Physical Activity
Conditions
Brief summary
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.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALTexas I-CAN!
physically active, academic lessons in the elementary school classroom
Sponsors
University of Texas at Austin
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* students in 4th grade in a participating elementary school and their 4th grade teachers
Exclusion criteria
* none
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Physical activity level | one school week | time in moderate to vigorous physical activity |
| Time on task | change in time on task from baseline to 15 minutes post academic lesson | student attentional focus in the classroom 15 minutes prior to and 15 minutes post active lesson implemented in the classroom on one school day |
| Acute academic achievement | change in math and language arts scores from Baseline to 2 weeks | acute academic scores on math and language arts test developed by fourth grade teacher |
| Long-term math achievement | Change in math achievement scores from Baseline to 7 months | Academic scores on math sub tests (Calculation, Fluency) of the Woodcock Johnson III |
| Long-term language arts achievement | Change in language arts achievement from Baseline to 7 months | Academic scores on spelling sub test of the Woodcock Johnson III and comprehension section of Gates MacGinitie test |
Outcome results
None listed