Physical Activity and Sport Studies in Childhood and Adolescence at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the European College of Sport Science Ross D Neville Sportscience 22, 52-57, 2018 (sportsci.org/2018/ECSSpape.htm) Centre
for Sport Studies, School of Public Health Physiotherapy and Sports
Science, University College Dublin (UCD), Dublin, Ireland. Email. Reviewer: Kyriaki Makopoulou, University
of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
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The following
is a report on ECSS 2018 from my home city, Dublin. The usual Irish cead mile failte (a hundred thousand
welcomes) was extended to delegates and there was uninterrupted sunshine with
>20°C heat. Dublin's iteration of ECSS
was the second biggest yet. A special mention has to go to our closest
colleagues across the Irish Sea in the UK. The representation from English,
Scottish and Welsh universities was particularly impressive. For the first
time in a long time–according to ECSS President Joan Duda–representation from
English universities topped the usual majority representation from Japan. It
was also a wonderful occasion to catch up with colleagues I used to work with
at the University of Birmingham. Compliments to the conference
committee and chairs, Marie Murphy (Ulster University), Colin Boreham
(University College Dublin) and Giuseppi De Vito (University College Dublin).
Congratulations also goes to Massimiliano Ditroilo, who led the impressive
volunteering effort supporting session chairs and presenters. Many volunteers
were themselves presenting at a conference for the first time. So, what is the focus of this report? At the request of Will
Hopkins, I have focused on "anything except for the performance of
competitive athletes!" Since the majority of my recent research has been
in physical education (PE) and teacher education, I have focused on physical
activity (PA) and school sports studies/interventions in childhood and adolescence.
The ECSS young investigator award in the mini-oral presentation category was
won in this area. Well done to Henri Tilga of the University of Tartu,
Estonia–abstract reviewed below. Accessing AbstractsTo find abstracts in your area of
interest, go to the program page at Dublin conference site, where you can link to pages for
each tier of presentation. Or download PDFs of the full program and the full book of abstracts. To find the presentations I have
reviewed, copy the presenter's name and initial shown in brackets […] into
the search engine, or if you have downloaded the
PDF of the abstracts, copy into the advanced search form (Ctrl-Shift-F) in
the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader. Abstracts for this conference will eventually
join those of previous conferences in the EDSS database (login required). If you can't find your presentation
in this report, I offer two reasons as apologies: as part of the conference
organizing team, I had chair duties which took me away from sessions which I
would have been naturally inclined to attend and report on; and program
clashes meant that I often had to choose between several sessions that I
would have attended. The Right-On FactorSo, what is actually worth
reporting? For a conference to be worthwhile, Will Hopkins has a smallest
important threshold of at least one presentation that, quote, makes him say Wow! Will and I agreed that a plenary on determinants of regular voluntary
exercise [DE GEUS, E.] was worthy of this endorsement. After
presenting convincing evidence that genetic factors are the main determinants
of physical activity in adults, he put up this "inequality": Genetics ¹ Predestination. To explain, he then got us all to read out
loud: Genetics are about the variance. In other words, genetic factors are
responsible for differences in physical activity between individuals, but
with an intervention you can make everyone more active without altering the
genetic contribution. It's not quite that simple, because the effect of
interventions aimed at increasing population physical activity will be
modified by genetic factors to some extent, but the take-home message is one
of hope rather than despair. My own threshold for having
attended a meaningful conference is somewhat different. I have identified six
presentations that were Right on!: either
clearly progressive (i.e., evidence of good practice in new settings or in
developing nations) or reaffirming positive messages for practitioners
