Assessing Impact of Active Learning on Student Outcomes: Texas Initiatives for Children's Activity and Nutrition (ICAN)

NCT03087279 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 2716

Last updated 2017-06-26

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Background: Active learning is designed to pair physical activity with the teaching of academic content. This has been shown to be a successful strategy to increase physical activity and improve academic performance. The existing designs have confounded academic lessons with physical activity. As a result, it is impossible to determine if the subsequent improvement in academic performance is due to: (1) physical activity, (2) the academic content of the active learning, or (3) the combination of academic material taught through physical activity.

Methods / Design: The Texas I-CAN project is a 3-arm, cluster randomized control trial in which 28 elementary schools were assigned to either control, math intervention, or spelling intervention. As a result, each intervention condition serves as an unrelated content control for the other arm of the trial, allowing the impact of physical activity to be separated from the content. That is, schools that perform only active math lessons provide a content control for the spelling schools on spelling outcomes. This also calculated direct observations of attention and behavior control following periods of active learning.

Discussion: This design is unique in its ability to separate the impact of physical activity, in general, from the combination of physical activity and specific academic content. This, in combination with the ability to examine both proximal and distal outcomes along with measures of time on task will do much to guide the design of future, school-based interventions.

Conditions

  • Physical Activity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Texas I-CAN!

physically active, academic lessons in the elementary school classroom

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Texas at Austin

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • John B Bartholomew, PHD · UT Austin

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2012-08-15
Primary Completion
2015-05-31
Completion
2015-05-31

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03087279 on ClinicalTrials.gov