A Quantitative Assessment Of Affective Experiences During Instructor-led Exercise Videos In School-aged Children

PURPOSE: Physical activity engagement is a multi-dimensional affective experience. Affect can be assessed through valence (i.e., pleasantness) and arousal (i.e., energy activation). The purpose of this study was to compare the pre-post affective experiences of children during instructor-led exercise videos and a control video. METHODS: Thirty-nine participants ages 7-13 years were recruited to participate in this study. Participants completed one 8-minute sedentary control video and five, 8-minute InPACT at Home exercise videos (cardio, strength, sports skills, and mindfulness). Affective valence was assessed using the Feeling Scale (FS). Arousal was assessed using the Felt Arousal Scale (FAS). Data were collected for both measures prior to and post engagement in the control and exercise videos. Paired t-tests were used to compare the mean differences (MD) of pre-post FS and FAS ratings for each video type to the control video. RESULTS: There were significant differences in affective valence for mindfulness compared to the control, with mindfulness videos producing lower pleasantness than the sedentary control video (MD = -1.0 ± 2.7, p = 0.03). There were no significant differences in pleasantness when cardio (MD = -0.23 ± 2.4), strength (MD = -0.11 ± 1.8) and sports skills (MD = -0.658 ± 1.7) videos were compared to the sedentary control video (all p’s > 0.05). There were significant differences in energy activation for strength compared to the control, with strength videos producing higher arousal than the sedentary control video (strength: MD = -0.63 ± 1.7, p = 0.03). There were no significant differences in arousal when cardio (MD = 0.5 ± 2.0), sports skills (MD = 0.0 ± 1.9), and mindfulness (MD = -0.02 ± 2.4) videos were compared to the sedentary control video (all p’s > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Measuring affective experiences during participation in instructor-led exercise videos is important, as affect is a key predictor of future physical activity participation. Collecting qualitative data in future studies may help to better understand the affective experiences of different types of physical activity in children and why mindfulness videos may be considered unpleasant, while strength videos may be arousing. Supported by: This work was supported by the Rackham Doctoral Research Fellowship.