Assessing Impact of Active Learning on Student Outcomes: Texas Initiatives for Children's Activity and Nutrition (ICAN)

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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Background: Active learning is designed to pair physical activity with the teaching of academic content. This has been shown to be a successful strategy to increase physical activity and improve academic performance. The existing designs have confounded academic lessons with physical activity. As a result, it is impossible to determine if the subsequent improvement in academic performance is due to: (1) physical activity, (2) the academic content of the active learning, or (3) the combination of academic material taught through physical activity. Methods / Design: The Texas I-CAN project is a 3-arm, cluster randomized control trial in which 28 elementary schools were assigned to either control, math intervention, or spelling intervention. As a result, each intervention condition serves as an unrelated content control for the other arm of the trial, allowing the impact of physical activity to be separated from the content. That is, schools that perform only active math lessons provide a content control for the spelling schools on spelling outcomes. This also calculated direct observations of attention and behavior control following periods of active learning. Discussion: This design is unique in its ability to separate the impact of physical activity, in general, from the combination of physical activity and specific academic content. This, in combination with the ability to examine both proximal and distal outcomes along with measures of time on task will do much to guide the design of future, school-based interventions.

Official Title
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A Cluster Randomized Control Trial to Assess the Impact of Active Learning on Child Activity, Attention Control, and Academic Outcomes: The Texas I-CAN Trial

Conditions
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Physical Activity

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Texas I-CAN!


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: students in 4th grade in a participating elementary school and their 4th grade teachers Exclusion Criteria: none
Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Other
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Texas I-CAN Active Math Lessons<br>Texas I-CAN Active math lesson in academic classroom | Behavioral: Texas I-CAN!<br>* physically active, academic lessons in the elementary school classroom<br>|
| Experimental: Texas I-CAN Active Language Arts Lessons<br>Texas I-CAN Active language arts lessons in academic classroom | Behavioral: Texas I-CAN!<br>* physically active, academic lessons in the elementary school classroom<br>|
| No Intervention: Control<br>Regular, Sedentary academic lessons in math and language arts | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Physical activity level | time in moderate to vigorous physical activity | one school week | 
| Time on task | student attentional focus in the classroom 15 minutes prior to and 15 minutes post active lesson implemented in the classroom on one school day | change in time on task from baseline to 15 minutes post academic lesson | 
| Acute academic achievement | acute academic scores on math and language arts test developed by fourth grade teacher | change in math and language arts scores from Baseline to 2 weeks | 
| Long-term math achievement | Academic scores on math sub tests (Calculation, Fluency) of the Woodcock Johnson III | Change in math achievement scores from Baseline to 7 months | 
| Long-term language arts achievement | Academic scores on spelling sub test of the Woodcock Johnson III and comprehension section of Gates MacGinitie test | Change in language arts achievement from Baseline to 7 months |