Effectiveness of Physical-Literacy-Based Online Education on Indices of Physical Fitness in High-School Adolescents: Intervention Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

Abstract

There is a global consensus that physical literacy (PL) is an important determinant of physical fitness (PF), but studies have rarely examined the effects of PL-based interventions on PF. The aim of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of specific online video-based PL intervention on PF indices in high-school students from Croatia. Participants were 423 high-school adolescents (295 girls, 128 boys; 14-to-18 years of age), divided into an intervention group (n = 230) and a control group (n = 193). The intervention lasted 12 weeks. Educational video materials were disseminated to the intervention group by the closed social network during the pandemic period. Variables included height, mass, BMI, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and power, strength, and flexibility indices. Pre- to post-testing design was applied, with two-way analysis of variance for repeated measurement (Time × Group). Applied intervention induced positive effects in CRF (the intervention group improved their capacities, while no changes occurred in the control group) and BMI (the intervention group retained their BMI levels at the pre-testing level, while BMI of the control group slightly increased over the course of the study), with better effectiveness in girls than in boys. No effects were evidenced for other variables. The positive effects of applied educational intervention on BMI and CRF are encouraging knowing that both indices are related to health status.

School Strategies on Improving Students’ Physical Activity Engagement During COVID-19 Pandemic Period: A Thematic Review

“…Being active through movement was very important to students positive growth (Wiklund et al, 2023). This was supported by Gilic et al, (2023) cited that being active was positively associated to being healthy. According to Swierad et al, (2021) children became substantially inactive because of the virus spread.…”

“…This approach is about providing awareness and knowledge about physical activity engagement which aims to provide motivation to the participants as a result. Notable result was reported through this strategy as physical fitness improved among middle school students after a series of imparting knowledge about physical literacy through video (Gilic et al, 2023). However, shows no significant impact on skills development.…”

“…Physical literacy is a complex foundation of an individual from awareness and understanding to know-how of physical activity engagement as part of life cited by (Gilic et al, 2023). Physical literacy can be the major goal of physical educators and be included in the on the objectives on other health related field.…”

“…However, improvement on physical activity engagement was not identify in the study. On the study conducted by Gilic et al (2023) intervention approach was designed video clip presentation and cited improvement on some aspects of physical fitness. Similar approach was used by Zhang et al (2022) on their study which assess the impact of "social network intervention" on middle school students perception on well-being which concluded that results differ when group by gender.…”