Physical Activity Routines, Education, Assessment, Literacy, and Information Technology Application in Young Children

NCT06742294 | Active Not Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: R4024-21F
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 435
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Engaging in appropriate volumes of physical activity is important to our current and future health status. Being able to develop habits for physical activity during early years of life may have long lasting benefits throughout individuals' life course. For preschool-aged children, the World Health Organization recommends engagement in a range of activity of varying intensities (from light to vigorous intensities) for 180 minutes every day. However, one local study conducted by the Principal Investigator found that only 12.8% of children from Hong Kong met these recommendations. One key contributing factor to physical activity is one's fundamental movement skills (FMS), such as running, jumping, throwing, and kicking. FMS are considered the prerequisites or "building blocks" of many physical activities and sports. In addition to supporting an active lifestyle, researchers have shown that proficiencies in these skills are associated with better cardiovascular fitness and healthier weight statuses. Building children's fundamental movement skills proficiency from a young age is thus important. "Physical Development" is a development objective under the Hong Kong Kindergarten Education Curriculum. Hence all local preschools provide some form of education to develop children's FMS. However, most preschool teachers have not received formal training in physical education, and standardized curricula in the physical domain is currently unavailable. As such, preschool teachers' ability to instruct and assess children's development in these skills may be limited and suboptimal. Parents are significant influencers in children's development, therefore appropriate support from parents also contribute to the potential successes of the programme. In this study, we aim to address the aforementioned challenges by (1) providing preschool teachers professional development training in pedagogical knowledge and methods in the physical domain, (2) creating a set of teaching materials (in printed and digital formats) and methods that could be incorporated into the overall and preschool-based curricula, (3) creating a parental toolkit with contents mirroring the school materials, to enhance parents' knowledge and promote family-school collaboration, and (4) developing a smartphone-based artificial intelligence rating system to help preschool teachers conveniently and accurately assess children's motor skills, and provide appropriate instructional feedback.

Conditions

Intervention; Wait-List Control; Healthy

Keywords

fundamental movement skills; teacher professional development; RCT

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (6)

• moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA)

  ActiGraph GT3X+

  baseline

• moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA)

  ActiGraph GT3X+

  8 to 10 months after baseline (post-test)

• moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA)

  ActiGraph GT3X+

  two years after baseline (follow-up)

• fundamental movement skills performance

  fundamental movement skills (using the developed assessment tool) of preschool children assessed based on TGMD-3

  baseline

• fundamental movement skills performance

  fundamental movement skills (using the developed assessment tool) of preschool children assessed based on TGMD-3

  8 to 10 months after baseline (post-test)

• fundamental movement skills performance

  fundamental movement skills (using the developed assessment tool) of preschool children assessed based on TGMD-3

  two-year after baseline (follow-up)

Secondary Outcomes (21)

• parent-child co-PA

  baseline

• parent-child co-PA

  8 to 10 months after baseline (post-test)

• parent-child co-PA

  two-year after baseline (follow-up)

• parents' PA

  baseline

• parents' PA

  8 to 10 months after baseline (post-test)

Study Arms (2)

Movement Education

EXPERIMENTAL

Schools allocated to the intervention group will receive interventions including teacher professional development and support, smartphone FMS rating system, teacher training materials, parent materials

Behavioral: Movement education

Wait-list control group

OTHER

The wait-list control group will receive the same intervention after post-test

Behavioral: Movement education

Interventions

Movement education BEHAVIORAL

(1) providing preschool teachers professional development training in pedagogical knowledge and methods in the physical domain, (2) creating a set of teaching materials (in printed and digital formats) and methods that could be incorporated into the overall and preschool-based curricula, (3) creating a parental toolkit with contents mirroring the school materials, to enhance parents' knowledge and promote family-school collaboration, and (4) developing a smartphone-based artificial intelligence rating system to help preschool teachers conveniently and accurately assess children's motor skills, and provide appropriate instructional feedback.

Movement Education; Wait-list control group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 3 Years - 6 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• preschool children aged 3-6 with no history of neurological, psychiatric or physical illness

You may not qualify if:

• \- preschool children aged 3-6 with with physical illness

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Chinese University of Hong Kong: lead
• University of Wollongong: collaborator
• University of British Columbia: collaborator
• Research Grants Council, Hong Kong: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Location

Study Officials

• Amy S. Ha, Ph.D

  Chinese University of Hong Kong

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: December 16, 2024
• First Posted: December 19, 2024
• Study Start: May 1, 2022
• Primary Completion: July 1, 2025
• Study Completion: July 1, 2025
• Last Updated: May 14, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-05

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

HK (1)