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Category: Peer-Reviewed Articles

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Lumpkin, 2013

In Florida, public K-12 students are being educated in two conditions, old and new school buildings, those erected prior to the statewide implementation of the State Uniform Building Code for Public Educational Facilities Construction (UBC) in 2000 and those constructed after.

One research question guided this inquiry. Does the aggregate percentage of fourth, eighth, ninth, and tenth grade students passing the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) mathematics and reading subtests increase after transitioning from an old school building to a new facility? A causal-comparative research design was used to determine if the academic achievement of students as measured by the mathematics and reading subtests of the FCAT increased after relocating from an old school building to a new 2000 UBC compliant facility. Two preexisting groups were used. The control group was two cohorts of students attending school in old buildings. The experimental group was two cohorts of students attending school in new buildings. The treatment was the transition from an old school building to a new 2000 UBC compliant structure. Results from this study indicated that the mean percent of students passing the FCAT mathematics subtest increased from M = 48.11in the old school buildings to M = 54.67 in the new school buildings. The mean percent of students passing the FCAT reading subtest increased from M = 41.25 in the old school buildings to M = 44.28 in the new school buildings. The evidence from this study suggests that the quality of the school environment is important to student academic achievement.

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Fisher, Godwin, and Seltman, 2014

A large body of evidence supports the importance of focused attention for encoding and task performance. Yet young children with immature regulation of focused attention are often placed in elementary-school classrooms containing many displays that are not relevant to ongoing instruction. We investigated whether such displays can affect children’s ability to maintain focused attention during instruction and to learn the lesson content. We placed kindergarten children in a laboratory classroom for six introductory science lessons, and we experimentally manipulated the visual environment in the classroom. Children were more distracted by the visual environment, spent more time off task, and demonstrated smaller learning gains when the walls were highly decorated than when the decorations were removed.

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Klatte, Bergström, and Lachmann, 2013

The present paper provides an overview of research concerning both acute and chronic effects of exposure to noise on children's cognitive performance. Experimental studies addressing the impact of acute exposure showed negative effects on speech perception and listening comprehension. These effects are more pronounced in children as compared to adults. Children with language or attention disorders and second-language learners are still more impaired than age-matched controls. Noise-induced disruption was also found for non-auditory tasks, i.e., serial recall of visually presented lists and reading. The impact of chronic exposure to noise was examined in quasi-experimental studies. Indoor noise and reverberation in classroom settings were found to be associated with poorer performance of the children in verbal tasks. Regarding chronic exposure to aircraft noise, studies consistently found that high exposure is associated with lower reading performance. Even though the reported effects are usually small in magnitude, and confounding variables were not always sufficiently controlled, policy makers responsible for noise abatement should be aware of the potential impact of environmental noise on children's development.

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Bagot, Allen, and Toukhsati, 2014

With little research examining children's restorative environments, the design of environments supportive of children's functioning is limited. The aim of this study was to examine the predictors of perceived restorativeness of children's school playgrounds, using Attention Restoration Theory. Children (N ¼ 550, 46% boys, Mage ¼ 9.73 years, SD ¼ 1.21) from 14 schools reported playground perceived restorativeness and play period experiences (affect, physical activity, social activity, perceived affordances). Playground characteristics of nature, size, play areas, play equipment and ratio of total grounds were assessed. After controlling for gender, age and playground size, vegetation volume was the only significant naturalness measure predicting perceived restorativeness. Play period experiences explained more variance than physical characteristics. With only moderate levels of perceived restorativeness revealed, the potential for school grounds to enhance children's functioning remains. Factors contributing to children's restorative environments may differ from adults, requiring children's inclusion in the research and design of their environments.

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Rose and Porgio, 2015

Education in the broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. The concept of achievement involves the interaction of the factors namely aptitude for learning, readiness for learning, and opportunity for learning. It is the accomplishment or acquired proficiency in the performance of an individual in a given skill or body of knowledge. It is the criterion for selection, promotion or recognition in various walks of life. The central job of high schools is to maximize the capacity of each student. If the school climate is not positive, students will underperform, student attendance and student discipline are not likely to improve and school safety coned be compromised. If the school climate is not positive, students will underperform, student attendance and student discipline are not likely to improve and school safety coned be compromised. The physical environment should be welcoming and conducive to learning. In the present study the investigators have adopted stratified random sampling method for data collection. The sample for the present study consists of 1000 high school students from 27 schools of Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Tuticorin districts. The tools constructed by the researchers were teacher effectiveness scale and academic achievement scale. For data analysis statistical techniques such as Percentage analysis, Mean, Standard Deviation and‘t’ test were employed. The physical climate of the self- financed high schools is greater than the government and aided high school students. Government and the Management may set up a part of reasoned sum of money for improving the physical climate of their schools. Government may come forward to provide additional grants to improve the physical climate of the schools such as classroom, furniture and equipment.

