Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of physical play before the start of lesson on the amount of physical activity in the school of children.

Method: We compared the amount of physical activity during the school day at an elementary school that provides physical play before the start of lesson (intervention school) and an elementary school that does not provide physical play before the start of lesson (control school). Data from 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade children (intervention school: 86 children, control school 90 children) were used for the analysis. Physical play was carried out for 6 months by two methods, “play for each grade” and “play in vertical division”. We measured the amount of physical activity in the school on five weekdays before and after the project using a 3-axis accelerometer. To examine the effects of the intervention, we conducted an analysis of covariance with the amount of physical activity after the project as the dependent variable, the elementary school (intervention school and control school) as the independent variable, and the grade, height, weight, and amount of physical activity before the intervention as covariates.

Result: Regarding the amount of physical activity per 60 minutes after the program, for both men and women, the control school showed significantly higher sedentary behavior time (boys intervention school: 21.1±4.6; control school: 25.0±4.4; girls intervention school: 22.4±6.0; control school: 27.0±4.9), and the intervention school showed significantly higher moderate physical activity time (boys intervention school: 7.0±2.2; control school 4.1±1.1, girls intervention school: 5.9±1.9;control school: 3.3±1.1), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity time (boys intervention school: 8.1±2.6; control school: 5.0±1.3, girls intervention school: 6.8±2.4; control school: 4.0±1.3), number of steps (boys intervention school: 1014.9±211.6;control school: 761.6±160.3;girls intervention school: 895.2±245.0;control school: 663.1±164.3) were significantly higher than in the control school.

Conclusion: The implementation of physical play before the start of lesson was found to be effective in increasing the amount of physical activity and reducing sedentary behavior of children in the school.

In this study, we aimed to examine physical competence in the lower grades of elementary school by applying three teaching strategies: ingenuity of teaching materials, relationship with rich friends, and the teacher’s approach to enhance physical competence. Physical competence was composed of three factors: “perceived physical competence,” “feelings of control,” and “peer and teacher acceptance.” In addition, we examined the relationship between physical competence and tactical decision-making ability. We hypothesized that improving tactical decision-making ability would enhance students’ “perceived physical competence” and “feelings of control.”

Eighty-two first-grade students participated in this study. The students were divided into three groups and were required to play tag games. To evaluate the physical competence of students, we utilized the Okazawa, Kita and Suwa’s physical competence scale developed in 1996. We then divided the participants into upper and lower groups according to their “physical competence” or factor score. To analyze students’ decision-making ability, we made them play the same games for one hour before and after the unit. We video recorded the games and used the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI) for data analysis. We reported three main findings. First, when teaching strategies were applied to enhance physical competence, the upper group maintained a high value both before and after the unit, while the lower group improved after the unit. Second, decision-making ability regarding game performance improved in both the upper and lower groups. Third, improving decision making ability is necessary to enhance “physical competence” in the upper group. Finally, there was a negative relationship between “ball-keeping” (or waiting until the game situation changes) and “perceived physical competence” in the upper group, and between “ball-keeping” and “feelings of control” in both the upper and lower groups.

Our study demonstrated that students’ physical competence improved when teaching strategies were applied to enhance physical competence. Additionally, we showed that improving students’ decision-making ability is critical to increasing their “physical competence” in the upper group.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of physical education classes in mastery climate on physical competence and the effect on the passive/avoidant behavior of students with low physical competence, that is, low motivation for physical activities. The boys in the first grade of junior high school were assigned to a 9-hour futsal class which was implemented a method created based on the knowledge of previous research to improve a mastery climate. The learning results were measured by “Mastery climate questionnaire”, “Physical competence questionnaire”, “Survey of movement trajectory in the game”, and “semi-structured interview”. As a result, there were significant improvement after the class in mastery climate score for the high/middle/low group and in physical competence score for the middle/low group. In addition, the result of correlation analysis of the change in the mastery climate score and the physical competence score before and after the class shows that the positive correlation was change in physical competence score and change in mastery climate score (only middle and low group). Therefore, the result that four selected students from the low group conducted “Survey of movement trajectory in the game”, and “semi-structured interview” show that the selected students actively participated in the game in the second half of the class and were able to move in conjunction with their teammates. Furthermore, it was considered that the change in the behavior of the selected students was influenced by positive feedback to the surrounding students, especially selected students from the high group. Besides, the reason behind the positive feedback to the selected students from the high group was because students recognize the teacher's mastery orientation.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a lesson unit for fourth graders focusing on divergent and convergent thinking in flag football strategy planning, and to analyze changes in the students’ strategy planning before and after the lesson unit. The participants were 64 fourth-grade students. We conducted a paper-based strategies planning test before and after a lesson unit consisting of eight flag football physical education (PE) classes. During the first half of the lesson unit, we set goals for students to present their ideas and plan various strategies, and during the second half, we provided specialized instructions in selecting and modifying effective strategies. The strategies planning test was analyzed from the perspectives of divergent thinking i.e., number and concreteness of plans, and convergent thinking i.e., number and appropriateness of plans.

The main results following the strategies planning test are below:

(1) The number of strategies planned by the students increased.

(2) Furthermore, the number of strategies on how to decoy players and the defensive players’ moves led to an increase in the percentage of concrete strategies.

(3) The percentage of strategies on attacking places without defensive players increased.

These results confirmed that the students were planning more concrete strategies through the lesson unit and thus, their divergent thinking had improved. In addition, the students came together to plan a strategy, assuming they would attack a place without defensive players and thus, their convergent thinking had improved. Therefore, it can be said that the lesson unit was an example of effective methods to promote divergent and convergent thinking of strategy planning by children.