The Effects of Cycling on a Desk Bike on Attention, Retention and Mood during a Video Lecture

The Effects of Bike Desks in Formal Education Classroom-Based Physical Activity: A Systematic Review

A systematic review of the research conducted on classroom-based physical activity using bike desks, a school health prevention strategy. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic review of bike desks effects on formal education students. Articles from two databases, Web of Science and PubMed, were analyzed according to PRISMA. The quality of each study was analyzed. After the exclusion criteria, eight articles were fully assessed based on six criteria: (1) author and year, (2) setting and sample, (3) duration, (4) outcomes measurements, (5) instruments and (6) main results. The results show how the interventions are mainly in secondary education and university, and most of them are quantitative studies of short-term interventions. Physical activity is the most frequently variable assessed, using logs, questionnaires and objective methods such as accelerometry and heart rate monitoring. Based on all the studies, it is feasible to implement bike desks in the classroom during theoretical lessons. The weaknesses are related to small samples and the use of different instruments to measure. In conclusion, this systematic review compiles the current information about bike desks in order to inform teachers and administrators for the implementation of bike desk in their schools. They should consider bike desks’ strengths and weaknesses.

Non-traditional immersive seminar enhances learning by promoting greater physiological and psychological engagement compared to a traditional lecture format

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of an immersive seminar, which included moderate intensities of physical activity, on learning when compared to traditional lecture format. Twenty-six healthy participants were randomly divided into an immersive seminar or traditional lecture format group and presented material related to positive psychology and human values/beliefs over the course of two days. Physical activity was collected using a bio-harness while salivary cortisol and perceptual measures of well-being were collected over the two days. Performance on an examination related to course material was used to assess learning. Average time spent over 65% of max heart rate, energy expenditure, total bounds, mechanical and physiological load were significantly greater in the immersive seminar group when compared to traditional lecture group. In addition, cortisol levels and perceptual measures of mood, focus, energy, and well-being were significantly greater in the immersive seminar when compared to the traditional lecture format. Participants in the immersive seminar demonstrated significantly greater memory retention of course material 30-days post lecture when compared to the traditional lecture group. These findings support incorporating more physical activity and increasing arousal in order to enhance learning of lecture material.

A Narrative Review of School-Based Physical Activity for Enhancing Cognition and Learning: The Importance of Relevancy and Integration

Engaging in regular physical activity can have substantial cognitive and academic benefits for children, and is generally promoted for its beneficial effects on children's physical and mental health. Although embodied cognition research has convincingly shown the integral relationship of the human body and mind, in schools physical activity and cognitive activity are typically treated as unrelated processes. Consequently, most physical activities used are neither sufficiently relevant for nor fully integrated into the learning tasks. In reviewing the literature regarding the integration of physical activity into education to promote cognition and learning, two main lines of research emerged: exercise and cognition research vs. embodied cognition research. In this narrative review, we describe these two separately evolved schools of thought, highlighting their differences and commonalities. In categorising the existing studies on a 2 × 2 matrix, concerning the two main categories of relevance for and integration into the learning task, it becomes clear where the different foci lie, and how both lines of research could profit from learning from each other. Finally, a new instructional model that integrates task-relevant physical activities into the cognitive/learning task is proposed to inform both further research and educational practice.