Do it yourself! A participative approach to increase participation and engagement of high school students in physical education and sport classes

DIYPES was a 26 months project (January 2017-February 2019) aiming to increase high-school students’ participation and engagement in physical education and sport (PES) classes. To achieve this aim, firstly we conducted a comprehensive analysis of the PES curriculum in the 5 partner countries implementing the intervention (Albania, Italy, Malta, Romania and Slovakia). We used thematic document analysis followed by semi-structured stakeholders’ interviews. The deliverables are national physical education and sport (PES) curriculum analysis reports, uploaded on the Erasmus + Project Results platform.The following step was collecting the necessary data to inform the project intervention. Through questionnaires and focus-groups with students, interviews with PES teachers and observation of the “regular” PES classes and of high-schools’ infrastructure, we gathered the necessary information to develop the intervention and lesson plans for each of the classes involved in the project. The intervention was based on students’ expressed needs and preferences, according to the curriculum and available infrastructure and equipments, and following PES teachers’ feedback and opinions. During the 3 months intervention project staff communicated with PES teachers and students, for adapting the intervention in accordance to the feedback – collaboration process was documented through a common template. Also, we conducted during intervention PES classes’ observation. At the end of the intervention we applied a questionnaire to students and an interview with each PES teacher to assess the short term impact/results of the intervention. Project implementation included 4 meetings, 3 for project staff (kick-off, work meeting 1 and end of project), for preparing project related activities and one work-meeting (WM2) with the participation of students, PES teachers & stakeholders and project staff, for networking and early dissemination of recently used methods.Preliminary results: more than 45 high-school classes, grades 9, 10 and 11, from 15 high-schools in the 5 partner countries were enrolled in the project; a total of about 1150 students were approached, out of which about 920 agreed to participate in the data collection processes, a participation rate of about 80%. Preliminary results show that after intervention more students declared to be physically active at least 60 minutes / day, each day compared with the number before intervention. Also, about 62,5% (N=918) of the students declared the PES classes in the intervention were much more attractive or at bit more attractive than regular classes and more than half of the students (57%) declared they’ve been much more active or bit more active in the PES classes in the intervention compared with the regular PES classes. Project quality control (monitoring & evaluation) was conducted as part of a separate work-package (WP4), lead by SDU-Denmark. Monitoring and evaluation is described in 3 periodic reports (months 8, 16 and 24), uploaded on the Erasmus + Project Results platform. Dissemination: all the targets set-out in the dissemination plan have been achieved, or even over fulfilled. Throughout the project implementation we delivered 4 newsletters, one brochure translated in 5 languages +En, 5 press releases, 18 articles in local paper and 6 scientific papers, out of which 3 full papers. All the initially proposed social media coverage targets has also been achieved, the full details can be found in the PDF document DIYPES_W5 report_final.pdf, uploaded on the Erasmus + Project Results platform. Overall, the project has achieved its initial aim and objectives. We managed to successfully implement all the proposed activities in all partner countries. We currently work for making best use of the rich data we have collected through various quantitative and qualitative means.