The effects of technology supported brain breaks on physical activity in school children

The aim of the study was to examine the effects of technology supported brain breaks on attitudes towards, beliefs, self-efficacy, self-confidence and motivation on the physical activity of school children in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. The participants for this study included 300 elementary school students from two public schools, grades 3 to 5, consisting of 193 (64 %) in an experimental group and 107 (36 %) in a control group (Mage = 9.55 years, SD = .98 years). There were 139 (46 %) males and 161 (54 %) females among the participants. Convenience sampling was used in this study. The »Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale (APAS)«, (Mok et al., 2015) was used as pre-test and post-test to measure the attitudes, beliefs, self-efficacy, self-confidence and motivation toward physical activity. The experimental group received the Brain Breaks® Physical Activity Solutions as an intervention for the duration of four months during each school day in three to five minute segments at various intervals. In this current study, the exploratory factor analysis revealed a six factor solution – self-efficacy in learning with video exercises, exercise motivation and enjoyment, self-confidence on physical fitness, promoting the holistic health, importance of exercise habit, trying to do personal best – explaining 48.7 % of the variance with 51 items on being physically active. Internal consistency coefficients of each factor ranged from 0.93 to 0.71. The results indicated significant changes in measured APAS between the time points in the experimental and differences in the changes between the experimental and the control group. As a conclusion, we may say that technology supported brain breaks have a positive impact on promoting physical activity in school children. Copyright © 2017 Waxmann Verlag GMBH.