Title: Physical Activity and Wellbeing in Schools
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: It is estimated that about one in ten school-aged children suffer from problems such as anxiety, depression and conduct disorders. National attempts to impact on this problem have not so far met with great success. One important factor in psychological wellbeing appears to be regular physical exercise and there is concern that inactive lifestyles are undermining their mental health. This problem is the focus of this proposal. To be successful, interventions must change behaviour and the importance of utilising powerful peer relationships whilst drawing upon a broad range of social influences in young people's local communities is now widely recognised. Psychological research has shown that offering commitment in front of others is a particularly powerful mechanism for sustaining a course of action. The proposed interventions build on such ideas. Proposed work One of the most promising pathways to improving mental health is to increase levels of physical activity and there is an impressive body of work suggesting a positive impact on self-esteem, cognitive function, stress and anxiety. We propose two school-based interventions linked to the secondary school curriculum. The research will involve a multi-site clustered factorial randomised control trial with 60 schools allocated to one of the interventions or both or to a control group which receives a delayed intervention. The first approach, the 'participative learning' strategy, will be situated in Geography lessons; the second the 'personal coach' strategy, will feature in Physical Education classes. Both employ collaborative work linked to ways of capturing data about children's physical activity. Physical activity monitors (accelerometers) will be used for both approaches and, for the participative learning strategy only, Geographical Positioning receivers will be used to track children's locations during and outside school time. In the Geography lessons, students will be encouraged to work together to gain a greater self-understanding of their environment. This activity will be informed by the data about their movements during the day. This will allow individuals and groups to explore their own levels of physical activity and those of others. Technological equipment will be used to encourage discussion about the data; the students will come to understand their environment in more sophisticated ways. The Physical Education lessons will employ the powerful cross-age peer tutoring paradigm in which older children teach younger children. Research has shown that both tutors and tutees gain greater knowledge and understanding. Agreeing upon and regularly reviewing personal targets for increased physical activity are key to the intervention. The primary research questions are: * What impact do these school-based interventions have separately and together on students' levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity? * What impact do the interventions have separately and together on students' mental health? The secondary research questions are: * Are the interventions effective in improving students' knowledge, motivation and sense of efficacy? (And why?) * Do the interventions provide a useful adjunct to teaching resources from the teachers' point of view? (And how?) * To what extent do the interventions improve social interactions amongst the participants? * To what extent do the interventions increase the time spent in meaningful physical activity outdoors? (And how are these related to context?) Benefits If this ambitious project is successful, the pay-off is enormous in terms of improving the lives of many children and the wellbeing of families and communities. Identifying effective approaches will enable resources to be targeted cost-effectively. U.K. children have been identified as having some of Europe's greatest mental health problems and large-scale interventions that involve and engage young people would appear to be essential.


Research activity codes: 3.1 PRIMARY PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS TO MODIFY BEHAVIOURS OR PROMOTE WELL-BEING
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH