El enigma de Senebdiseño e implementación de un programa educativo basado en la hibridación del modelo de responsabilidad personal y social y la gamificación, para la mejora de la salud y el rendimiento académico durante las clases de Educación Física en adolescentes

Abstract

The main purpose of this Doctoral Thesis is studying, analyzing, and testing the effects that the hybridization of The Personal and Social Responsibility Model (TPSR) and the use of gamification tools over factors related to physical fitness (PF), physical activity (PA), sedentary lifestyle, body composition, motivation, cognitive and academic performances produce in adolescents during Physical Education (PE) lessons. To that end, a narrative named “The Seneb’s Enigma” has been designed. It is based in the search of a person’s comprehensive health. The students will be immersed in a mythology-based experience taking them from the current era to the Egyptian Mythology in search of the lost root of PE, in search of Seneb (Ancient Egyptian for health). This essay focuses on an intervention study which answers the variables stated in three articles. In the first article, aspects related to physical health (PF, body composition and lifestyle habits) were obtained. Regarding PF, variables such as cardiorespiratory resistance, speed, agility, strength, or flexibility were analysed using Alpha Fitness Test Battery and the Hexagon Test. Body composition was obtained calculating the Body Mass Index (BMI) after measuring weight and height (kg/m2). Finally, the lifestyle habits which were determined through the analysis of the Youth Activity Profile-Spain (YAP-S) questionnaire were the PA practice inside and outside of school as well as the daily sedentary lifestyle. The results showed that the use of an educational hybrid programme based on TPSR and on gamified strategies produced improvements in the cardiorespiratory resistance, speed, and agility variables, as well as in the PA practice during weekdays in school and weekends, thus reducing the sedentary time. In addition to the variables related to healthy habits, in the second article we intended to prove if this kind of hybridization improved psychosocial factors such as motivation, by using the Echelle de Motivation en Éducation questionnaire. The results obtained discerned the implementation of the education hybrid programme did not produce improvements in values related to motivation variables. Finally, in the third article we specifically searched for the relation produced between the intervention based on this kind of hybridization and the cognitive and academic performance variables among the different school curricular subjects, which has never been scientifically studied before this didactic intervention. Variables such as verbal fluency, cognitive planning and inhibition were extracted through NIH Examiner Battery and Stroop Color and the Word Test questionnaire. On the other hand, the academic performance was obtained through the average mark of all the school subjects, the average of all the subjects except PE and the average of the core subjects. The obtained results showed that both the control group (traditional methodology) and the experimental one (hybrid educational program) did not significantly improve in academic performances. However, the group using a hybrid educational program obtained significant improvements in cognitive performance, particularly in inhibitory control and verbal fluency.