Situational Interest within the Reciprocal Teaching Style: Roles of Dyad Composition and Students' Personal Variables.

Purpose: Based on person-context interaction, situational interest (SI) has been used to interpret students' motivation in task engagement. Through two consecutive studies, the purpose of this research was to investigate the roles of forms of dyads (self-selected vs. ability), feelings of relatedness and perceived competence in eliciting students' SI within the reciprocal teaching style. Method: The first study examined the role of dyad composition to determine how to group students to elicit high SI (self selected vs. ability dyads) and compared self-selected and ability dyads using repeated-measures of students' SI, perceived competence and feelings of relatedness, with 99 students in a PE unit. Based on the results of this first study, demonstrating the benefits of the self-selected dyads, the second study aimed to investigate the role of feelings of relatedness and perceived competence in eliciting students' SI within football (99 students) and gymnastics units (109 students) using MANOVAs and a cluster approach. Results: The first study's results showed higher scores for SI, perceived competence and feelings of relatedness in favor of self-selected dyads compared to ability dyads. In the second study within self-selected dyads, the results showed a small effect of perceived competence and a stronger effect of feelings of relatedness on SI. Conclusion: To elicit students' SI within the reciprocal teaching style, teachers should favor self-selected dyads. This paper highlights the importance of designing contexts where students can develop good peer relationships to increase SI. The implementation of self-selected grouping in PE is interesting since it is less time-consuming than other grouping strategies.

Participation and physical activity in organized recess tied to physical education in elementary schools: An interventional study.

Maintaining physical activity habits is important for long-term health benefits. Many children do not achieve the World Health Organization (WHO) benchmark of 60 min Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA) daily. Comprehensive school physical activity programs (CSPAP) target all opportunities at school for children to be physically active. The purpose of this intervention study was to investigate boys' and girls' voluntary participation and MVPA in physical activity recess sessions during and after these were connected with the content of physical education. 147 (55 girls, 92 boys; mean age = 8 years) second grade children from seven different schools received a 10-lesson parkour unit in physical education and were concurrently offered five parkour recess sessions. After the parkour unit in physical education (i.e., maintenance) another five parkour sessions in which children could voluntarily participate were organized. Systematic observation tools were used to assess children's MVPA. Overall participation in parkour recess was 64% for both boys and girls. Participation decreased from intervention to maintenance phase for both boys (75% vs 54%; p < .001) and girls (80% vs 49%; p < .001). MVPA was higher for boys compared to girls in parkour recess (64% vs 58%; p = .002) and traditional recess (49% vs 39%; p = .006), but not in physical education (40% vs 37%). One aspect of physical activity promotion is to connect recess activities with the content taught in physical education, which could contribute up to 20% of the daily recommended MVPA. Positive effects maintained when the connection between physical education and recess stopped.

Matching Learning Tasks With Students' Conative Stages in Badminton: Effects on Situational Interest.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which matching three learning tasks with students' conative stages in badminton can increase their situational interest. Method: Ninety-seven secondary school students (Mage = 13.0, SD = 1.4, 50.5% girls, aged 11-16) practiced three learning tasks in badminton, designed to reflect the game intentions associated with their conative stages. They responded to the 15-item situational interest scale after practicing each of the three learning tasks. Results: According to the differences related to the SI dimensions scores between the learning tasks, matching the design of three learning tasks with the students' game intentions results in higher scores in the SI dimensions. Conclusion: Using the conative stages to characterize students' expertise levels in badminton, this study fine-tunes the connection between the students and the learning tasks by exceeding the common criterion related to the students' technical skills. This study also confirms that instant enjoyment, exploration intention, attention demand, and challenge were key dimensions underlying students' motivation in badminton in relation to its technical, tactical and physical components.

Situational interest impacts college students' physical activity in a design-based bike exergame.

BACKGROUND: Active videogames or exergames have been used as an innovative way to promote physical activity (PA) among various populations. A player's interest in active videogames is associated with the fun and entertaining nature of the games and may trigger situational interest, thus increasing engagement. The goal of this study was to examine the impact of situational interest dimensions on college students' PA when playing the design-based bike exergame Greedy Rabbit (Vescape, Berlin, Germany). METHODS: Sixty undergraduate students (age: 20.8 ± 1.3 years, mean ± SD, 18-25 years old; 51.7% males) were recruited from the kinesiology department of a university located in the southern region of Belgium. The participants were assigned to an experimental group (n = 41) or a control group (n = 19) based on an incremental cycling test. Students in the experimental group engaged in 1 session of Greedy Rabbit (Vescape) while students in the control group engaged in 1 session of a placebo version of Greedy Rabbit (Vescape). The length of the sessions ranged from 24 min to 31 min. RESULTS: Results for the control group indicated that the players' PA metrics (cadence: F(19, 360) = 1.43, p = 0.11; heart rate: F(19, 360) = 1.16, p = 0.29; oxygen consumption: F(19, 360) = 0.83, p = 0.67) were stable during the exergame. Results for the experimental group demonstrated the effects of time on the players' PA metrics and revealed significant associations between the change in the players' situational interest dimensions and PA metrics (cadence: F(19, 800) = 26.30, p < 0.01; heart rate: F(19, 800) = 19.77, p < 0.01; oxygen consumption: F(19, 800) = 10.04, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: An approach using a design-based exergame may be a relevant strategy for promoting levels of PA that yields positive health-related outcomes among college students.