working in school settings (i.e., evidence of an intervention that might help
PE teachers, or evidence of a beneficial intervention that was delivered by
PE teachers). In order of appearance below: the effects of plyometric training with
school children; effects of scheduling activities in PE sessions on motor competence; the extent to which life-skills
development is supported or inhibited by autonomy supportive and
controlling teaching in PE; the effects of a web-based
intervention on PE teachers' autonomy supportive and controlling behavior; physiological profiles of the first Saudi female PE teachers;
and workload of PE teachers in Singapore. Skills and Competencies in YouthManuel Muecke presented research on the
influence of implicit
attitudes on daily PA in 11- to 14-year old children. Recent emphasis on
the role of digitally-mediated social influences on sporting preferences and
PA levels in this age group makes this area (of implicit-associations
research) particularly important. Grasping the effect of implicit attitudes
is difficult by definition. However, from what I garnered from my notes and
the abstract, this research is suggesting that implicit attitudes are related
more closely to the quality (rather than the quantity) of PA. Or, as Manuel
put it in the abstract, "…basic motor competencies, but not the amount of
everyday moderate-to-vigorous
physical activity (MVPA), are
related to non-conscious attitudes." The effect size was not presented,
though it appeared to be a small to moderate association. The sceptic in me
would question the degree to which the computerized implicit attitudes task
was itself simply measuring accuracy and response-time motor competency [MUECKE,
M.]. My notes state that Visa issues
prevented a group from China presenting on the differences in perceived
physical abilities and objectively measured motor competency among German and
Chinese children aged 6-8 years. Although
the abstract gives no rationale for the comparison of children from these two
countries, East-West cultural differences were obviously under investigation.
Results from the abstract appear to indicate that the only significant
differences were in perceived motor ability–or, more accurately, in self-efficacy (the children's belief in their ability to
successfully execute the behaviors necessary to achieve a desired outcome).
Unfortunately, the abstract gives no indication of the size or direction of
the difference. Do German children perceive themselves as more efficacious
than Chinese children? Beats me! There is a reaffirmation to practitioners
here of the importance of sensitivity to cultural difference in PE [YIN ET
AL.]. For a related poster presentation undertaken in an English context
comparing early and middle childhood see [LAWSON, C.]. Leanne Walker presented a study
from her PhD at Coventry University, in which she assessed whether integrative
neuromuscular training (INT)
should be incorporated into PE in 9- to 10-year olds (middle childhood). I recall
Leanne reporting enthusiastically that it should. INT was associated with
improvements in both fundamental motor skills and sprint speed.
Statistical significance was used throughout the presentation. It would have
been really neat to see the magnitude and uncertainty of the effects
too–especially given the potential practical application. From what I can
tell, the p values appear to be
presented incorrectly in the abstract (p
> rather than p <), so perhaps
follow up with the authors directly if these data are related to a study you
are currently undertaking [WALKER, L.J.]. The outcomes of Walker's study
seemed to be replicated in Raquel Font-Llado's research in another national
context. Raquel, from the University of Girona (Spain), also assessed the
efficacy of a block of integrative neuromuscular training (INT) for enhancing motor
competence in primary school-aged children (aged 8). She too found that INT is additionally beneficial over regular PE, particularly
in relation to locomotor and object control skills. As with [WALKER, L.J.], I would have
really liked to see some effect sizes and magnitudes to assess how much more
effective INT is when compared to regular PE. Raquel also noted that future research should assess
potential benefits of INT using motor competency measures which isolate
balance skills. For a really
well written abstract in this broad area, see the poster by Olyvia Donti from
the United States Sports Academy (USSA) in Greece (not America!) [DONTI, O.].
