Move Up! A (digital) sports program for children of primary school age

With our project "Get Up . Stand Up . Move Up" in cooperation with our "Psychology and Society" department and the "Education and Teaching" department with Task and the TSG Wilhelmshöhe e.V. handball youth development association, we have created an initially digital offering for children of primary school age, which will be continued as a hybrid format from April. The aim is to encourage children to exercise regularly, even during lockdown and the pandemic, and also to learn about the possibilities and limitations of the digital world.

Of course, exercise and sport are of immense importance, even during the pandemic and especially for children. Once a week, the offer takes place digitally and live, led by sports students and older young people from TSG Wilhelmshöhe. For the rest of the week, materials are provided to encourage exercise. The hybrid format will combine digital and analog formats and will be supported by the collaboration of students from a seminar in the summer semester.

The project will be scientifically monitored and evaluated. In addition to the aim of gaining insights into the conditions for the success of a digitally supported sports program for children, the focus is on the young people who volunteer as instructors.

The participating children were initially invited to take part in an initial survey and a further survey after four weeks. The focus is on the children's sport and exercise behavior as well as the promotion and satisfaction of basic psychological needs(quantitative approach).

In a qualitative approach, both some of the children and the student instructors are interviewed using a focused or semi-structured interview method. In the case of the children, the "children interviewing children" method, which has rarely been used to date, is used. The aim of the interviews is to find out more about the conditions that lead to positive relationships at a digital level in the context of sporting activity. Essentially, it is about whether the project contributes to promoting or satisfying basic psychological needs and can lead to increased, self-directed sporting activity.

Finally, the young people who volunteer as part of the project are interviewed. The aim of the interviews is to gain insights into the young people's perspective on their social engagement with a focus on the more difficult conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the question of whether such commitment can increase the assessment of one's own self-efficacy will be examined.

Clickhere for the HNA article "Want to get children involved in sport" from 25.01.2021.

The HR also reports: Click here for the article from 03.07.2021.

Limmeroth, J., Hagemann, N., Heussner, F. & Scheid, V. (2021). Conditions for the success of a digital sports program. Forum Kinder- und Jugendsport.doi. org/10.1007/s43594-021-00030-z

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