DOES EXERGAME HELP IMPROVE PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND MOTIVATION TO ENGAGE IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY?

Abstract

This study aims to explore participants’ insights and feelings towards exergame concepts to promote physical activity (PA). Specifically, aspects such as participants’ perceptions, knowledge and motivation towards exergame were analysed to investigate how exergame influences their engagement with PA and learning during online distance learning (ODL). This study adopted a qualitative research design. Both video recording (2 minutes/video) and drawings (i.e., discussed in part two) were utilised to explore the participants’ perceptions, knowledge, and motivation with exergame. Convenience sampling was utilised to gather participants who comprised of 45 first-year undergraduate physical and health education (PHE), biology and chemistry major students ages between 20-25 years (i.e., 13 males and 32 females, respectively). The Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis approach was referred to develop the procedures and instruments while Consider.ly software (Usertime Solutions GmbH) was used to analyse data from the videos and drawings. Additionally, the keywords and significant answers were also noted, clustered into main themes to ease understanding and superordinate themes related to this study. Findings indicate that: (i) Exergame concepts were effective in increasing both participants’ learning enjoyment and PA level, (ii) The addition of exergame was successful in promoting higher engagement between participants and educators, (iii) A lot of participants reported higher motivation to learn course contents and (iv) Perceived exergame as an opportunity to sharpen their thinking skills through challenges presented in exergame. Overall, the findings contribute to our understanding of how pedagogical strategies such as exergame can be adopted in and out of the classroom to promote desirable learning experiences and academic outcomes.