Title: MAKING MOVEMENT MATTER: AN IMPLEMENTATION DOSE-RESPONSE EVALUATION OF A PHYSICAL LITERACY PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN
Thesis Supervisor: Guy Faulkner
Committee members: Nicola Hodges, Patti-Jean Naylor
Chair: Michael Koehle
Abstract:
Physical literacy (PL) is defined as the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life. As declining rates of physical activity (PA) are found for Canadian youth with only 21% meeting the recommended PA guidelines, the concept of PL is gaining practice and research interest in serving as a foundation for greater PA participation. A school-based PL program called Make Movement Matter was implemented in one elementary school district. The ongoing program consists of two physical literacy mentors who provide training and support for elementary school teachers in the district. The objective of this evaluation was to assess the relationship between implementation dose (i.e. how many times they visited the school, time spent in school, interactions with teachers, sessions taught, and other school interactions) and changes in PL outcomes (i.e. does greater dose elicit greater changes in PL overtime for children). A secondary objective was to assess if there were gender differences in PL changes over time.
The program was evaluated using a longitudinal dose-response cohort study design, as the PL of a cohort of grade two students in 14 schools was assessed at three time points over two years until grade 4. Physical literacy was measured at each time point using two Physical Literacy Assessment for Youth (PLAY) tools: PLAYfun (measure of children’s fundamental movement skills) and PLAYself (measure of children’s perceptions of PL and attitudes towards PA). Implementation dose was tracked through school checklists completed after each visit by the PL mentors. Linear Mixed Modeling was used to examine if there were changes in PL over time, if greater dose was associated with greater changes in PL, and if there were gender difference in PL changes over time. PL (PLAYfun and PLAYself) was found to significantly change over time (p > .001), with implementation dose having a significant effect for PLAYfun (p < 0.001) and no effect for PLAYself (p = 0.526). Gender was tested in both models, and no significant differences were found (PLAYfun: p = 0.102; PLAYself: p = 0.197). This is the first study to examine the relationship between implementation dose and PL outcomes. As higher dose of implementation was associated with greater changes in fundamental movement skills, positive changes in PL may be partly attributed to the MMM program. The evaluated mentorship model used in this program warrants further evaluation and highlight research opportunities that can be conducted in implementation evaluations of future PL interventions.