Smartphone applications for physical activity promotion from physical education.

Smartphone applications (apps) are thought to be an adequate instructional strategy not only to improve the quality of the teaching in physical education (PE), but also to effectively promote leisure-time physical activity (PA) of adolescent students in this context. Although the use of smartphone apps has been generalized in PE, little is known about the curricular approach of smartphone apps to be implemented by teacher to teach specific curricular contents in PE lessons. Therefore, the aim of this research was threefold: a) to conduct a systematic search for smartphone apps focused on PA and sport; b) to assess the features, content and quality of every included smartphone app; and c) to analyze the relationships between every selected app and the secondary PE curriculum. Systematic searches were completed on Google Play Store from January 2021 to March 2021. Apps were included when they met: main goal focused on PA and sport; permitted use by underage; they are free; user scores of at least 4. The app selection process was carried out by several reviewers and concordance measures were estimated. Additionally, an app quality assessment was independently conducted by three reviewers. A total of 18 apps focused on PA were included. Particularly, eight apps were suitable for fitness, health and quality of life curricular content; two for sports content; four for body expression content; and four apps for outdoor PA content. The mean quality score was 4.00. Apps could be helpful for teachers to implement the secondary PE curriculum and effectively promote PA among adolescent students.

General intelligence was associated with academic achievement but not fitness in adolescents after one year.

AIM: This study investigated whether general intelligence could predict physical fitness and academic achievements one year later. METHODS: We recruited 129 Spanish adolescents (57.4% boys) with a mean age of 13.6 ± 0.7 years old from a convenience sample of a single public-funded school. The first step was to assess general intelligence during the 2015-2016 school year using the D48 nonverbal test. A year later, we collected data on fitness and academic achievements. Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured with the 20-m endurance shuttle run test, muscular strength with the standing long jump and flexibility with the sit and reach test. Academic achievement was measured using school grades. The findings were assessed using three models with different variables. RESULTS: One year later, general intelligence at baseline was marginally significantly associated with flexibility (p = 0.079) and mathematics (p = 0.084) in the first model, with mathematics (p = 0.029) and geography and history (p = 0.016) in the second model and with geography and history (p = 0.022) in the third model. All the analyses were controlled by age, sex, fitness and academic achievement. CONCLUSION: General intelligence may not predict fitness, but it may predict academic achievements in adolescents one year later. Further studies are needed to examine our findings.

Physical fitness predicts the academic achievement over one-school year follow-up period in adolescents.

The purposes of this study were to examine how fitness at the baseline could predict both academic achievement and academic achievement changes one school year in advance. A total of 194 adolescents (mean age: 14.15 ± 0.97 years old, 112 boys) who attended secondary school participated in our study. Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured with the 20 m endurance shuttle-run test. We also assessed the lower-limbs muscular strength with the standing long jump test and flexibility with the sit-and-reach test. The academic achievement was assessed by school grades. We performed linear regression analyses. Additionally, we examined the relationship between fitness and changes in the academic performance following the same statistical methodology. Cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with mathematics one school year in advance (p = 0.025). Cardiorespiratory fitness was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.005), mathematics (p = 0.023), and the grade point average (p = 0.006). Muscular strength was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.040) and mathematics (p = 0.010), while flexibility was associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.039) and the grade point average (0.027). Our results suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with academic achievement in adolescents.

Evaluation of a Proposal for Movement Integration in the Teaching-Learning Process in Early Childhood Education.

Physical activity is essential to child development, but studies show that children are increasingly inactive. Due to schools being considered privileged environments to promote physical activity, the aim of this study was to increase the physical activity performed by early childhood education children during the school day by integrating movement into academic content and analyze this process. The amount and intensity of physical activity performed by a group of 24 3-4-year-old children in three different weeks were measured by accelerometry: one week with the methodology they had been following (week 1); and two weeks in which movement was integrated into the content through a specific proposal (week 2) and the same improved proposal (week 3). The results reveal that the application of a movement integration program not only allowed students to work on academic content in a physically active way, but also significantly increased the amount of physical activity that children performed during the school day. However, it was necessary to carry out several interventions the same day, or make movement integration the reference methodology, to meet the minimum recommended physical activity levels. In addition, to increase their effectiveness, interventions should be continually reviewed and improved to increase the motor engagement time.

High School Physical Education Teachers' Perceptions of Blended Learning One Year after the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the educational landscape worldwide. One year after the disease outbreak, blended learning, which combines distance and face-to-face learning, became an alternative to fully online learning to address the demands of ensuring students' health and education. Physical education teachers faced an additional challenge, given the experiential nature of their subject, but research on teachers' perspectives is scarce. This study aims to explore high school physical education teachers' perceptions of the potential, advantages, and disadvantages of the blended learning model of instruction. An online survey was used to register the views of 174 Spanish high school physical education teachers (120 men and 54 women). The main findings revealed that physical education teachers considered that blended learning, compared with full face-to-face learning, implied a work overload, worsened social relationships, and did not help to increase students' motivation. Likewise, most teachers considered the physical activity performed by students during the blended learning period as being lower than usual. Furthermore, teachers reported that the students from lower-income families were the ones that experienced a lack of technological means the most. These results may guide both present and future policies and procedures for blended physical education. More research is needed to analyze the usefulness of blended learning in high school physical education.

Association of Physical Fitness with Intelligence and Academic Achievement in Adolescents.

Physical fitness, intelligence and academic achievement are being studied from a multidisciplinary perspective. In this line, studies to advance our understanding of intelligence and academic achievement could be relevant for designing school-based programs. Our study analyzed the relationship between components of physical fitness including cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength and flexibility and general intelligence and academic achievement in adolescents. We recruited 403 adolescents (53.6% boys) with a mean age of 13.7 ± 1.2 years from a secondary school in Spain with a medium socioeconomic status, during the 2015/2016 school year. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed by the 20-m shuttle run, muscular strength with the standing long jump test and flexibility with the sit-and-reach test. General intelligence was measured by both the D48 and the Raven tests. School grades were used to determine academic achievement. Linear regression analyses showed that cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with intelligence in both the D48 (all ß ≥ 0.184, p ≤ 0.016) and the Raven tests (all ß ≥ 0.183, p ≤ 0.024). Muscular strength, flexibility and overall fitness were not associated with intelligence (all ß ≤ 0.122, p ≥ 0.139). Cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength and flexibility were positively associated with academic achievement (all ß ≥ 0.089, p ≤ 0.038), except muscular strength, which was not significantly associated with Spanish language or mathematics, (all ß ≤ 0.050, p ≥ 0.200). Overall, cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with intelligence and academic achievement.