“It is impossible to stay focused on a task for 80 minutes straight without being mentally distracted and losing focus. But giving students a short break and getting them to move around for a few minutes can help them refocus on the lecture and hopefully become more productive. I know this from personal experience,” Ohio State University psychology professor Scott M. Hayes said in a press release (Scott M. Hayes).
Those who lived through Soviet times probably remember physical education classes in schools and industrial gymnastics in enterprises, which were widely used in the Soviet Union to improve productivity, relieve fatigue and prevent health problems among schoolchildren and employees. Such exercise breaks could last from two to three to five to ten minutes and included simple exercises such as head tilts, body turns and walking in place.
However, according to Hayes, he was inspired not by Soviet practice, but by a study by his colleagues, in which they talked about the positive experience of using physical education breaks during one of the video lectures. The professor decided to go further and test the method in face-to-face classes throughout the entire academic semester.
The “test subjects” were students in four of Hayes’ psychology courses—a total of 223 students. One or two five-minute exercise breaks were provided during each of the 80-minute lectures, which ranged from 20 to 93 people.
Before the experiment began, Hayes divided the students into small groups and instructed each to create five-minute sets of exercises, which were then used during physical education minutes. The instructors were the students themselves. According to the professor, he deliberately involved the lecturers so that they would be imbued with the idea and become more interested in the process.
As the teacher admitted, at first the physical education minutes were a little awkward, but then the students got used to it and got the hang of it. Some of the exercises included were jumping jacks, backpack presses and stretching. Hayes previously assessed them for feasibility and safety. One student group even got creative and put together a set that simulated apple picking in an orchard. During the exercises, you had to reach up and bend down, as if picking fruits from a tree and dropping them into a basket.
In a follow-up anonymous course survey taken at the end of the semester, students responded positively to the exercise breaks, noting that they helped improve attention and motivation and generally made lectures more engaging. Students also said that they would like more physical education classes.
In a work published in the journal Frontiers in Sports and Active LivingHayes did not examine whether the technique affected student performance, since such a study would require comparing different groups of students with different teachers and class times.
Nevertheless, the results of the experiment showed that there is definitely a positive effect from breaks for physical education and the technique can be used in face-to-face lectures at universities. In addition, additional physical activity will benefit the health of students who spend most of the day in a sitting position, the dangers of which doctors constantly talk about.
Tags: professor discovered Soviet method preventing fatigue classroom
