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Acute classroom exercise breaks improve on-task behavior in 4th and 5th grade students: A dose-response

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Howie, Erin
Beets, M.
Pate, R.
Date
2014
Type
Journal Article

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Howie, E. and Beets, M. and Pate, R. 2014. Acute classroom exercise breaks improve on-task behavior in 4th and 5th grade students: A dose-response. Mental Health and Physical Activity. 7: pp. 65-71.
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Mental Health and Physical Activity
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NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Mental Health and Physical Activity. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Mental Health and Physical Activity, Vol.7, (2014). DOI: 10.1016/j.mhpa.2014.05.002

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Abstract

This study was the first to directly compare the acute effects of 5, 10, and 20 min of classroom exercise breaks on on-task behavior. Methods: In this within-subject experiment, 96 4th and 5th grade students, in 5 classroom groups, participated in each of four conditions: 10 min of sedentary classroom activity and 5, 10, 20 min of classroom exercise breaks led by research staff. On-task behavior was directly and systematically observed from videotapes before and after each condition. The post-test time-on-task scores were compared using a repeated measures mixed ANCOVA, adjusted for age, classroom, and the time-varying pre-test time-on-task. Results: Time-on-task was significantly higher in students after 10 min of classroom exercise breaks compared to a sedentary attention control (87.6% vs 77.1%, d = .45, p = .004). Conclusions: Ten minutes of classroom exercise breaks improved on-task behavior in children.