The effect of stand-biased desks on academic engagement: an exploratory study

Abstract

Background Schools have been suggested as a viable avenue to combat childhood obesity. School administrators are sometimes faced with the conflicting demands of improving the health of their students and maintaining academic performance. Dynamic furniture such as stand-biased desks may be one way to address both academic and health demands placed on schools to prevent childhood obesity. Method Classrooms with stand-biased desks were compared to classrooms using traditional seated desks in 2nd,3rd, and 4th grades. The academic engagement of 282 participants was observed in the fall and spring during one academic year. The engagement of the treatment classrooms was compared to the engagement of the control classrooms. Results Both groups showed general increases in their academic engagement over time. Stand-biased desks do not seem to result in adverse effects on academic engagement when used in elementary classrooms. Conclusion The data suggests promising results for the use of stand-biased desks in elementary school classrooms. The results suggest that stand-biased desks can be introduced in the classroom to combat childhood obesity through increasing energy expenditure without affecting academic engagement.

Objectively measured sedentary behaviour and health and development in children and adolescents: systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Although experimental studies are underway , none were retrieved that met the inclusion criteria for this review, which required sedentary behaviour to be measured objectively. Nonetheless, some experimental evidence indicates that the use of stand‐biased desks in classrooms, which are likely to decrease sedentary time, might result in increased energy expenditure among school‐aged children compared with traditional seated‐desks , without impeding classroom engagement . Much sedentary time among youth occurs while at school .…”

Standing, Active vs Sitting, Torpid: a Management Decision

“…By saying, -Standing-Active‖ or -Stand-biased‖ or -Standing-Biased‖ we want to differentiate the default activity from -Standing Rigid‖, the latter can be just as bad for health outcomes as sitting rigid or sitting soporifically, think of guards outside a high security installation who stand but don't move, that is standing rigid (Benzo, Gremaud, Jerome, & Carr, 2016;Dornhecker, Blake, Benden, Zhao, & Wendel, 2015;Hinckson et al, 2016). The key to Standing-Active is A scrum master is the facilitator for an agile development team.…”

“…Also note that the desk and the accompanying stool or high chair should provide for arange of movement by the student -here the student has his right foot on a foot bar while his left foot is on the floor, at other times he can change feet or can have both feet on the floor or can sit on the stool with one or both feet on the stool footbar thus providing for a range of movement. Showing teacher with lap-top at adjustable height desk, adjusted for teacher's height while standing and students, also at adjustable height desk, adjusted for students' height when sitting (Benden, Wendel, Jeffrey, Zhao, & Morales, 2012;Dornhecker et al, 2015;Minges et al, 2016;Wendel, Benden, Zhao, & Jeffrey, 2016). Note posture of teacher good, relaxed but upright while student shows typical poor student sitting posture, bending with rounded shoulders and neck which will create a soporific state, obviously her teacher has not taught her to bend from her waist; ideally she should raise her desk and be given a stool.…”

Do You Want Your Students to Pay More Attention in Class? Try Dynamic Seating!

“…Classroom-based PA has been defined as PA carried out during regular class time, which can occur either inside or outside the classroom, in the form of active breaks or physically active lessons [7]. Interventions designed to incorporate movement into the classroom environment may be beneficial for learning because the children have an opportunity to expend excess energy through PA while maintaining academic engagement and cognitive focus on classroom tasks [8].…”

“…There is some evidence that light-intensity levels of PA from dynamic seating are positively related to academic behaviour [10]. Over the past few years, there have been a number of studies conducted to explore the effects of dynamic seating (e.g., standing desks, stability balls, therapy cushions, and cycling desks) versus standard classroom seating on academicrelated outcomes [8,[11][12][13]. One outcome of interest that is associated with student learning and subsequent academic performance is attention.…”