Effects of the Inclusion of Physical Activity in Secondary School Academic Classes: the ACTIVE CLASS Study

University of Extremadura

Status: Completed

Conditions: Physical Fitness; Adolescents; Physical Activity; Cognition

Treatments: Behavioral: Active breaks; Behavioral: Physically active learning

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05891054

PID2019-104023RA-I00

Details and patient eligibility

About

Study based on the inclusion of physical activity in the secondary education classroom through active breaks and physically active learning, aimed at testing its effects on the improvement of physical activity levels, sedentary time, educational indicators, cognition and physical and psychological health markers.

Full description

The ACTIVE CLASS is a randomized controlled study coordinated by fully qualified researchers in the physical activity and sport sciences from two universities [University of Cadiz (UCA) and University of Extremadura (UEX), Spain]. This study is aimed at 7th and 8th grade students (11-13 years old), belonging to 6 schools in Spain (3 schools in Cadiz and 3 schools in Caceres). One school from each study region will be randomly assigned to one of the three intervention groups:

(i) Active breaks intervention: there will be 2 active breaks per day, 5 days a week of moderate-vigorous physical activity with a duration of 5 minutes.

(ii) Physically active learning intervention: Once a week, moderate-vigorous physical activity will be included in the academic lessons of the mathematics subject.

(iii) Control group.

The interventions will have a duration of 16 weeks. The different outcome measures (physical activity and sedentary behavior, health-related physical fitness, psychological health, academic indicators, cognition, motivational variables, dietary patterns, sociodemographic characteristics and qualitative information) will be evaluated at 3 time points:

1. Pre-intervention
2. Post-intervention
3. Retention measure (this measure will be conducted four weeks after the intervention to analyze the sustainability of the intervention program)

All measures will be assessed at each time point with the exception of qualitative information which will be assessed only in the post-intervention measure.

At the end of the intervention the researchers will determine the changes of the main outcome variables. Likewise, the main hypotheses raised will be:

1. A physically active learning intervention and active breaks will result in improved physical activity levels and decreased sedentary time.
2. A physically active learning intervention and active breaks will produce improvements in markers of physical and psychological health.
3. The inclusion of physical activity in academic classes will result in improved academic indicators and cognitive markers.
4. A physically active learning intervention and active breaks will produce improvements on motivational variables in academic classes.

Enrollment: 292 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 11 to 14 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Adolescents who are studying 7th or 8th grade
• Adolescents with the informed consent signed by family/tutor
• Schools with at least 60 students enrolled in 7th and/or 8th grade
• Schools belonging to the regions of Cáceres and Cádiz

Exclusion criteria

• Adolescents who have a physical disability or health condition that could limit physical activity levels
• Schools participating in any other physical activity or health promotion program

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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292 participants in 3 patient groups

Active breaks

Experimental group

Description:

Active breaks consist of short breaks during academic classes other than physical education that include moderate to vigorous physical activity, usually unrelated to curricular content. In this type of intervention, 2 active breaks are taken daily in a predetermined time slot. The development of each break is done through access to a specific digital platform where students follow the instructions of an avatar, which is in charge of guiding the realization of the active break. Each active rest involves a total of 4 minutes of activity, in which two sets of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest of four different exercises are performed, ending with a brief return to calm consisting of two deep breaths. The activities selected for each of the active breaks include aerobic and strengthening activities of moderate and vigorous intensity.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Active breaks

Physically active learning

Experimental group

Description:

Physically active learning consists of the incorporation of physical activity (usually of moderate-vigorous intensity) into the educational content taught in academic lessons that do not refer to physical education. This type of intervention is carried out once a week for 1 hour outside the classroom, where physical activity (through movement, jumping, strengthening exercises, throwing, etc.) is incorporated into academic mathematics classes. The mathematics teachers (with the support of the research team) are in charge of teaching the physically active classes. Prior to the development of each class, the research team, together with the mathematics teachers involved, meet and design the class according to the contents to be addressed.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Physically active learning

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group will receive the usual academic classes without any methodological modification during the intervention period.