Browsing by Subject "fyysinen aktiivisuus"
Now showing items 1-14 of 14
-
(2023)The physical activity of children has a significant meaning impact in the holistic and safe growth, development, and learning of children. Children’s natural way to release energy and emotions is through exercise. The aim of physical education is for the child to adopt an active and healthy lifestyle, gain positive experiences from exercise and learn physical skills. Physical activity has a positive effect on a child's health and wellbeing. The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate the views of preschool children about physical activity and to determine what they think physical activity is. The theme is current and significant, because only 10-20 percent of children under school age achieve the amount of physical activity required for normal growth and development. The study also considers the effect of gender on physical activity. 23 preschool-age children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participated in the study. The data collection method was an interview and the analysis method was quantification. The research results show that exercise is a happy thing for children. Only a few children experience fear when they exercise. The majority of preschool children like physical activity and feel that they are good at it. There are differences in the results between genders; boys experience physical activity more positively than girls do. All children can describe physical activity in some way and most of the children have a sports hobby.
-
(2017)Objective The reduction of physical activity and simultaneous increase in screen time has been a source for concern in recent years. The significance of schools for increasing physical activity has grown and previous research has demonstrated a positive link between physical activity, cognitive behaviour and learning. The link between screen time and cognitive behaviour has also been researched and the results are partially contradictory. This study focuses on the connection between attention and self-assessed physical activity and screen time. It also explores the significance of an acute, coordination developing physical activity session in relation to attentiveness Methods The study was carried out as quantitative research including a questionnaire and an intervention study. The questionnaire was a self-assessment filled out by 78 pupils of 3rd and 4th grade examining levels of physical activity and screen time. The intervention study was made up by 30 children in the experimental, physically active, group and 30 children in the control, physical passive, group. The study examined the connection between self-assessed physical activity and screen time with the success in an ACT attention test and the potential influence physical intervention might have in a repeat test. Outcome and conclusions The results of this study supported previous research findings on physical activity on children and adolescence; some children are very active whilst others lack physical activity almost entirely. Most of the children and adolescence also went over the maximum recommended daily screen time limit of 2 hours, both during the week and at weekends. There was no link between overall physical activity and total screen time in relation to the success of the attention test. In the intervention part of the study, there was no noticeable difference in the results of the attention test between the experiential and control groups. Previous research material on the links between physical activity and screen time on attention is partially conflicting so further research is recommended. It has however been established, that physical activity during lessons does not lower academic results, meaning that they can be used to increase overall physical activity of individuals even if the link to cognitive behavior has not been confirmed.
-
(2020)Aims. The aim of this study was to investigate the development of, and links between school burnout and physical activity in upper comprehensive school. According to previous studies, school burnout increases as pupils make a transition from one level of education to the next, and school burnout is more common among girls than boys. Previous studies have indicated that physical activity decreases as people grow older. As physical activity is known to promote health and wellbeing, it could be expected to be negatively connected with school burnout. This study involves examining the development of school burnout and physical activity at two different points of measurement occurring in grades 7 and 9. Differences in school burnout between groups of pupils in grade 7 divided based on physical activity were also examined. Finally, the study explored the differences in the development of school burnout between groups divided based on change in physical activity. Methods. The data were collected as part of the Mind the Gap research project in the period 2014–2016. The final data subject to analysis included 518 pupils from the capital region. The pupils had filled out questionnaires on grades 7 and 9. The data included 336 girls and 192 boys. The SBI indicator, developed for measuring school burnout, was used in examining school burnout. The questionnaire measuring physical activity originates from the School Health Promotion Study (THL 1996–, conducted once every two years). The physical activity of the respondents was investigated in this study by asking “how often do you engage in at least half an hour of physical activity during your leisure time?”. Research data were collected from pupils in grade 7 in the spring of 2014 and subsequently from the same pupils in grade 9 in the spring of 2016. The development of school burnout and physical activity was examined with the repeated measures analysis of variance. The differences in school burnout between groups were investigated using one-way analysis of variance, and the repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine differences between groups in the development of school burnout over time. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in school burnout among girls during upper comprehensive school. No similar development was observed in boys. There was no statistically significant development in physical activity during upper comprehensive school. There was no difference related to school burnout between groups divided based on physical activity in grade 7 or grade 9. The groups divided based on a change in physical activity differed in terms of school burnout in grade 7. The pupils with a considerable increase in physical activity during upper comprehensive school were most exhausted in grade 7 and statistically significantly differed from those with a minor decline, no change, or a minor change, in physical activity. The groups divided based on their chance in physical activity did not differ from one another in terms of the development of school burnout (p = .057). Based on this study, it can be noted that school burnout appears to increase during upper comprehensive school, particularly among girls. More research is needed to determine what kind of a connection can be found between physical activity and school burnout.
