Program Evaluation of an In-school Daily Physical Activity Initiative

A Program Evaluation of an In-school Daily Physical Activity Initiative for Children and Youth

The school system is one setting in which children's physical activity levels may be increased through daily physical activity (DPA) policies and initiatives. Adherence to DPA policies is typically poor and results are limited in regard to the associated benefits for participating children. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate a range of psychosocial outcomes following a community-led, in-school DPA initiative for 9-14 year old children and youth. This program evaluation examined the impact of a DPA program consisting of 20 minutes of teacher-led DPA for 20 consecutive weeks. Student outcomes were measured using a questionnaire administered at three time points: baseline, mid-intervention, and post-intervention. A teacher questionnaire regarding program adherence and student behaviour was completed at post-intervention.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Physical Activity; Children, Only
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Daily physical activity intervention

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 362
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8P 1H6
      • David Braley Health Sciences Centre

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 9 years to 14 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants will include males and females between the ages of 9-14.
• Participants must be enrolled in one of 30 elementary school classes across the participating seven elementary schools.
• Participants need to be able to read and write in English

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants not enrolled in one of the participating classes.
• Unable to read and write in English.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Daily physical activity intervention; The intervention consisted of a DPA program designed by a national organization with expertise in school-based physical activity programming and delivered in school by teachers. The program was offered to students in grades 4 through 8 and consisted of 20 minutes of structured DPA in school for 20 consecutive weeks. The DPA activities included jumping jacks, squats, running and other body weight exercises.	Behavioral: Daily physical activity intervention
No Intervention: Control - treatment as usual; Participants in control classes completed regular school activities as per the Ontario curriculum.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in self-esteem from baseline to 20-weeks	Measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. This is a 10-item measure that has shown to have good construct validity in children. The scale is scored on a four-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 3 (Strongly Agree). An example item is "On the whole, I am satisfied with myself." Items 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 are reverse scored. The scores for the 10 items are then summed, with higher scores indicating higher self-esteem.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks
Change in grit from baseline to 20-weeks	Assessed with the 8-item Short Grit Scale for Children. The items are scored on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Not at all like me) to 5 (Very much like me). An example item is "New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones." Items 1,3,5,6 were reversed scored and all items were summed with higher scores indicating better results.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks
Change in Global Happiness from baseline to 20-weeks	Measured using the 4-item Subjective Happiness Scale. The scale is scored on a seven-point Likert-type scale. Each item has its own stem and anchors ranging from 1 to 7. An example item stem is "In general I consider myself…" with 1 anchored as Not a very happy person and 7 anchored as A very happy person. The scale has demonstrated good psychometric properties in children and adolescents. The sum of scores is divided by four with a higher score indicating a greater level of happiness.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks
Change in Commitment to School from baseline to 20-weeks	Assessed with 5 items drawn from the 10-item Commitment to School scale. The scale consists of 10-items scored on a four-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree). A subset of five-items was selected, scored on a five-point Likert-type ranging from 1 (Not at all true for me) to 5 (Really true for me). An example item is "You try really hard at school." The 5 items were summed with higher score indicating greater commitment to school.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks
Change in Sense of Belonging at School from baseline to 20-weeks	Measured using the 5-item short form version of the Sense of Belonging Scale. An example item is "I feel comfortable at my school." Two items were reverse scored, and the items were summed with higher scores indicating a greater sense of belonging at school.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks
Change in Physical Activity from baseline to 20-weeks	Assessed with the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C). The PAQ-C was designed for children in grades 4-8 who have recess as a regular part of their school week. The PAQ-C is a 9-item 7-day recall instrument that has been shown to have good psychometric properties. We omitted the first item from this questionnaire because it asked about the types of physical activity performed, and we were interested only in overall levels of participation. An example item is "In the last 7 days, what did you do most of the time at recess?" The items were averaged together to generate a total score, with higher scores indicating higher levels of participation in physical activity.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks
