Introduction:

Unstructured, active outdoor play is fundamental to children’s physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. The Physical Literacy in the Early Years (PLEY) project explored how unstructured outdoor play with loose parts in Nova Scotia (NS) childcare settings improved children’s physical literacy: the motivation, confidence, competence, knowledge and understanding to be active for life. Loose parts are materials that can be manipulated and combined in various ways (e.g. wooden planks, buckets, tubes), and provide children with more affordances in how they play outdoors. These materials encourage collaboration, problem solving, creative thinking, and sensory awareness. They also help refine motor skill development and encourage risk taking, which helps children develop physical literacy.

Purpose:

To date, there is limited evidence exploring the value of outdoor loose parts play in Canadian school environments. Most evidence comes from the United Kingdom and Australia, however none of these school-based loose parts initiatives have done a rigorous, mixed-methods evaluation of the benefits of outdoor loose parts play to children’s physical literacy and cognitive development. PLEY School, an upcoming school-based outdoor loose parts play project, will scale up and extend the outdoor loose parts intervention into the early elementary school environment (grades pre-primary to one) and evaluate its impact on children’s physical and cognitive health.

Methods:

Children’s physical literacy and cognitive development will be evaluated, comparing measures at the beginning and end of the school year, and to control schools. Children will be engaged in documenting their loose parts play through go-along interviews and photo-elicitation. Educators and parents will be engaged in dialogue to explore their experiences supporting outdoor play and associated benefits and challenges.

Anticipated Results:

Preliminary findings from the PLEY project demonstrate that outdoor loose parts play provides physical, cognitive, social, and emotional health benefits for NS preschool-aged children. Similar findings are expected for PLEY School. 



Conclusion

The early years are the most advantageous time for establishing habits that maintain health across the lifespan. This work will be a critical step toward ensuring schools across NS provide an environment where children’s health and development are optimized.  

Introduction

The benefits of outdoor, risky play are holistic, numerous, and extend beyond health. We are conducting a programme of work, in collaboration with the Department of Conservation (DoC) and their children’s programme, Toyota Kiwi Guardians (TKG), to understand characteristics of individuals most likely to spend time in nature, what the barriers are and what benefits may be associated with doing so.

Methods

A survey of caregivers whose children had engaged in nature play was conducted. Questions included demographics, motivators and barriers to getting to TKG sites across New Zealand. We are also planning a cross-sectional pilot study that will assess the relationship between primary school children’s exposure to nature and wellbeing, physical literacy, psycho-social development, behaviour and academic performance. Chi-squared tests and regression analyses will be used to draw associations between participation in TKG, exposure to nature and the outcomes of interest.

Results

Preliminary results reveal that families earning more than the median national income, with easy access to outdoor activity sites, were most likely to take part in TKG. Having a positive experience with TKG encouraged families to visit other non-TKG sites such as national parks and beaches. Results from the cross-sectional study will be analysed by March 2020.

Conclusion

TKG provides a fun and motivating opportunity for families to spend time together in nature. However, there are barriers to engaging, particularly for those from more deprived areas. We will provide preliminary evidence from New Zealand to demonstrate whether children benefit from spending time in nature. Ways to encourage teachers and parents in engaging more with outdoor education and natural spaces will be identified. Further research should implement interventions so that the causal effects of outdoor, risky play can be empirically demonstrated.  

Purpose: Children with higher levels of motor competence appear to maintain higher levels of physical activity across their lifespan. An increasing attrition rate in youth sports and a shift towards unstructured play and recreation means shifting towards a more inclusive way to measure movement beyond sport skills alone. A valid and reliable assessment tool called the Dragon Challenge (DC) is a circuit of fundamental movement skills created to measure both product and process-oriented aspects of motor competency. Although the DC takes 1.5 to 3 min per individual assessment, the purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of it to be conducted using video recordings in the physical education setting where too few staff are able to execute live scoring (at least 3 are required).

Methods: Thirty-six video recordings of children performing the DC, 14 girls (Mean ±SD age = 10.6 ±0.84 years) and 22 boys (Mean ±SD age = 11.55 ±0.8 years), were taken during an otherwise standard DC assessment session. Video recordings were taken using two cameras placed diagonally across the test court. The DC was delivered and assessed in accordance with the DC manual and testing overseen by a gold standard assessor. After live scoring, each participant was also scored by three assessors using the video recordings.

Results: Intra-rater reliability between live and video-recorded assessment scores was excellent (ICC = 0.923; 95%, [CI] 0.850 – 0.961) with no significant differences. The results of a Bland-Altman plot indicated good levels of agreement.

Conclusions: The use of video recording to assess DC performance appears to provide a valid, reliable and time-saving alternative to live assessment and reduces the number of assessors required. Perhaps video recording DC could present a viable assessment tool which provides results that are more indicative of general motor competence for children engaging in all types of physical activities.