-
(2019)The aim of this study was to investigate how 6th graders’ self-rated health, physical activity and sleep disruptions are related to schoolwork engagement. In more detail it was examined what kind of groups 6th graders can be divided into according to self-rated health, physical activity and sleep disruptions. Furthermore, it was studied if these groups are differently related to sex, sleep duration, the quality of sleep and schoolwork engagement. The aim is to gain better understanding about the factors which might have a strengthening effect on the adolescents' schoolwork engagement. The data was collected by the Mind the Gap –project in Helsinki in the spring 2013. The 6th graders (N = 761) from 33 different schools answered a questionnaire. The variables that were used for this study measured adolescents’ self-reported schoolwork engagement, health, physical activity, sleep disruptions, the quality of sleep and sleep duration. K-means cluster analysis was used to sort ado-lescents to groups by the variables of self-rated health, physical activity and sleep disruptions. When interpreting the contents of groups, an analysis of variance was used. The differences of these formed groups with sex, sleep duration, the quality of sleep and schoolwork engagement were ex-amined with the cross tabulation, analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis test. The 6th graders were divided into four groups regarding experienced health, physical activity and sleep disruptions. These groups were named healthy movers, movers with sleep and health prob-lems, non-movers with sleep problems and non-movers with health problems. In the group of healthy movers adolescents was slept longer and had more schoolwork engagement than in the other groups. In the groups of healthy movers and non-movers with health problems had better qual-ity of sleep than in two groups in which sleep disruptions were experienced. The self-rated health, the physical activity and the paucity of sleep difficulties together were connected to sufficient sleep duration and schoolwork engagement.
-
(2024)Previous research has indicated that children and young people are less and less likely to meet the recommendations for physical activity. Less than half of children of primary education age engage in physical activity in accordance with the recommendations. The proportion of children and young people fulfilling the recommendations for physical activity is declining when moving from the younger to the older age groups. Moreover, nearly half of the daily sedentary behaviour of pupils in primary education occurs during the school day. However, the physical education lessons in school do not suffice on their own to enable pupils to engage in adequate daily physical activity. As a result, incorporating other physical activities in school days is necessary. The purpose of this study was to examine and describe the means that allow classroom teachers to increase physical activity during lessons. A further aim was to investigate the benefits and challenges experienced by classroom teachers in relation to increasing physical activity during lessons in primary education. This study was implemented using the qualitative research method. The research data were collected in February 2024 using a questionnaire form mostly containing open questions. The research data consists of the responses of a total of 38 teachers working in primary schools in the Kymenlaakso region in Finland. The data were analysed using data-driven content analysis. The study found that classroom teachers can increase physical activity occurring during lessons in multiple ways. Teachers can organise exercises during breaks in the lessons, make use of action-based learning and versatile body positions during learning as well as lesson planning that involves digital materials, technology and the involvement of pupils. Joint classroom practices, the use of the body in learning, effective use of the classroom space and versatile utilisation of the school environment also provide means that enable increasing physical activity during lessons. The teachers felt that there was a variety of benefits in increasing physical activity during lessons. According to the teachers, increasing physical activity during lessons has a positive impact on both health and well-being as well as learning and school performance. It also supports the development of a peaceful and positive atmosphere in the classroom and contributes to creating a clearer and more versatile structure for school days. The teachers felt that there were also many different challenges to increasing physical activity during lessons. According to the teachers, the challenges in increasing physical activity during lessons emerged in connection with transitions between different activities, motivating pupils, restlessness of pupils, restrictions imposed by the classroom space and large group sizes as well as teachers’ own well-being and schedules. The significance of increasing physical activity during lessons and a positive attitude toward increasing physical activity was strongly emphasised in the teachers’ responses.
