make-move-bewegungspausen
Entering the world of work with more exercise
Many young people are today suffering from ‘physical activity allergy’, a condition that is proliferating due to new digital lifestyles. Hence, there is an urgent need for targeted research into interventions that promote physical activity. An interdisciplinary research team consisting of sports scientists and designers used a service design-specific research approach to provide a holistic insight into the target group’s physical activity behaviour patterns, attitudes and motivations. A physical activity health promotion programme was developed, implemented and evaluated in a parallel top-down and bottom-up approach. This allows for evaluating the effect of participative design in this area.
Background
The aim of the project is to sustainably improve the individual physical activity behaviour of students who are training for a profession characterised by sedentary work. Mainly, aims include increasing minimal activity rates and introducing more breaks during long periods of seated activities. A best practice platform of successful interventions was created (www.makemove.de) which is now available to vocational colleges.
Methodology & approach
The cooperation between sports scientists and designers and the application of design-based methods from the area of service design allowed for an approach that was inspiring for all participants. The design-based, qualitative research approach focuses on exploring young people’s physical activity behaviour patterns and preferences and on developing interventions to promote physical activity. Using activity trackers and questionnaires, in the sports science-based quantitative approach students’ physical activities were recorded before, during and after interventions.
This interdisciplinary qualitative-quantitative approach investigates two aspects: firstly, the general possibility of influencing young people’s physical activity behaviour through interventions in the context of vocational colleges and secondly, the question as to whether the effect of these interventions is enhanced by co-creation.
The design research project cooperated with three vocational colleges: in the top-down strategy used in College A, an interdisciplinary team of sports scientists, designers and teachers developed interventions based on earlier studies, while, in the bottom-up strategy used in College B, the students developed interventions during project work, supervised by an interdisciplinary team. College C served as a control group.
Result
In the bottom-up approach used at College B, the ‘Stay Active’ concept was developed in cooperation with students. Its main elements are the ‘Stay Active Talks’ and the ‘Stay Active Parcours’. In the Stay Active Parcours, both the school and its furniture and fittings are converted into ‘exercise equipment’. Short, easy activities can be carried out at various points across the whole site. The points are labelled with QR codes. When scanning the codes with a smartphone, a YouTube video starts, showing exercise instructions filmed by students. The Stay Active Talks are active breaks involving physical activities of a maximum duration of 5 minutes. Students act as instructors and are responsible for integrating the activities into lessons. The students were trained in a ‘Train the Trainer’ workshop, giving them the necessary knowledge and skills to do the Stay Active Talks.
Physical activity breaks were also introduced during lessons in the top-down approach used at College A. Different to the method used at the bottom-up college, however, the breaks were coordinated and guided by teachers. Additionally, at College A, physical education lessons were used for interventions, and, in an eight-week teaching program, there was a different thematic focus each week. Sports scientists from the Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln developed training units that would be easy to integrate into everyday school life and would counteract the risks, both in a preventative and curative way, resulting from lack of physical activity. Besides equipping students with the skills necessary for integrating physical activity into their lives as and when they see fit, students were also shown corresponding options for future actions. In another intervention, motivational slogans were put up in the college’s hallway.
Conclusion
Since physical activity isn’t of major importance to young people, their motivation to co-create physical activity-promoting interventions is also limited. In future projects, significantly more time must be attributed to enhance students’ awareness of the importance of this issue.
During long periods of concentration and work, the students from the bottom-up school initiated physical activity breaks themselves. This could be seen as a first, small success. We also know of students who joined a fitness studio during the project phase and switched to their bikes instead of using the train. In the short term, the top-down approach will be more effective, since the implementation of interventions is guaranteed by the the teachers’ structuring their lessons accordingly. However, to effect a long-term behavioural change in students, intrinsic motivation must be reinforced. In this context, the bottom-up strategy is seen as the more effective approach. The findings and results of the project are published on the platform: www.makemove.de
