Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus)
Studies indicate that cognitively engaging or content-rich exercises are innovative and effective interventions for children. However, a few studies examine their impact on motor skills and attention. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of content-rich exercises with cognitive engagement, content-rich exercises without it, and aerobic exercises on boys' motor skills and attention. A total of 120 boys participated in the study. They were divided into three groups: 1(n = 40): Rich-content exercise only group (Age: 12.53 ± 0.51years), 2(n = 40): Rich-content exercise with added cognitive engagement group (Age: 12.55 ± 0.50years), 3(n = 40): Low-content, low cognitive engagement (aerobic) exercises group (Age: 12.30 ± 0.46years). The intervention included only content-rich exercises, content-rich exercises with added cognitive engagement (such as strategic decision-making and problem-solving), and low-cognitive engagement aerobic exercises. The study was conducted for 14 weeks (45min/3days/14weeks). The children were administered the ‘Bruininks-Oseretsky Motor Proficiency Test (BOT-2-SF)’ and the ‘d2 Attention Test’ at the beginning and end of the study. According to the findings, the rich-content exercise interventions with added cognitive engagement (Group 2) improved motor skills and attention parameters the most. Only exercises with rich content provided moderate improvement, while aerobic exercises showed the lowest improvement. Moreover, a strong relationship was found between motor skills and attention parameters. The results emphasise the importance of exercise programmes that focus not only on the amount of intervention but also on rich content with added cognitive engagement on motor skills and attention parameters.