Students' individual interest in physical education: Development and validation of a questionnaire.

Identifying the specificity of students' individual interest in physical education is necessary to capture the different facets of this construct. In contrast to existing questionnaires in education which assess the multidimensionality of individual interest, the current scale used in physical education consists of a single-item measurement which rates students' individual interest for multiple physical activities taught during lessons. Even if this single-item rating provides a basis for classifying interest relative to others, it does not provide information about the nature and internal components of individual interest. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable questionnaire measuring the multidimensionality of students' individual interest in physical education. Four stages were followed: (1) the development of a preliminary version based on the findings of a literature review on individual interest and a committee process validation; (2) a first study conducted on 481 secondary school students to establish the factor structure, and internal reliability of this questionnaire; (3) a second study based on 243 secondary school students to confirm its factor structure and to test its temporal stability; and finally, (4) a third study with 253 students to test its concurrent validity. The final form of the questionnaire consists of a three-factor structure based on 14 items that measure students' individual interest in physical education: positive affect and willingness to reengage (five items), stored utility value (four items), and stored attainment value and knowledge-seeking intentions (five items).

Impact of a Design-Based Bike Exergame on Young Adults' Physical Activity Metrics and Situational Interest.

Purpose: Despite the benefits of commercial exergames, in the practical application, players might not be spending sufficient time in physical activity levels compatible with health outcomes. We adopted a design-based exergame approach to build a bike exergame called Greedy Rabbit. The purpose of this study was to identify the impact of Greedy Rabbit on players' physical activity metrics and situational interest. Method: Sixty undergraduate students were assigned to two groups: an experimental group playing Greedy Rabbit (N = 41) and a control group playing a placebo version of Greedy Rabbit (N = 19). The physical activity metrics measured were maximum oxygen consumption, heart rate and cadence. Results: The experimental group reported higher scores for all physical activity metrics and for two dimensions of situational interest (instant enjoyment and attention demand). Furthermore, the physical activity metrics increased more during the exergame for the experimental group, reaching the standard guidelines for vigorous physical activity. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that a design-based bike exergame might be a good option to enhance players' health-related physical activity outcomes and situational interest.

Universality and Uniqueness of Students' Situational Interest in Physical Education: A Comparative Study.

Situational interest (SI) has been conceptualized in physical education (PE) as a multidimensional construct including five dimensions: instant enjoyment, exploration intention, attention demand, novelty and challenge. Consistent with Ding, Sun and Chen (2013), who argued for the need 'to develop cross-culture models to examine the universality of the motivation constructs', the purpose of this study was to investigate the universality and uniqueness of students' SI by comparing three French-speaking PE contexts. Participants were 1812 secondary school students from Belgium, France, and Switzerland. They responded to the French 15-item SI scale and the Total Interest scale (Roure, Pasco & Kermarrec, 2016) after practicing learning tasks in regular PE lessons. The relationships between the SI dimensions and total interest were compared between the three samples using correlation and regression analyses. A multivariate analysis of variance was also used to compare SI scores between the contexts. The results revealed that instant enjoyment and exploration intention were the two major motivating dimensions, highlighting the universality of students' SI, whereas challenge and novelty revealed the uniqueness of this construct explored.

The effects of a bike active video game on players' physical activity and motivation.

BACKGROUND: Players may not acquire adequate levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) when playing commercial video games. This study's goal was to evaluate the effects of an exercise bike video game played by using a mobile application-based exergame that was designed exclusively to promote participants' MVPA, with additional attention paid to this game's ability to promote greater situational interest. METHODS: An experimental design was used with 163 students (aged 20.31 ± 1.30, 18-26 years, 61.3% male), all of whom were randomly allocated into an experimental group and a control group. Physical activity (PA) levels were assessed with ActiGraph GT3X+ (ActiGraph Inc., Fort Walton Beach, FL, USA) accelerometers. The situational interest scale was used to evaluate students' situational interest in both groups. Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine the differences between sedentary behavior, PA levels, and situational interest between groups. Regression analyses were also used, with the purpose being to evaluate the strength of the relationship between PA and situational interest. RESULTS: Results revealed that the experimental group had higher degrees of sedentary behavior, light PA, total interest, instant enjoyment, exploration intention, attention demand, novelty, and challenge, whereas the control group received higher scores for MVPA (control 95.01% vs. experimental group 89.94%). Regression analysis indicated that instant enjoyment (ß = 0.49, p < 0.01), exploration intention (ß = 0.18, p < 0.05), and attention demand (ß = 0.17, p < 0.05) were positive predictors for total interest, explaining 43% of its variance. CONCLUSION: A newly designed mobile application-based exergame played via an exercise bike may enhance situational interest and provide a decent level of PA for players.