Å styrke fysisk aktiv lek i barnehagen – evaluering av et intervensjonsdesign basert på en høy grad av personaldeltagelse

Author
Øvreås, S., Andersen, E., Moser, T., Borch-Jenssen, J. & Jørgensen, K.-A.
Year
2020

Purpose

The study discusses a context-adapted intervention design that was used to increase physically active play in kindergarten. The staff in the kindergartens were themselves largely involved in designing and implementing the intervention’s template and content in their respective kindergartens. The researchers look at how the intervention design supported the active role and contributions of staff, and the manner in which this contributed to the design and implementation of the intervention. The research questions are: 1) How do kindergarten staff perceive and assess their active participation in an intervention project that aims to promote children’s physical activity? 2) What type of challenges and opportunities arise in the collaboration that takes place between researchers and kindergarten staff when the design of the intervention is to safeguard the staff’s professionalism?

Result

Factors that seem to be important for good implementation of the intervention were the inclusion of the entire group of staff, the staff’s (co-)ownership of the project and the dissemination of practical ideas. The kindergartens made greater use of an oral rather than a written culture of reflection. Implementation of a written reflection practice was difficult to implement, both because of time constraints and because the intervention was not adapted well enough to the field of practice’s culture.

Design

Firstly, a project group consisting of four researchers and four employees in a Norwegian municipality prepared an intervention framework. The sample consisted of eleven municipal kindergartens, six of which were randomised into the intervention group and five into a control group. The intervention was then carried out with the entire group of staff and children in the six kindergartens over a period of four months. The project group met with staff in all the intervention kindergartens five times throughout the intervention period. Between meetings, the employees worked on the implementation and documentation of their own intervention. After the project was completed, an electronic survey was conducted among the staff in the kindergartens.

References

Øvreås, S., Andersen, E., Moser, T., Borch-Jenssen, J. & Jørgensen, K.-A. (2020). «Å styrke fysisk aktiv lek i barnehagen – evaluering av et intervensjonsdesign basert på en høy grad av personaldeltagelse». Nordisk tidsskrift for utdanning og praksis, 14(1):134–154.