Method: A total of 85 fourth grade children (48 boys, 47 girls; 93% of minority) from three classes at an urban underserved elementary school participated in the exergaming activities. They participated in the 50 minute weekly exergaming program at school for 6 weeks. Children’s academic effort was assessed via a teacher-reported 5-point Likert-scale survey in the first and the last week of the intervention period. Sixty eight children’s on-task classroom behavior was observed by trained research assistants immediately before and after the exergame program. Each observation was conducted for 40 minutes in the academic classrooms using the whole interval recording method (Mahar et al., 2011). The outcome variable was children’s average scores (in percentage) of their on-task behavior.
Analysis/Results: Paired t-test was used to assess teacher-rated student effort, while one-way (gender) ANOVA with repeated measures was performed to analyze children’s on-task classroom behavior. There was a significant effect on children’s effort between the first week (Mean=3.24, SD=.75) and last week (Mean=3.41, SD=.73) assessments, t = 2.42, p= .02. In addition, there was a significant effect on classroom behavior, F=33.103, p <.01. Specifically, children scored significantly higher on on-task behavior during post-exergaming observation (Mean =81.4, SD=12.3) than they did during pre-exergaming observation (Mean=69.8, SD=14.9). However, there was no main effect for gender, F=.39, p=.54.
Conclusions: Offering exergaming program at school could improve underserved minority children’s classroom on-task behavior and academic effort. Future study may include a control group to further confirm the effectiveness of exergaming activities. Practical implications for educators and other stakeholders will be provided.