Online SDT Informed Intervention Motivates Children to Exercise at Home: A RCT Study

The safest place to exercise during the pandemic is at home where students and their guardians are likely to spend most of their time. However, motivating children to exercise can be challenging. Self-determination Theory (SDT) advocates a motivational approach that prompts favourable outcomes by satisfying the three innate, essential, and universal psychological needs, namely autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Taken together, research grounded in SDT that encourages guardians to promote children’s PA level and motivation is limited. Therefore, this research aims to i) investigate the effectiveness of online daily workout for improving physical activity (PA) level at home among primary school-age children and ii) examine the underlying mechanisms behind the change of PA associated with SDT. A randomised controlled trial will be conducted. 290 guardian-children pairs will be recruited and allocated to four groups: i) given exercise choices, ii) coaching cues, iii) both choices and cues, and iv) nothing (waiting-list-control). Students’ PA level, sleep quality, physical fitness, motivation and basic psychological needs as well as guardians’ behaviour will be assessed before, immediately after, and eight weeks after the eight-week intervention so as to evaluate the immediate effect and sustainability of the intervention. The findings will provide evidence on the mechanism for online daily workout relating to basic psychological needs, which may ultimately improve PA level at home. The information will be valuable to schools’ emergency response to bad weather or any disruption in society.

Funding Source: RGC - Early Career Scheme (ECS)