-
(2020)According to studies, physical exercise has a strong connection with learning and condition of human brain, and it has been linked with academic performance. Most of the studying in university is done while sitting down and very little active teaching methods are being used. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to study what type of students take part in a course that requires indoor cycling. The purpose of this master’s thesis is also to study the experiences of students practicing studying methods with physical activity in the course of neuroscience. This study examines the effects of indoor cycling on alertness, motivation and learning of the students and also the suitability of the method on individuals. The study was carried out as a qualitative case study and the research material was collected during autumn 2018. The research sample included six students from Open University of Helsinki. The study did not include the relevance of age and prior exercise background, albeit the information was asked in a background information form filled by the participants in the beginning of the course. The background information form was filled by 17 participants. Six participants were interviewed using semi-structured interviews and the research material was analyzed using a content analysis. The research results show that students with different ages participated in the course. The participants’ backgrounds regarding exercise were also diverse. The study also demonstrates teaching methods requiring physical activity increases the alertness, motivation and learning of almost all the students. The method is principally perceived as well suited and conducive to learning. Part of the participants felt the course content was so interesting that the method most likely had a positive effect on alertness and motivation.
-
(2020)The basis of this study was the need to increase physical activity in early childhood education based on previous research. Studies have shown that childcare centers do not have equal possibilities to support children’s physical growth and development because of unequal physical activity conditions. The task of this study is to describe, analyze and render preschool education teachers’ views and experiences on how physical education actualises in a preschool group setting. The aim of this study was to find out how the teachers describe the preschool groups’ activity and which factors have an impact on the execution of physical activity in preschool groups. The study was a qualitative case study. The research material was collected through half structured theme interviews. The research material consisted of interviews from five (5) preschool teachers. Teachers who participated in the study were working in Helsinki metropolitan area at the time of the interviews. The research material was analysed using qualitative research data analysis. Results of this study suggest that teachers working in preschool groups viewed physical activity as a part of daily preschool education activity and physical activity was integrated into other components of preschool education as well. Organised physical activity was part of the preschool groups’ activities and children’s voluntary physical activity was made possible depending on the childcare centers’ resources and safety factors. Results of this study indicate that there are multiple factors affecting the execution of physical activity in preschool groups. The teachers viewed the execution of physical activity positively primarily through enabling factors. For the factors that possibly limited physical activity execution, teachers tried to find creative and promotive solutions. Based on the results of this study, the pedagogic decisions of the preschool teachers enable children’s physical activity in different learning environments, despite the varying resources of the childcare centers. The educators’ own physical education views and the pedagogic skills of the preschool staff members are the main determinative factors in how children’s physical activity is executed in preschool groups.
-
(2022)The purpose of this thesis is to find out, how variety of teachers’ physical activities, teachers’ personal feelings towards exercise, and their physical activity, both during workday and free time, are related to teachers’ wellbeing at work and vitality. Physical activity and exercise are known to improve overall wellbeing, and it is also scientifically proven in many researches. That was also my hypothesis in this study, but I was curious to find out more personal reasons and significances by hearing teachers’ own experiences and views. It was also interesting to find out how teachers’ personal life situations as well as outside factors impact teachers’ vitality and attitude towards exercise. The working hours can be long and that in-creased my curiosity to study this subject. The results are well aligned with previous studies. There were five teachers participating in this study in total. Four of them were class teachers and two of them were subject teachers. All teachers interviewed for the study were women. Their age was in between 25 to 52 years old. The interviews were conducted, and data collected in between December 2020 and August 2021. I used a half-structured qualitative method, and executed themed one-on-one interviews, which I transcribed afterwards. I executed the analysis by doing a data-driven content analysis with a qualitative research approach. According to the study results, teachers participating in the study experienced that their physical activity was positively linked to their wellbeing at work. Subjective relationship to exercise had some different meanings and aspects during life. Teachers were eager to add more physical activity due to its various benefits to wellbeing and coping at work, including mental wellbeing and social aspects.
-
(2018)The objective of this study was to discover the thoughts of Finnish classroom teachers on promoting the physical activity of their students. The study examines teachers' attitudes towards promoting physical activity, the challenges they face in promoting physical activity and how they see their own readiness in promoting physical activity. In addition to attitudes and thoughts, the study wanted to analyse the concrete actions classroom teachers have taken to promote the physical activity of their students. Finally, the study also aims at exploring the factors that affect teachers' attitudes, readiness and the actions they take. This study is a mixed methods study with convergent parallel design strategy meaning it utilises both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The quantitative data was gathered with an electronic form managed by the University of Helsinki. The data consisted of 186 responses from Finnish classroom teachers and it was gathered between May and June 2017. The qualitative data, which was collected simultaneously with the quantitative data, consisted of eight theme interviews. The quantitative data was analysed with SPSS-program and the qualitative data was analysed with content analysis, quantification and by forming themes and types of the data. The study showed that teachers' attitudes towards promoting physical activity at school are very positive. However, the qualitative part of the study found four different dimensions inside the positive attitude which were general level, school level, teacher level and personal level. The challenges teachers face when promoting physical activity differed a lot between schools and some schools have less possibilities and much fewer resources than others. The readiness of the teacher was affected strongly by the teacher's own relationship towards exercise. If the teacher had studied physical education as a minor was also of great influence. The study also showed that there are room for improvement when it comes to teachers' actions towards promoting physical activity at school. Teachers concrete actions were strongly affected by their relationship towards exercise, attitude and readiness to promote physical activity.