She reported that plyometric training
is beneficial for primary schoolchildren aged 8, and that the
benefits to a child's ability to change direction, jump, and sprint
were small, moderate and large, respectively. Olyvia's poster gets a big Right on! for presenting magnitudes. I would have given the
poster a Wow! for presenting confidence limits
(as opposed to p values) and for using Will Hopkins’
thresholds (which are well-accepted in sport science as modification of
Cohen's). A trial comparing plyometrics and integrative neuromuscular training would
make for an interesting future study. The final presentation of the
session was from Silke De Waelle from Ghent University in Belgium, who
presented on the relationship between actual motor competence and four
different instruments for measuring perceived motor competence. Her subject
group were secondary
school students across ten
different schools. Silke reported statistically significant differences among
the instruments; however, the size of these differences was clearly trivial
when I compared them using resources here at sportsci.org (all r < 0.1). The implication for me at least is that it doesn't
really matter what measure of perceived motor competence you use. A really
neat follow-up would be to conduct a reliability study across each of these
four measures. It was also a pity that the group from China (abstract
reviewed above) were not present in the room. An interaction between these
two presenters on the sensitivity and specificity of motor competency
measures could have enhanced the overall discussion during the question and
answer session, in my opinion [DE WAELLE, S.]. The extent
to which improvements in motor competence are moderated by differencing
programming and in subject characteristics was also addressed, here and
there, at ECSS, across oral sessions. For example, Michael Duncan from Coventry
University presented a study on the effects of the scheduling of object control and locomotor
activities on motor
competence during a block of
integrative neuromuscular training (INT) in primary school PE (6-7 year old
children). In other words, does programming matter? Yes, it does
–scheduling object control skills first in the INT session was additionally
beneficial to the development of motor competence (over scheduling locomotor
first, and over a control condition) [DUNCAN, M.]. I give Michael's
presentation a Right on!, because he cut through a lot of the jargon in this field by saying
that INT is "just good PE". Though, as with [WALKER, L.J.] and
[FONT-LLADO, R.], some indication of effect sizes and magnitudes would have
enhanced the practical relevance of the study. Duncan's lab at Coventry
University seems to be producing a number of PhDs in this area, so any
prospective researchers in this area should definitely check out these
abstracts. According to research presented by
Wei-Ya Ma from the National Taiwan Normal University, developing motor
coordination in children with autistic
spectrum disorder (ASD) is especially important. There are at
least two reasons for this: children with ASD perform poorer in motor tasks
than typically developing children; and the relationship between motor
coordination and cognitive
ability is stronger in children
with ASD than in typically developing children [MA, W.Y.]. As with [MUECKE,
M.], reviewed above, I would like clarification on the extent to which the cognitive
ability tasks were themselves assessing motor competency. That another group found no benefits to cognition of an
intervention in ASD children [SUNG, M.C.] reaffirms my suspicion here. There was one more presentation in
this area worth highlighting. For any PE researchers or practitioners who are
interested in assessment
of fundamental motor skills in elementary and middle school students, please read an abstract
from Université de Moncton in Canada about the validation of a new PE
criteria-based test battery. I think that this presentation was
really useful for highlighting what is happening in their lab. I personally
found that there was a lot of content to take in here in ten minutes.
However, clearly, Iancu and his collaborators gave the audience a sense of
some very rigorous pedagogical work in progress [IANCU, H.D]. It was also
interesting to see a trend towards standardization of assessment in PE in the
North American context though. This trend seems very much at odds with my
experience of PE research in the UK. The focus here seems to be on embracing
diversity and inclusion in mainstream classroom settings and challenging PE
teachers to cater for individualized programming and differentiated learning. Optimizing Physical EducationThere was much agreement across
the conference that the school setting and PE lessons in particular could be
improved to promote beneficial bio-psycho-social outcomes in children. German Ruiz-Tendero, from
Complutense University of Madrid, presented on the contribution of school PE classes to
increasing activity in
adolescents (a question which was asked across a number of sessions). The
subjects of this research were secondary school children in Northern Spain. There were some language
barriers here that made the presentation and the abstract difficult to
interpret. (I can only imagine how difficult it is to present in a second
language.) However, German seemed to be reporting that, on a PE day, ~65% of
children reported meeting the PA recommendations, compared with ~40% on
non-PE days. The implication here, of course, is that in Northern Spain at
least, PE can contribute to children's achievement of recommended daily PA.
