The effects of a bike active video game on players' physical activity and motivation

Abstract

BackgroundPlayers may not acquire adequate levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) when playing commercial video games. This study's goal was to evaluate the effects of an exercise bike video game played by using a mobile application-based exergame that was designed exclusively to promote participants' MVPA, with additional attention paid to this game's ability to promote greater situational interest.MethodsAn experimental design was used with 163 students (aged 20.31 ± 1.30, 18–26 years, 61.3% male), all of whom were randomly allocated into an experimental group and a control group. Physical activity (PA) levels were assessed with ActiGraph GT3X+ (ActiGraph Inc., Fort Walton Beach, FL, USA) accelerometers. The situational interest scale was used to evaluate students' situational interest in both groups. Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine the differences between sedentary behavior, PA levels, and situational interest between groups. Regression analyses were also used, with the purpose being to evaluate the strength of the relationship between PA and situational interest.ResultsResults revealed that the experimental group had higher degrees of sedentary behavior, light PA, total interest, instant enjoyment, exploration intention, attention demand, novelty, and challenge, whereas the control group received higher scores for MVPA (control 95.01% vs. experimental group 89.94%). Regression analysis indicated that instant enjoyment (β = 0.49, p < 0.01), exploration intention (β = 0.18, p < 0.05), and attention demand (β = 0.17, p < 0.05) were positive predictors for total interest, explaining 43% of its variance.ConclusionA newly designed mobile application-based exergame played via an exercise bike may enhance situational interest and provide a decent level of PA for players.

Experiences of 5th Grade Students Participating in Active Gaming-Assisted Physical Education Lessons

“…At this point, the concept of motivation that is within the basic cycle of physical literacy concept, principles of which were specified by Whitehead (2010), is important since it indicates that the motivation is an integral part of participation in sports. The results obtained from studies on this subject corroborate that the technology-assisted systems increase the motivation (Pasco et al, 2017;Hansen and Sanders, 2010;Sun, 2013). Csikszentmihalyi (1990) defined the flow status as the most important status of internal motivation at the moment, in which the person completely focuses on doing.…”

Does exergaming drive future physical activity and sport intentions?

“…Additionally, exhibiting a behavior in the future could partly be explained by game content (Beullens et al, 2011). Hence, exposure to environmental action cues (e.g., sport video games) may lead to increased time of exercise (Hepler et al, 2012) and including exergames in normal PA may also increase exploration intentions (Pasco et al, 2017;Joronen et al, 2017).…”

Validation of Four Smartwatches in Energy Expenditure and Heart Rate Assessment During Exergaming

“…16 This PA modality was chosen given exergaming's variable nature of movement, ability to be implemented within a highly controlled laboratory setting, and exergaming's potential use in technology-based PA interventions among young adults given this population's interest in technology and enjoyment of exergaming. 17,18 It was hypothesized that compared with the research-grade ActiGraph GT3X+-Bluetooth (BT) accelerometer, the AW, FS, TT, and MB would demonstrate moderate validity, reasonable precision, and little measurement bias in EE, average HR, and peak HR measurement. Notably, average HR was included as individuals may use smartwatches to observe average HR during an exercise session, with lower average HR during exercise at the same workload indicative of improved cardiorespiratory fitness.…”