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Martin and Murtagh, 2015

Background: Recent evidence demonstrates that children are not engaging in the recommended 60 min of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day. Physical activity (PA) interventions have been acknowledged by the WHO (2010) as a key strategy to increase the PA levels of children. School has been recognised as a primary location for reaching the majority of children and providing PA opportunities for them. However, the sedentary nature of lessons carried out in the classroom has been identified as a contributing factor to physical inactivity among this age group. Purpose: The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate a classroom-based intervention which integrates PA and academic content, and evaluate its effects on the PA levels of children aged 8–11 in Ireland.

Methods: Active Classrooms is an 8-week classroom based intervention guided by the behaviour change wheel (BCW) framework (Michie et al. 2011) that will be evaluated using a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT). Study measures will be taken at baseline, during the final week of the intervention and at follow-up after 4 months. The primary outcome is minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity during school time objectively assessed using accelerometers (Actigraph). Teachers' perceptions on the effectiveness and use of the intervention and students' enjoyment of the programme will be evaluated post intervention. Conclusions: Changing teacher behaviour towards using physically active teaching methods may increase the moderate to vigorous physical activity levels of their students. Therefore, the results of this study may have important implications for the health of children both now and into the future. Trial Registration: ISRCTN14265493

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Kimbro, Brooks-Gunn, and McLanahan, 2011

Although research consistently demonstrates a link between residential context and physical activity for adults and adolescents, less is known about young children’s physical activity. Using data from the U.S. Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=1822, 51% male), we explored whether outdoor play and television watching were associated with children’s body mass indexes (BMIs) at age five using OLS regression models, controlling for a wide array of potential confounders, including maternal BMI. We also tested whether subjective and objective neighborhood measures - socioeconomic status (from U.S. Census tract data), type of dwelling, perceived collective efficacy, and interviewer-assessed physical disorder of the immediate environment outside the home -were associated with children’s activities, using negative binomial regression models. Overall, 19% of the sample were overweight (between the 85th and 95thpercentiles), and 16% were obese (≥95th percentile). Hours of outdoor play were negatively associated with BMI, and hours of television were positively associated with BMI. Moreover, a ratio of outdoor play to television time was a significant predictor of BMI. Higher maternal perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy were associated with more hours of outdoor play, fewer hours of television viewing, and more trips to a park or playground. In addition, we found that neighborhood physical disorder was associated with both more outdoor play and more television watching. Finally, contrary to expectations, we found that children living in public housing had significantly more hours of outdoor play and watched more television, than other children. We hypothesize that poorer children may have more unstructured time, which they fill with television time but also with outdoor play time; and that children in public housing may be likely to have access to play areas on the grounds of their housing facilities.

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Carson and Janssen, 2012

Background: Screen time activities (e.g., television, computers, video games) have been linked to several negative health outcomes among young people. In order to develop evidence-based interventions to reduce screen time, the factors that influence the behavior need to be better understood. High neighborhood disorder, which may encourage young people to stay indoors where screen time activities are readily available, is one potential factor to consider.

Methods: Results are based on 15,917 youth in grades 6-10 (aged 10-16 years old) who participated in the Canadian 2009/10 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey (HBSC). Total hours per week of television, video games, and computer use were reported by the participating students in the HBSC student questionnaire. Ten items of neighborhood disorder including safety, neighbors taking advantage, drugs/drinking in public, ethnic tensions, gangs, crime, conditions of buildings/grounds, abandoned buildings, litter, and graffiti were measured using the HBSC student questionnaire, the HBSC administrator questionnaire, and Geographic Information Systems. Based upon these 10 items, social and physical neighborhood disorder variables were derived using principal component analysis. Multivariate multilevel logistic regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between social and physical neighborhood disorder and individual screen time variables.

Results: High (top quartile) social neighborhood disorder was associated with approximately 35-45% increased risk of high (top quartile) television, computer, and video game use. Physical neighborhood disorder was not associated with screen time activities after adjusting for social neighborhood disorder. However, high social and physical neighborhood disorder combined was associated with approximately 40-60% increased likelihood of high television, computer, and video game use.

Conclusion: High neighborhood disorder is one environmental factor that may be important to consider for future public health interventions and strategies aiming to reduce screen time among youth.

Keywords: Screen time, Neighborhood disorder, Youth

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Plank, Bradshaw, & Young, 2008

This article considers school climate and perceptions of social disorder. When a school is characterized by disorder or physical risk, basic educational goals and processes are jeopardized. We use survey data from 33 public schools serving grades 6–8 in a large mid-Atlantic city to examine relationships among physical disorder (e.g., broken windows and poor building conditions), fear, collective efficacy, and social disorder. Path analyses reveal a direct association between physical disorder and social disorder even when prior levels of collective efficacy are controlled—a finding consistent with traditional broken-windows theories. Further, there is evidence that the effects of physical disorder may be operating through increased fear and decreased collective efficacy to affect perceptions of threatening or violent interactions among people.

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Neighborhood perceived/built environment and physical activity (PA) associations have been examined for adolescents around homes, but not surrounding schools. To examine if positive perceptions/built environment in neighborhoods surrounding schools predict PA among low-income, urban adolescent girls.

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