Change in Self-efficacy from baseline to 20-weeks	Self-efficacy for engaging in physical activity, sports, and active play was assessed using a three-item scale adhering to recommendations by Bandura for assessing self-efficacy. Each item was prefaced with the stem "I am confident in my ability to engage in…" The individual items were "Physical activity (e.g., running, yoga, skating)," "Sports (e.g., soccer, baseball, ultimate Frisbee)," and "Activity play (e.g., playing with friends at recess or after school)." Following guidelines provided by Bandura, participants rated their confidence for each item using an 11-point scale (0=not confident, 10=totally confident). A generalized task self-efficacy overall score was computed by averaging the ratings for each item to produce a scale value out of 10. Higher scores indicate more favorable self-efficacy.	Change from baseline to 20-weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Intervention adherence	Assessed by teacher questionnaire: "On average, how many days per week did your students participate in the program?". A higher score indicates greater adherence.	20-weeks
Perceived student behavior	Assessed by teacher questionnaire on a 10-point scale from "No improvement" to "A great deal of improvement." Questions were averaged and higher scores indicated greater perceived student behavior.	20-weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: McMaster University
• Collaborators: Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board; Start2Finish
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: John Cairney, PhD, University of Toronto and McMaster University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Janssen I, Leblanc AG. Systematic review of the health benefits of physical activity and fitness in school-aged children and youth. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2010 May 11;7:40. doi: 10.1186/1479-5868-7-40.
• Lubans D, Richards J, Hillman C, Faulkner G, Beauchamp M, Nilsson M, Kelly P, Smith J, Raine L, Biddle S. Physical Activity for Cognitive and Mental Health in Youth: A Systematic Review of Mechanisms. Pediatrics. 2016 Sep;138(3):e20161642. doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-1642. Epub 2016 Aug 19.
• Ahn S, Fedewa AL. A meta-analysis of the relationship between children's physical activity and mental health. J Pediatr Psychol. 2011 May;36(4):385-97. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsq107. Epub 2011 Jan 11.
• Allison KR, Vu-Nguyen K, Ng B, Schoueri-Mychasiw N, Dwyer JJ, Manson H, Hobin E, Manske S, Robertson J. Evaluation of Daily Physical Activity (DPA) policy implementation in Ontario: surveys of elementary school administrators and teachers. BMC Public Health. 2016 Aug 8;16:746. doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3423-0.
• Pearlin LI, Lieberman MA, Menaghan EG, Mullan JT. The stress process. J Health Soc Behav. 1981 Dec;22(4):337-56. No abstract available.
• Moilanen KL. The Adolescent Self-Regulatory Inventory: The development and validation of a questionnaire of short-term and long-term self-regulation. J Youth Adolesc. 2007;36:835-48.
• Goodman R, Meltzer H, Bailey V. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: a pilot study on the validity of the self-report version. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2003 Feb-May;15(1-2):173-7. doi: 10.1080/0954026021000046137.
• Muris P, Meesters C, Eijkelenboom A, Vincken M. The self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: its psychometric properties in 8- to 13-year-old non-clinical children. Br J Clin Psychol. 2004 Nov;43(Pt 4):437-48. doi: 10.1348/0144665042388982.
• Rosenberg M. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Accept Commit Ther. 1965.
• Duckworth AL, Quinn PD. Development and validation of the short grit scale (grit-s). J Pers Assess. 2009 Mar;91(2):166-74. doi: 10.1080/00223890802634290.
• Lyubomirsky S, Lepper HS. A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Soc Indic Res. 1999;46:137-155.
• Anderson-Butcher D, Conroy DE. Factorial and Criterion Validity of Scores of a Measure of Belonging in Youth Development Programs. Educ Psychol Meas. 2002;62:857-76.
• Crocker PR, Bailey DA, Faulkner RA, Kowalski KC, McGrath R. Measuring general levels of physical activity: preliminary evidence for the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1997 Oct;29(10):1344-9. doi: 10.1097/00005768-199710000-00011.
• Bandura A. Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. Self-Effic Beliefs Adolesc. 2006;5.
• Bremer E, Graham JD, Veldhuizen S, Cairney J. A program evaluation of an in-school daily physical activity initiative for children and youth. BMC Public Health. 2018 Aug 16;18(1):1023. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5943-2.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 31, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): May 31, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 24, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 1, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): August 7, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 7, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 1, 2018
• Last Verified: August 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: intervention; education; psychosocial health; health policy
• Other Study ID Numbers: INCH_S2F

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No
• IPD Plan Description: No individual participant data will be shared with other researchers

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No