Development, feasibility, and acceptability of Aim to Play, a user-friendly digital application for teacher skills training and physical education activities for K-2 elementary students

ABSTRACTFundamental movement skill (FMS) is an integral component to holistic child development and school readiness. Serious inequalities in physical activity participation and FMS development are associated with race/ethnicity, income, and school contexts, which further exacerbate health disparities and academic vulnerability among disadvantaged children. Children from low-income, minority, and rural backgrounds are particularly vulnerable for not meeting FMS benchmarks, and rely more heavily on schools to obtain quality physical activity opportunities to gain FMS development than other children. While 40 states currently mandate elementary school physical education (PE) to promote student public health objectives and FMS development, most marginalized students do not experience adequate PE participation because teachers (both PE certified and regular classroom teachers who teach PE) have limited or no access to easy to use and low cost programmatic resources for conducting effective, evidence-based, and standards-based PE. To address these needs, the Aim to Play™ K-2 digital application (“app”) program will be designed for kindergarten through 2nd grade classroom teachers who increasingly assume responsibility for PE instruction. These teachers consistently encounter PE instructional challenges due to (1) inadequate facilities, planning and teaching time, and equipment; (2) varied student skill levels and experience managing student PA; and, (3) an overall lack of instructional knowledge and training in movement and activity skills for conducting effective PE. To address these barriers, Aim to Play™ K-2 will work across platforms and devices to provide simple, easy to use, evidence- and standards-based PE lesson activities that can be tailored by time, instructional location (classroom, indoors/outdoors), grade, student skill level, and equipment resources, with an embedded data tracking feature to assist with state mandated reporting needs. The app will be low-cost and include brief teacher skill demonstration videos for each lesson, paired with adaptable lessons for kindergarten through 2nd grade classrooms that integrate kinesthetic cross-displace learning opportunities (i.e., vocabulary, math). Teachers will access the program via digital handheld tablet devices, online or offline, increasing accessibility for settings with poor Wi- Fi. During this Phase I SBIR, we plan to (1) use a participatory, iterative process to design and develop a prototype (i.e. beta) version of the Aim to Play™ K-2 app, a cross-platform, digital program application designed for kindergarten through 2nd grade classroom teachers, providing easy access to tailored, engaging classroom- or gym-based PE activities that meet the needs of teachers and students, and (2) evaluate the usability, satisfaction, and acceptability of the Aim to Play™ K-2 program in schools, as well as fidelity of implementation, with 9 elementary school teachers serving diverse classrooms of low-income, rural, and/or minority children, as well as direct observation of student participation in activities. If our Phase I benchmarks are met, this project will support a Phase II application. In Phase II, we plan to modify Aim to Play™ K-2 according to feedback obtained in Phase I surveys, observations, and exit interviews; create additional program modules; and evaluate the efficacy of Aim to Play™ K-2 via a randomized control trial evaluating teacher PE knowledge, self-efficacy, practices, and student engagement and FMS outcomes in under-resourced schools.