Classroom Activities

Movement integration (MI) is a strategy for integrating physical activity into general education classroom time. National organizations have identified MI as a key strategy for helping children accumulate the recommended 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. Research has consistently demonstrated that MI can provide meaningful amounts of physical activity, improve on-task behavior, enhance cognitive function, and increase standardized test scores.This strategy is also increasingly important because children spend less and less time in active school settings, such as recess and physical education. However, teachers rarely incorporate MI into their classrooms.

In order to encourage teachers to use MI more regularly, it is essential to understand which MI product attributes lead to greater use. While some work has been done to identify which attributes of MI products enhance teacher use, this work has either examined the use of MI as a general concept (i.e., what would make teachers more likely to infuse physical activity [PA] into their classroom routines); or was conducted within the context of a single MI product (i.e., what makes teachers more likely to implement a specific MI product, such as Take 10).These approaches have two major limitations. First, studies that examined MI as a general concept (i.e., what would make teachers more likely to infuse physical activity into their classroom routines) are limited because teachers were not able to test MI products. Second, because previous studies solicited feedback on a single MI product, even though several MI products with varying attributes are available, teachers' ability to identify desirable MI product attributes across MI products was limited.

Currently, six MI products are widely available to teachers. These products differ significantly in their degree of (a) academic focus, (b) level of teacher involvement, and (c) time commitment for planning and implementation. For example, Go Noodle is a website that contains short (3-5 minute) videos of mostly non-academic MI activities. Teachers can simply select a video to play. Conversely, the Take 10 product consists of activity cards that present physical activities infused with academic content, plus instructions for how teachers can organize and implement the activities. These two products represent opposite ends of the MI product spectrum, but no one MI product includes all of the key attributes that may encourage use. Understanding the attributes that teachers want in MI products would allow researchers and educators to design products that have greater appeal and are more likely to be used (i.e., increased implementation).

Product testing is one way to identify attributes that enhance or hinder uptake by teachers. Product testing is the process of measuring the properties or performance of products. Two of the most common product testing techniques are in-home use tests, and discrete choice experiments (DCE). In-home use tests allow potential consumers (in this case teachers) to use a product as they normally would in their natural setting. DCEs involve asking individuals to identify their preferences when given a hypothetical set of attributes products could contain.Product testing is essential when developing new products, because it can help to produce superior products, by identifying critical attributes that consumers desire. Research has categorically shown that including consumers in the development of new products is critical to the success of the products. However, the process of developing previous MI products has not included this step.

This study will expand the evidence related to implementation of MI by classroom teachers by identifying product attributes that will lead to increased use of MI products by teachers. To do this we will draw upon product testing research techniques to test widely-available MI products and to identify attributes of MI products that make them more or less usable. We will accomplish the following specific aims:

Aim 1: Identify the key attributes of Movement Integration products that teachers prefer and do not prefer, using a DCE and in-class product testing.

Aim 2: Develop a prototype Movement Integration product that incorporates the critical attributes identified by teachers in Aim 1.

Aim 3: Conduct a pilot test of the prototype Movement Integration product developed in Aim 2 to evaluate teacher implementation, the product's effect on children's activity levels during classroom time, and cost.

This project is significant because MI can reach virtually all children each day at school. The project is innovative because it will produce a MI product prototype using product testing techniques with classroom teachers. The expected project outcome is a MI product prototype with the potential to be more widely implemented throughout the country.

Updates Due to Covid-19: Because of the closure of schools due to the novel SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and due to the pilot data collected in Aim 1 the design of this study has undergone changes. Upon the completion of Aim 1 it became clear that existing MI products contained all of the key attributes that teachers desired. Thus, the decision was made not to create a novel MI product but rather to test the impact of the three products that teachers ranked the highest in Aim 1 on students' physical activity. Teachers began testing products in January of 2020 and all of the participating schools closed their doors in March of 2020 due to COVID-19. Prior to the closure teachers were able to complete a baseline week and test one product. These schools reopened in the fall of 2021 but have not allowed external visitors to the school, including study research teams. Thus it has been and remains impossible to complete the study as intended. Given that the grant funding for this project has come to a close it is the investigators' intention to publish the findings as is, while recognizing and transparently reporting their limitations.