-
(2014)These days the physical activity of children has been reduced and the research show that most of the children are not active enough to fill the physical activity guidelines. The culture of kindergartens should change along the changes in society. There should be more physical education and children's physical activity should be added in everyday life and kindergarten's learning environments. This study is about how the learning environments inside the kindergarten could be more physically activating, and what the staff thinks about changing the environments physically more activating. This study is based on a qualitative research method, using theme interview. Four people who work in a kindergarten were interviewed. In the kindergarten they were about to start a project in order to develop their learning environments to be physically more activating. These four staff members were interviewed before the project started. They were asked questions about their opinions on physically activating indoor learning environments and how those environments could be improved to encourage children's physical activity. The results of this study show that the physical activity in learning environments depends mostly on the attitude of the staff; do they allow children to be physically active in their everyday life or do they prohibit their physical activity in the interest of safety, and do they offer opportunities for children to be physically active indoors. Other things that effect on increasing children's physical activity indoors are the rooms of kindergarten and the sporting equipment, the timetable of the day and human resources. The overall attitude towards physical education and children's physical activity among staff was positive and enthusiastic, but still until now the children hadn't been allowed to move indoors so that they would become breathless. This is the same result as in the former studies that have been done about children's physical activity; children aren t physically active enough in the kindergarten. All the interviewees thought that the project would be beneficial and could have a lasting impact on the culture of physical activity in their kindergarten. So the most important thing in developing learning environments to be physically more activating is to change the attitudes of adults so that they would allow children to be physically active indoors.
-
(2018)Child needs physically active movement and play in their everyday life. Study has shown that physical activity compensates fort the functioning of the stress system and strengthen the learning preconditions. Aim of this study was to increase awareness of the relation between stress management and physical activity in young children. There were three research problems: (1) How physically active children are, (2) what is the connection between the environment and the physical activity and (3) what is the connection between physical activity and stress hormone levels? The study is quantitative and there has been used observation as a research method. One observation component was the physical activity of the child, which the teachers observed for seven days, by evaluating the activity of the child eigther low, moderate, or high. In addition, children's stress hormone levels are measured on two days for a saliva sample; before lunch, in the middle of the day and also in the afternoon. The study is part of The Helsinki University orientation project which 162 children, from different kindergartens in Vantaa, has took part with. As a analysis methods there has been used cross-tabulation, correlation and regression analysis. This study shows that average child does the most lowest physical activity. Physical activity was at its highest in outdoor activities and education and at its lowest in basic care. The child's sex was not statistically linked to physical activity, but the age of the child was also important for physical activity. The least physically active were 1–2 years old and the most active were 6–7 years of age. According to the study, low physical activity was associated with higher levels of stress hormone and instead high physical activity decreased the stress hormone level.
-
(2018)Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract Physical activity is very important for the health and development on children. Behavioural habits, such as physical activity and sedentary behaviour are formed in early childhood and although children are widely believed to be continuously active, recent studies show that the levels of physical activity in early childhood are typically low, with many children not reaching the levels of physical activity proposed in guidelines. There is little research on the physical activity of under three- year- old children. Most of the research available has been done on the 3- 5- year olds and may not be directly transferrable to 1- 3- year olds, because the age range of 0 – 5 years encompasses three developmental periods, which all differ from each other. The purpose of this study is to try to find out if the physical activity of 1- 3- year olds differs from that of older age groups and if so, how it differs and what factors are related to the physical activity of children aged 1-3 years. In the data of this study physical activity is divided into three levels: low, moderate and high. This study focuses on high physical activity This study is quantitative. The data of 19606 observations of children’s physical and other activities used in this study is from The Orientation project of Helsinki University and has been collected in 2010. A systematic sampling was conducted in 62 day care centres and childminders in Finland. 892 children took part in this study and 173 of the them were 3 – years old or younger at the time. This study focuses on this age group. The data was analysed using cross- tabulation. The Chi- square test was used for testing statistical significance. 1- 3- year old children in Finnish day care spent the most time, 57,4% of the observation time between 8 and 12 o`clock in activities done on a low level of physical activity like deskwork. High physical activity increases with age: 7,5% for 1- 3- year olds, 10,3% for 4- 5- year olds and 11,2% for 6- 7- year olds. The physical activity of 1-3- year old children differed at least slightly from that of older children in all the categories observed in this study. The ages of 1- 3 years are a unique period and although the physical activity levels and the environmental factors that affect them are somewhat alike in all age groups, there are special qualities to take into consideration when planning and providing for the activities and learning environment of the youngest children. Because of the many interactions between the physical and social environment and child characteristics, the contextual factors should also be acknowledged when considering the influence of the environment on physical activity.
