Qualitative analysis of the opinion of a sample of Early Childhood Education teachers on the psychomotricity class

Abstract

The development of motor skills in early childhood and psychomotor work has become the main axis of human development. The main objective of this study is to know the opinion of the teachers who teach the psychomotricity session in Early Childhood Education centers. It inquires about what they understand by psychomotricity, how they perceive the motor competence of children and how they manage the psychomotricity class. For this, a semi-structured interview has been carried out with a total of 9 Early Childhood Education teachers from different educational centers throughout Spain. The results indicate that teachers relate psychomotricity with body movement and mind. At the same time, in the implementation of their sessions they give priority to the work of certain components of psychomotor skills (body schema, spatial structuring and globalized learning) over others (balance, postural control or laterality). It should be noted that in the face of any conflict that arises among the students, the majority chooses to establish a bridge of mediation. Regarding the motor skills of children perceived by teachers, they state that it has worsened over the years and that playing in the street has disappeared. The need to increase the number of hours of psychomotricity in educational centers is concluded, both at school and extracurricular level and the specific training on this field in the teachers that impart it in order to improve the motor competence of boys and girls.