The Role of the Teacher in the Implementation of a School-Based Intervention on the Physical Activity Practice of Children

Tegwen Gadais, Theo Caron, Marie-Belle Ayoub, Antony Karelis and Luc Nadeau
Additional contact information
Tegwen Gadais: Department of Physical Activity Sciences, University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada
Theo Caron: Faculté des Sports et de l’EP, Université d’Artois, 62800 Liévin, France
Marie-Belle Ayoub: Department of Physical Activity Sciences, University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada
Antony Karelis: Department of Physical Activity Sciences, University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada
Luc Nadeau: Department of Physical Education, Laval University, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Medium- or long-term intervention strategies for physical activity practice (PAP) need to be more effective in terms of their implementation by practitioners. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of a teacher to implement the Team Pentathlon (TP) in order to improve the PAP in primary children. TP is a health education program made to improve PAP of children through individual and collective achievements. In this study, 203 children (age: 10–13 years) in grades 5 and 6 (intervention group (IG) N = 104, control group (CG) N = 99) were guided to increase their PAP during an eight-week period by five elementary school teachers (physical education or classroom) who had received four training sessions. Levels of PAP (self-reported) were compared between groups (IG/CG), sex, socioeconomic status of the schools and between teachers: baseline and during TP. Several teachers noted significant increases in PAP in the IG for both boys and girls ( p ≤ 0.05 or p < 0.01), whereas others found only small improvements in PAP. One teacher even observed higher PAP in the CG. Training session records revealed that the teacher himself, how the TP is implemented, and proper resources were the three elements that explained the successful implementation of the TP program. The implementation of the TP significantly increased the PAP in primary children. Training sessions helped teachers to implement the TP program but personal engagement, motivation, respecting protocol, and an adequate environment are also necessary in improving the PAP of children.

Keywords: physical activity; team pentathlon; sedentary youth; intervention strategy; program implementation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7344/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7344/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:19:p:7344-:d:424944

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().