Life Skills Development Through A Traditional Game-based Sport Education Model In Elementary School Physical Education

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of a 16-session traditional game-based Sport Education Model intervention (SEM-TG) on the life skills of Grade 5 elementary school students in West Java, Indonesia. Using a quasi-experimental two-group pretest-posttest design and the Life Skills Scale for Sport (LSSS) as the outcome measure, 60 students were allocated to an Experimental Group (EG; n = 30) that received the SEM-TG intervention and a Control Group (CG; n = 30) that continued with the standard PE curriculum. The EG demonstrated a statistically significant and large-effect improvement in total LSSS scores from pre-test to post-test (Z = −6.099, p < .001, r = .79), whereas the CG showed no significant change (p = .071). Between-group comparison at post-test confirmed that the EG scored significantly higher than the CG (U = 189.00, p < .001, r = .58). Significant improvements were observed across all eight LSSS dimensions in the EG (all p < .001). The findings demonstrate that SEM integrated with Indonesian permainan tradisional constitutes an effective and culturally grounded pedagogical approach for the intentional development of life skills in elementary school Physical Education.