Assessing Impact of Active Learning on Student Outcomes: Texas Initiatives for Children's Activity and Nutrition (ICAN) (ICAN)

A Cluster Randomized Control Trial to Assess the Impact of Active Learning on Child Activity, Attention Control, and Academic Outcomes: The Texas I-CAN Trial

Background: Active learning is designed to pair physical activity with the teaching of academic content. This has been shown to be a successful strategy to increase physical activity and improve academic performance. The existing designs have confounded academic lessons with physical activity. As a result, it is impossible to determine if the subsequent improvement in academic performance is due to: (1) physical activity, (2) the academic content of the active learning, or (3) the combination of academic material taught through physical activity.

Methods / Design: The Texas I-CAN project is a 3-arm, cluster randomized control trial in which 28 elementary schools were assigned to either control, math intervention, or spelling intervention. As a result, each intervention condition serves as an unrelated content control for the other arm of the trial, allowing the impact of physical activity to be separated from the content. That is, schools that perform only active math lessons provide a content control for the spelling schools on spelling outcomes. This also calculated direct observations of attention and behavior control following periods of active learning.

Discussion: This design is unique in its ability to separate the impact of physical activity, in general, from the combination of physical activity and specific academic content. This, in combination with the ability to examine both proximal and distal outcomes along with measures of time on task will do much to guide the design of future, school-based interventions.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Physical Activity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Texas I-CAN!

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 2716
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• students in 4th grade in a participating elementary school and their 4th grade teachers

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Texas I-CAN Active Math Lessons; Texas I-CAN Active math lesson in academic classroom	Behavioral: Texas I-CAN!; physically active, academic lessons in the elementary school classroom
Experimental: Texas I-CAN Active Language Arts Lessons; Texas I-CAN Active language arts lessons in academic classroom	Behavioral: Texas I-CAN!; physically active, academic lessons in the elementary school classroom
No Intervention: Control; Regular, Sedentary academic lessons in math and language arts

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Physical activity level	time in moderate to vigorous physical activity	one school week
Time on task	student attentional focus in the classroom 15 minutes prior to and 15 minutes post active lesson implemented in the classroom on one school day	change in time on task from baseline to 15 minutes post academic lesson
Acute academic achievement	acute academic scores on math and language arts test developed by fourth grade teacher	change in math and language arts scores from Baseline to 2 weeks
Long-term math achievement	Academic scores on math sub tests (Calculation, Fluency) of the Woodcock Johnson III	Change in math achievement scores from Baseline to 7 months
Long-term language arts achievement	Academic scores on spelling sub test of the Woodcock Johnson III and comprehension section of Gates MacGinitie test	Change in language arts achievement from Baseline to 7 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Texas at Austin
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: John B Bartholomew, PHD, UT Austin

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Bartholomew JB, Jowers EM, Errisuriz VL, Vaughn S, Roberts G. A cluster randomized control trial to assess the impact of active learning on child activity, attention control, and academic outcomes: The Texas I-CAN trial. Contemp Clin Trials. 2017 Oct;61:81-86. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2017.07.023. Epub 2017 Jul 22.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 15, 2012
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 31, 2015
• Study Completion (Actual): May 31, 2015

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 9, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 15, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): March 22, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): June 26, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 22, 2017
• Last Verified: June 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 1R01HD070741 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No