditional games on speed.

Table 4: T-Test of agility.

Paired Differences

Sig.

Mean

Std.

Error

Mean

95 %

Confidence

Interval of the

Difference

Lower

Upper

.7900

.4047

.0739

.6388

.9411

10.669

.000

Table 4 shows the sig. value 0,000 < 0,05. In

conclusion, there was significance influence of

traditional games on agility.

Table 5: T-Test of power.

Paired Differences

Sig.

Mean

Std.

Error

Mean

95 %

Confidence

Interval of the

Difference

Lower

Upper

17.460

1.436

.2622

16.9239

17.9967

66.571

.000

Table 5 shows the sig. value 0,000 < 0,05. As a

result, there was significance influence of traditional

games on power.

4 DISCUSSION

The traditional games actually have many advantages

for the children. Besides they need low cost, they can

promote the physical fitness. The traditional games

can help the children train their physic and mental

aspects. Misbach (2006) says that the traditional

games can stimulate various aspects of children

development as follows. (1) Motor aspects by training

the endurance power, flexibility, sensory motor, gross

motor and fine motor skills. (2) Cognitive aspects by

developing the imagination, creativity, problem

solving, strategy, anticipative skills, and contextual

awareness. (3) Emotional aspects by being the

emotional catharsis media. (4) Linguistic aspects in

the form of value concept awareness. (5) Social

aspects by conditioning the children to have the good

relationship, cooperation, maturity, and training them

to be socially skilled by role playing with other

people. (6) Spiritual aspects, traditional games can

bring the children to be aware of relationships with

something that is Great (transcendental). (7)

Ecological aspects by facilitating the children to

understand how to wisely utilize the natural elements

and moral values aspects by facilitating the children

to fully comprehend the inherited moral values.

In this research, the traditional games played by

the students such as Hadang, Benteng, Balap/Lari

Karung, Tujon, Nini Towok, and Gateng basically

have different movement characteristics as follows

(1) the primary characteristic of movements in

Hadang and Benteng is running. These games allow

the players to quickly move and change the directions

so they cannot be easily caught by the opponents.

Based on the movement characteristics, the games can

stimulate the students’ speed, agility, spatial and

directional awareness, (2) Balap Karung, Tujuon,

Nini Towok and Gateng have the main movement

characteristics such as running and jumping. In line

with this, the jumping movement can stimulate the

students’ power.

The students’ perceptual motor development

therefore can be increased by playing those traditional

games as one of the physical activities. According to

Rudolph Laban in Rachman (2004), one’s perceptual

motor skills are built from (1) body awareness, (2)

spatial awareness, (3) qualities of movement, and (4)

relationships. The body awareness is closely related

to how the body move. Spatial awareness deals with

YISHPESS and CoIS 2019 - The 3rd Yogyakarta International Seminar on Health, Physical Education, and Sport Science (YISHPESS

2019) in conjunction with The 2nd Conference on Interdisciplinary Approach in Sports (CoIS 2019)

442

where the body move. Meanwhile, the aspect of

qualities of movement is associated with how the

body move. In addition, the aspect of relationships is

linked to who moves and what are moved by the

body.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The results of the research show the traditional games

such as Hadang, Benteng, Balap/Lari Karung, Tujon,

Nini Towok, and Gateng have significance influence

on the students’ perceptual motor skills and skill-

related physical fitness. Based on this research,

hopefully the teachers employ the traditional games

to improve the students’ perceptual motor skills and

skill-related physical fitness.

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