The Expansion of a Parent-focused Physical Literacy Intervention for Early Childhood Called PLAYshop

The PLAYshop program is a novel, brief, theory-based, parent-focused physical literacy intervention, that can help mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity of children from diverse and vulnerable families who have been disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Primary Research Question: Among vulnerable families (e.g., lower socioeconomic status), does the PLAYshop program increase parental capability, opportunity, and motivation to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development, compared to controls?

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Parent-Child Relations; Child Development; Motor Activity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: PLAYshop Program

Detailed Description

The overall objective of this study is to generate evidence for the efficacy of the PLAYshop program in diverse and vulnerable populations, such as families of lower socioeconomic status, who have been disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Research Questions:

Primary: Among vulnerable families (e.g., lower socioeconomic status), does the PLAYshop program increase parental capability, opportunity, and motivation to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development, compared to controls? Secondary: What is the level of, and factors that influence, implementation at the family and program delivery level when working with vulnerable families? Tertiary: Does the PLAYshop program increase preschool-aged children's motivation and enjoyment, compared to controls?

Hypothesis for the primary research question: Increases in parental outcomes, including capability, opportunity, and motivation, will be greater in the intervention group, compared to the control group.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 32
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Alberta
    • Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2H9
      • Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 3 years to 5 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Parents of children aged 3 to 5 years who live in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and meet at least one of the following criteria:

   • Statistics Canada's low income before tax cut-off based on household size and the population of the municipality they live in
   • have an education level below a bachelor's degree (participating parent)
   • are unemployed (participating parent)
   • are a single adult in their household
   • are connected with an agency partner that supports vulnerable populations
2. Research staff and any organization partners who lead the workshop

Exclusion Criteria:

1) Parents:

• who do not have internet access to complete the questionnaires and join the virtual workshop. This includes access to a device such as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop/computer and a data plan or WIFI.
• who are not comfortable reading, writing, speaking and listening to at least one the following languages: English, Spanish, Farsi, Mandarin (Simplified Chinese), or Cantonese (Traditional Chinese).
• that have participated in prior PLAYshop pilot and feasibility trials

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

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: PLAYshop Intervention; Participants will receive a 60 minute virtual/hybrid physical literacy workshop, an equipment goody-bag with basic play equipment and printed resources, and access to a digital app with an online toolkit and four bi-weekly boosters lessons.	Behavioral: PLAYshop Program; The intervention includes: 1. Educational Training - the 60 min virtual/hybrid workshop will be delivered by a trained facilitator. Parents will be introduced to physical literacy via education, group discussion, and active participation in fundamental movement skills (FMS) based activities with their child. 2. Distribution of Education Resources- Parents will be provided with physical literacy and physical activity printed resources. 3. Material resources -parents will also be provided a bag of inexpensive active play equipment (e.g., ball, bean bag, balloons). 4. Provide Follow-up Support- After the workshop, participants will gain access to an app with an online toolkit including new active play ideas, tips, and equipment they can make at home for active play. Additionally, participants will receive four bi-weekly booster lessons that include key workshop messages, support and encouragement for parents, reflection and check-in questions, and new activities to try with their child.
No Intervention: Control; Participants will receive the 60 minute virtual/hybrid physical literacy workshop, equipment goody-bag, and access to the digital app after completing the follow-up measures.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in parents' capability to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development	Parental capability (i.e., knowledge), will be assessed via a parental questionnaire. This scale includes 9 items with values of 1-5; higher values mean more capability.	Baseline (all), immediately after workshop (intervention), one week after baseline (control)
Change in parents' opportunity to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development	Parental opportunity (e.g., perceived availability of resources (1 item), perceived barriers (5 items)) will be assessed via a parental questionnaire. Items have values of 1-5; higher values mean less parental opportunity. Citation for perceived barriers: Heitzler et al., 2006	Baseline (all), immediately after workshop (intervention), one week after baseline (control)
Change in parents' motivation to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development	Parental motivation (i.e., confidence (11 items), beliefs (4 items), outcome expectations (3 items), intentions (2 items), perceived behavioural control (4 items)) will be assessed via a parental questionnaire. Citation for beliefs and outcome expectations: Heitzler et al., 2006. Items have values of 1-5; higher values mean more parental motivation.	Baseline (all), immediately after workshop (intervention), one week after baseline (control)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Implementation: satisfaction and perceived usefulness (questionnaire)	Satisfaction and perceived usefulness of the intervention will be assessed via a parental questionnaire in the intervention group only. This scale includes 3 items with values of 1-5; higher values mean more satisfaction and perceived usefulness.	Intervention group: Immediately after the workshop
Implementation: satisfaction and perceived usefulness (parental interview)	Satisfaction and perceived usefulness of the intervention will also be explored via brief semi-structured interviews with parents from the intervention group.	Intervention group: 2-month follow-up
Implementation: facilitators and barriers (parental interview)	Implementation facilitators and barriers will be explored via brief semi-structured interviews with parents from the intervention group.	Intervention group: 2-month follow-up
Implementation: facilitators and barriers (workshop leader interview)	Implementation facilitators and barriers will be explored via brief semi-structured interviews with workshop leaders.	At study completion, approximately 1 year from first workshop.
Implementation: dose (parental interview)	The dose of the intervention will be explored via brief semi-structured interviews with parents from the intervention group.	Intervention group: 2-month follow-up
Implementation: dose (app check-in questions)	The dose of the intervention will be assessed via check-in questions as part of the booster lessons in the intervention group.	Intervention group: Bi-weekly after workshop (i.e., 1, 3, 5, and 7 weeks)
Implementation: dose (app usage data)	The dose of the intervention will be assessed via tracking of app usage in the intervention group.	Intervention group: 2-month follow-up

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in children's motivation and enjoyment	Children's motivation and enjoyment will be assessed via a parental questionnaire that includes items from the Preschool Physical Literacy Assessment (Pre PLAy). This scale includes 4 items with values of 1-5; higher values mean more motivation and enjoyment. Citation: Cairney et al. (2018)	Baseline (all), immediately after workshop (intervention), one week after baseline (control)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Alberta
• Collaborators: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR); University of Victoria
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Patti-Jean Naylor, PhD, University of Victoria; Principal Investigator: Valerie Carson, PhD, University of Alberta; Principal Investigator: Sam Liu, PhD, University of Victoria; Principal Investigator: Ryan Rhodes, PhD, University of Victoria

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Heitzler CD, Martin SL, Duke J, Huhman M. Correlates of physical activity in a national sample of children aged 9-13 years. Prev Med. 2006 Apr;42(4):254-60. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2006.01.010. Epub 2006 Feb 20.
• Cairney J, Clark HJ, James ME, Mitchell D, Dudley DA, Kriellaars D. The Preschool Physical Literacy Assessment Tool: Testing a New Physical Literacy Tool for the Early Years. Front Pediatr. 2018 Jun 7;6:138. doi: 10.3389/fped.2018.00138. eCollection 2018.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 18, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): February 6, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 30, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 23, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 23, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): June 29, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 28, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 27, 2024
• Last Verified: March 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Questionnaires; Semi-structured Interviews
• Other Study ID Numbers: PLAYshop Expansion

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: To protect participant's personal data, IPD will not be shared with researchers outside of the research team.

Drug and device information, study documents

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