Scaling the Equipment and Play Area in Children's Sport to improve Motor Skill Acquisition: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: This review investigated the influence of scaling sports equipment and play area (e.g., field size) on children's motor skill acquisition.

Methods: Peer-reviewed studies published prior to February 2015 were searched using SPORTDiscus and MEDLINE. Studies were included if the research (a) was empirical, (b) involved participants younger than 18 years, (c) assessed the efficacy of scaling in relation to one or more factors affecting skill learning (psychological factors, skill performance and skill acquisition factors, biomechanical factors, cognitive processing factors), and (d) had a sport or movement skills context. Risk of bias was assessed in relation to selection bias, detection bias, attrition bias, reporting bias and other bias.

Results: Twenty-five studies involving 989 children were reviewed. Studies revealed that children preferred using scaled equipment over adult equipment (n = 3), were more engaged in the task (n = 1) and had greater self-efficacy to execute skills (n = 2). Eighteen studies demonstrated that children performed skills better when the equipment and play area were scaled. Children also acquired skills faster in such conditions (n = 2); albeit the practice interventions were relatively short. Five studies showed that scaling led to children adopting more desirable movement patterns, and one study associated scaling with implicit motor learning.

Conclusion: Most of the studies reviewed provide evidence in support of equipment and play area scaling. However, the conclusions are limited by the small number of studies that examined learning (n = 5), poor ecological validity and skills tests of few trials.

Fig. 1

Recommended play area (court, pitch or oval size) for different age groups across four popular sports. These guidelines were based on recommendations by major sports organizations across the world: International Basketball Federation (basketball), International Tennis Federation (tennis), The Football Association (soccer) and the Australian Football League (Australian Football). Play area has been standardized to a ratio out of 1, with 1 representing a full-size (adult) play area. The play area ratios are mapped against the average height of children (boys and girls combined) from 5 to 18 years. Soccer appears to be the only sport in which the recommended play area dimensions increase at a similar rate to children’s height. The other sports recommend that children play on adult-sized dimensions from approximately age 10 years onwards

Fig. 2

PRISMA flowchart representing each stage of the review process (adapted from Moher et al. [4])

Fig. 3

The total practice duration (min) for the five studies that examined the influence of equipment scaling on skill acquisition over a period of practice. There has been a trend for shorter studies over the past 25 years