Ball-related motor skills represent an important part of children’s motor development, which influences their performance in sports activities as well as their lifelong engagement in physical activity. One of the key ball skills is dribbling.
In Slovenia, there is a lack of research examining the mastery of dribbling among primary school pupils and the factors influencing it. The empirical part of this master’s thesis thus involved a quantitative study conducted among pupils from the 2nd to the 5th grade of Slovenian primary schools. The pupils performed a motor task of hand dribbling, which was video recorded and later assessed based on predefined descriptive criteria. Statistical analysis was used to examine differences according to gender, school environment, and the presence of team teaching in physical education, as well as to explore the relationship between dribbling performance and coordination level as measured by the results of the Physical Education Report Card.
The results showed that boys were statistically significantly more successful in dribbling than girls. No statistically significant differences were found with regard to the school environment. Statistically significant differences were identified in relation to team teaching, with pupils who were not subject to team teaching achieving better results. Furthermore, a statistically significant moderate negative correlation was found between the backward polygon test result and dribbling performance.
The findings contribute to a better understanding of dribbling proficiency among Slovenian primary school pupils and the factors influencing it. They provide an important basis for the planning and improvement of didactic approaches in physical education, particularly in the teaching of ball-related motor skills, and may contribute to more effective adaptation of instruction to pupils’ needs in the future.
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