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Feasibility and Effectiveness of a Wearable Technology-Based Physical Activity Intervention in Preschoolers: A Pilot Study Byun, Wonwoo; Lau, Erica; Brusseau, Timothy A.

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and the effectiveness of an intervention that employed a technology-based physical activity (PA) monitoring system and teacher-regulated strategies to promote PA in preschoolers. A total of 93 preschoolers (53% girls, 4.7 years) from 5 child care centers were recruited for a one-week intervention and randomly assigned into control (2 centers, n = 45) or intervention (3 centers, n = 48) group. Key intervention components included: (1) wearable device-based, real-time monitoring of children’s PA by classroom teachers and (2) teacher-regulated strategies for providing more opportunities for PA. Sedentary behavior (SED) and PA were measured using accelerometers. Overall, children in the intervention group showed significantly lower level of SED (31.6 vs. 33.6 min/h) and higher level of total PA (28.4 vs. 26.4 min/h) than children in the control group, after adjusting for age, sex, race, parent education level, parent perception of their child’s PA, BMI, and childcare centers. Teachers in the intervention group reported that the intervention was highly feasible to be implemented in their current classroom settings. In conclusion, we observed high acceptability and initial effectiveness of the current intervention. Subsequent research at larger-scale is warranted to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention strategies tested in this study.

Item Metadata

Title
Feasibility and Effectiveness of a Wearable Technology-Based Physical Activity Intervention in Preschoolers: A Pilot Study
Creator
Byun, Wonwoo; Lau, Erica; Brusseau, Timothy A.
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Date Issued
2018-08-23
Description
The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and the effectiveness of an intervention that employed a technology-based physical activity (PA) monitoring system and teacher-regulated strategies to promote PA in preschoolers. A total of 93 preschoolers (53% girls, 4.7 years) from 5 child care centers were recruited for a one-week intervention and randomly assigned into control (2 centers, n = 45) or intervention (3 centers, n = 48) group. Key intervention components included: (1) wearable device-based, real-time monitoring of children’s PA by classroom teachers and (2) teacher-regulated strategies for providing more opportunities for PA. Sedentary behavior (SED) and PA were measured using accelerometers. Overall, children in the intervention group showed significantly lower level of SED (31.6 vs. 33.6 min/h) and higher level of total PA (28.4 vs. 26.4 min/h) than children in the control group, after adjusting for age, sex, race, parent education level, parent perception of their child’s PA, BMI, and childcare centers. Teachers in the intervention group reported that the intervention was highly feasible to be implemented in their current classroom settings. In conclusion, we observed high acceptability and initial effectiveness of the current intervention. Subsequent research at larger-scale is warranted to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention strategies tested in this study.
Subject
Physical activity; Sedentary behavior; Intervention; Social ecological model; Preschool
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2019-06-21
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
CC BY 4.0
DOI
10.14288/1.0379528
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/70734
Affiliation
Education, Faculty of; Non UBC; Kinesiology, School of
Citation
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 15 (9): 1821 (2018)
Publisher DOI
10.3390/ijerph15091821
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Rights URI
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

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CC BY 4.0