-
(2019)Physically active lifestyle begin to develop early in childhood, and thus, it is important to know factors behind it. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between temperament dimensions and physical activity in a sample of Finnish preschool children. The first research question was whether there is an association between temperament dimensions and physical activity (examined as overall and intensity-specific physical activity). In addition, the interaction of children`s age and gender in the aforementioned associations was examined. The second research question was whether there is an association between temperament dimensions and meeting the physical activity recommendations. The data of this study were collected in 2015-2016. Participants were 697 Finnish children aged 3 to 6 years. Temperament was assessed using a parent-reported questionnaire (the Childhood Behavior Questionnaire, very short form), and three broad temperament dimensions were constructed: surgency, negative affectivity and effortful control. Physical activity was assessed using ActiGraph -accelerometer. The data analysis methods were quantitative. The association between childhood temperament dimensions and physical activity were investigated with Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression analyses. The effect modification of age and gender was investigated by including an interaction term in the linear regression analysis. The association between temperament dimensions and meeting the physical activity recommendations was investigated with logistic regression analysis. All linear and logistic regression analyses were adjusted for potential confounders. There was a positive association between surgency and physical activity, whereas effortful control was negatively associated with physical activity. Accordingly, surgency had positive association whereas effortful control had negative association with meeting physical activity recommendations. There were no significant associations observed between negative affectivity and physical activity or physical activity recommendations. Moreover, age or gender were not effect modifying factors in the associations between temperament dimensions and physical activity. This study showed that it is important to pay attention to the children`s different temperaments while supporting the development of the physically active lifestyle in early childhood.
-
(2022)Some previous findings suggest the effectiveness of physical activity (PA) on children's cognitive outcomes. Studying preschool PA enables to understand children’s considerable part of daily PA and to examine its relation to other skills specifically within preschool context. Early numeracy (EN) refers to young children’s mathematical proficiency, including relational and counting skills, as in understanding and operating with quantities, number relation, classification, and the concept of numbers. EN skills are shown to strongly predict later mathematical competence and academic achievements. Thus, it is important to study and support the development of children’s EN skills. However, previous research has mainly focused on school-age children, while research in early ages is scarce. No previous studies have used device-based measurement of PA with an individual test of EN to understand the associations between young children’s preschool PA and EN performance. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between PA during preschool hours and EN performance in children aged 4 to 5 years. More specifically, the following research questions are addressed: 1) How are PA intensity levels during preschool hours associated with EN performance in 4- to 5-year-old children? 2) What kind of profiles regarding PA intensity levels during preschool hours and EN performance can be identified among 4- to 5-year-old children? The sample consisted of children (N = 95, Mage = 4.6) attending preschools in Helsinki, Finland. PA was measured during 5 consecutive preschool days using hip-worn accelerometers, while EN performance was assessed using Van Luit and colleagues’ (2006) Finnish Early Numeracy Test. The data is analysed using quantitative research analysis. To answer the first research question, correlation matrix is performed to reveal relation between the variables of interest. For the second research question, latent profile analysis is used to identify children’s profiles according to their PA data and EN test scores, while the differences in profiles are compared using ANOVA. The results of the correlation analysis revealed no significant correlation between PA level during preschool hours and EN scores in children of ages 4 to 5 years. Latent profile analysis identified three profiles of children with high, medium, and low PA, whereas EN performance did not significantly differ among the profiles. In conclusion, while the results show significantly different amounts of PA among children during preschool, the main finding of the current study is in line with previous research, suggesting no direct relation between preschool PA and EN performance. Further research controlling for other factors that may influence the results is needed to examine how variation in PA level is related to EN performance in preschool.
Now showing items 1-14 of 14