The use of self-report data on PA was heavily scrutinized by the audience,
however [RUIZ-TENDERO, G.]. What about
optimizing the work of physical educators? There is actually some consensus
within the literature that much of the opportunity for optimizing PE is in
the quality of delivery and in extent to which a positive PE environment can
be supported by teacher behaviors. My fellow Irishman Lorcan Cronin gets a
big Right on! for
delivering a presentation in this area – one of the clearest and most concise
presentations that I sat in on all week. His focus was on male and female secondary school
students in England and Ireland
and the degree to which life skills development in PE can be supported or inhibited by autonomy
supportive and controlling teaching, respectively. The
outcomes of the research replicate those from a great many self-determination
theory (SDT) studies which have
been conducted in PA, PE and school sport: that autonomy supportive teacher
behaviors are positively associated with life skills development; and that
life-skills development can be enhanced through the satisfaction of pupil
needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness [CRONIN, L.]. See also [TILGA,
H.] for a similar study using a randomized controlled trial and [KNISEL, E.]
for a similar study in youths from low-income families. A Right on! also goes to Young Investigator Award winner Henri Tilga from the
University of Tartu, Estonia, who presented outcomes from a randomized
controlled trial evaluating the effect of a web-based PE intervention on teachers and pupils. As with [CRONIN, L.]
above, Henri's data replicates tenets of SDT in a new context: (web-based SDT
interventions can enhance autonomy supportive teacher behaviors; and their
pupils also report that they are more autonomy supportive. When asked about
challenges associated with the web-based intervention, Henri said that
regular checks on the fidelity of the intervention were key [TILGA, H.]. Another PhD researcher from the
University of Tartu, Hanna Kalajas, also added to the research on self-determination
theory in PE. Here, however, Hanna showed that autonomy supportive
teacher
behaviors were positively associated with MVPA in pupils. Or, more specifically,
"PE teachers autonomy supportive behavior was indirectly related to…
MVPA through competence need satisfaction and students' intrinsic motivation". This finding reaffirms the link between intrinsic motivation and
PA–and evidence that teachers can play an important mediating role. For a
similar line of research which assesses differences in the extent to which
male and female PE teachers provide psychological needs support, see
[CASTILLO, I.]. Again, I highlight the lack of data in the abstract, which
makes it impossible for other researchers to incorporate these outcomes into
their future studies and systematic reviews. For two more studies on the effects
of programming relatedness-based activities in PE, see posters from [UENO,
K.] and [MARINHO, A.]. The simple message here–given appropriate programming
of activities and scaffolding of learning by teachers, pupils can also satisfy each
other's needs in PE. Stephanie Girard presented on a
very topical issue–the extent to which PE teachers could enhance the motivation of pupils with special needs to engage in PE. The context for Stephanie's study
was elementary school students between the ages of 9-11, and she conducted a SDT-based controlled trial to assess the
effects of an inclusive
PE intervention across four
schools. According to Stephanie, the demands of other subjects–subjects which
are assessed more formally at school–were a major factor inhibiting interest
in PE. It would be ironic if children with severe physical and intellectual
impairments do not have the luxury of prioritizing engagement in PE over
preparedness for "more important" literacy- and numeracy-based
assessment–ironic, given the weight of the evidence on the relationship
between MVPA, engagement in sport and in meaningful PE, and cognitive
ability. See [MEMMERT, D.] [NEVILLE, R.D.] [SUNG, M.C.] [SHIMANO, A.]. The
optimization of PE and continued trend towards gender equity in the Middle
East gives me occasion for a fifth Right on! Well, kind of. Mohammad Alahmadi from Taibah University in Saudi
Arabia was thrilled to announce that, for the first time in Saudi Arabia, girls at public
school will be taught PE. The problem he identified, however, was
that there was still no one sufficiently qualified to teach them, because the
first cohort of Saudi Arabian PE teachers are not due to graduate for another
three years. In the meantime, Mohammad reported that fitness and nutrition
graduates have been recruited to fill the gap, and he was interested to see
how they shaped up by assessing their fitness profiles. Mohammad reported that the
bodyfat
percentage of these incumbent
