A Movement and Music Programme in Early Childhood Education and Care (The MoviMusi Study Protocol)

Summary

The early childhood education and care (ECEC) environment is an important setting for providing children with daily opportunities for movement and music, supporting holistic child development in the early years. To date, there are no studies evaluating the implementation of a holistic programme in the ECEC context in the areas of movement behaviour, motor, and musical skills. The main aim is to examine the impact over time of a holistic movement and music programme on correlates of movement behaviour, gross and fine motor skills, and musical skills in young children (1-3 years). The secondary aims are to examine the impact of the movement and music programme on the perceptions of the educational community, as well as the barriers and facilitators they perceive in the process of baseline assessment, construction, and implementation of the movement and music programme in their own ECEC community. This cluster-randomised controlled trial (intervention and control groups) with public ECEC centres will be performed over a 24-month period. Baseline measurements will be taken in the first year of the project, and the longitudinal evaluation of the implementation of the movement and music programme in the second year. educational community's perceptions about the barriers and facilitators associated with the correlates of movement behaviour will be taken into account, as will the results of the assessment of gross and fine motor and musical skills identified in the first year of the project, with a special focus on the structured and unstructured opportunities for movement and music both in the ECEC settings and at home. This research project aims to fill a knowledge gap during a period of childhood that has rarely been explored, either nationally or internationally (1-3 years), and to position movement and music teaching practices as key contexts in the curriculum development of infant and toddler education.

Conditions

• Fundamental Motor Skills
• Physical Activity
• Music Intervention

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

A multi-component, multi-level programme (MoviMusi)

The MoviMusi program will be designed and implemented in each city by the 12 ECEC centres in the intervention group. In addition, the intervention programme will aim to address the main barriers and facilitators identified during the first year (baseline assessment) in relation to movement and music curricular practices. The programme will have three axes: (1) Training. Educators and families will actively participate in a series of seminars and training workshops on the promotion of PA as a healthy behaviour and the use of music as a didactic resource to strengthen holistic education both inside and outside ECEC. (2) Participation. Each ECEC institution will be supported as they design a movement and music programme to offer children better opportunities to learn about the body, its possibilities of action, and musical skills.(3) Implementation. The specific actions of the MoviMusi Programme will be put into practice in each ECEC institution.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Valencia

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

14 Months

Max Age

22 Months

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-03-20

Primary Completion

2024-07-31

Completion

2025-07-31

Countries

• Spain

Study Locations