Oscar O'Brien, Connah Kendrick, Ben Ives, Moi Hoon Yap, John Henry
Low-barrier exergames, as defined in our taxonomy of exergame types, are just as effective as traditional activity for fundamental movement skills adaptation. They should be freely chosen by teachers and parents, to overcome the practical challenges that are spiralling into physically inactive lifestyles. This study provides a taxonomy and model of statistically significant effects that future research should use to manage the methodological variability that has made building upon previous findings challenging.
BACKGROUND: Physical inactivity is a public health crisis that is influenced by practical barriers in childhood. We define a category of interventions that can reduce barriers, with exergames being one example. There is mixed evidence on fundamental movement skills effects, due to variability in experimental outcomes, that may be limiting usage. This meta-analysis identifies the source of that variability to determine the effect of exergames on fundamental movement skills.
METHODS: To provide a comprehensive evidence base, we systematically surveyed 10 research databases / search engines (PubMed, APA PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Scopus, Proquest, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar) to identify studies of the post-intervention effects of exergames upon children's fundamental movement skills, published between Jan 2000 and Dec 2025. Records were identified through boolean search terms and then manual reviews of abstracts and full text. We used set theory and order theory, in an approach we call systematic hypothesis testing, to explore all explanations for fundamental movement skills variability.
RESULTS: In total, 17 statistically significant comparisons from 12 studies were identified. Comparisons between groups involved variance in coaching levels, activity structure levels, and whether the activity was an exergame or not. This study demonstrates that variability in fundamental movement skills effects is explained by coaching and activity structure, rather than exergame status. There was no evidence of a differential effect for skill components.
CONCLUSIONS: Low-barrier exergames, as defined in our taxonomy of exergame types, are just as effective as traditional activity for fundamental movement skills adaptation. They should be freely chosen by teachers and parents, to overcome the practical challenges that are spiralling into physically inactive lifestyles. This study provides a taxonomy and model of statistically significant effects that future research should use to manage the methodological variability that has made building upon previous findings challenging.