PE teachers is well in excess of international norms, so the suitability of
this group to lead PE has been called into question. He was asked why he had
not focused in this study on much more important pedagogical matters, such as
the preparedness of these new teachers, to which he responded "because I
am a physiologist!" [ALAHMADI, M] A final nod to the work of PE
teachers secures Right on! number six. In a quick-fire two-minute oral presentation, Muhammad
Ridhuan Johari (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) reported that PE
teachers in Singapore work at least as hard as cable workers and much harder
than steel workers–at an average age of 40 years old too… Take from this what
you will! [JOHARI, M.R.]. A related presentation by the same group also
reveals the injury incidence in PE teachers in Singapore. Clear message here–optimizing
the workload of PE teachers can "affect the quality of PE delivery and
achievement of learning outcomes" [MUKHERJEE, S.]. Active EducatingThere were a number of interesting
studies on the school setting and on the opportunity for increased MVPA
within the school day. Arvid Kuritz from the University
of Konstanz shared news of social reform in Germany–namely, the introduction
of all-day elementary
schooling (half day was the norm previously). Her data may assuage
concerns about the effects of increased sedentariness, as she reported no MVPA differences in children attending traditional
half-day vs new full-day school [KURITZ, A.]. For a similar study, see the
abstract for Ryo Tanaka's poster presentation. Ryo assessed on the effects of
standing
desks in elementary school in Japan–pupils total daily steps increased
and their subjective feelings of sleepiness decreased when compared with sedentary state schooling [TANAKA, R.]. Oline Anite Bjorkelund from Aalborg
Universitet in Denmark spoke about the effect of short classroom-based PA breaks on motivation to learn in primary school students and their wellbeing. Simple messages here: non-didactic forms of teaching can be fun and
can provide environmental conditions in the classroom that are beneficial for
learning. Disappointing that there were no data reported in the abstract
[BJORKELUND, O.A.]. For a similar message, see the poster from Peggy Cheung.
A simple study, but clear outcome: children are more active when their
teachers are more active [CHEUNG, P.P]. A specific form of break for PA
advocated in the UK and Ireland is The Daily Mile: a 15- min break from the
classroom for children to engage in additional running or jogging outside.
Mandy Gault from the University of Chichester, addition of the Daily Mile
over two terms (26 weeks) produced limited physical benefits for 9- to 10-year old school children.
Additional assessment of the cognitive and social-emotive effects of the daily
mile would have been in keeping with the broader PE literature [GAULT, M.].
For a related line of research in the UK and Ireland, see [CARLIN, A.]. Mental HealthThe focus on PE and school sports
at ECSS was very much on physical benefits. I would like to conclude this
report by drawing readers' attention to two studies focused on psycho-social
and emotive outcomes. Are such benefits maintained in
the long term? Simone Ciaccioni from the Italian University of Sport and
Movement reported findings from a systematic review of the effects of PA
on self-esteem
(SE) and
self-concept
(SC) in children and adolescents aged 5-18.
In line with previous research in adults, Ciaccioni reported that PA
can lead to improvements in SE and SC ("with effect sizes ranging from large to
small"). Interestingly, the association between PA and self-worth–a subcomponent of SE–appears to be more sustainable over time than the association between PA and body image–a
subcomponent of SC [CIACCIONI, S.]. For evidence that PA interventions aimed
at improving mental health need to be longitudinal in nature, see a review of
meta-analyses presented by [BUDDE, H.]. Collaborating with one of the
conference chairs (Colin Boreham) from UCD, Ye Guo from Guangzhou University
analyzed data from the Growing Up in
Ireland infant
cohort (children aged 5).
Disconcertingly, Ye reported that, by age 5, approximately half of the cohort
studied were never active in sport (47%). Ye's main analyses revealed that participation
in organized sport of an hour
or more a week is associated with a moderate reduction in psychological difficulties–though the extent of this association appears
to be diminished by lower socio-economic status (SES) [GUO, Y.]. Further
studies on the extent to which the physical benefits of PA proffered across
ECSS are moderated by SES and related household factors are clearly indicated
here. Acknowledgements: Thanks to
ECSS and host organizing committee and chairs for waiving the registration
fee. Thanks to the reviewer for her suggestions and encouragement. Published Sept 2018 |
