Educator engagement and interaction and children’s physical activity in early childhood education and care settings: an observational study protocol

Introduction: The benefits of regular physical activity

for children are significant. Previous research has

addressed the quantity and quality of children’s

physical activity while in early childhood education and

care (ECEC) settings, yet little research has investigated

the social and physical environmental influences on

physical activity in these settings. The outcomes of this

study will be to measure these social and physical

environmental influences on children’s physical activity

using a combination of a real-time location system

(RTLS) (a closed system that tracks the location of

movement of participants via readers and tags),

accelerometry and direct observation.

Methods and analysis: This study is the first of its

kind to combine RTLSs and accelerometer data in

ECEC settings. It is a cross-sectional study involving

∼100 educators and 500 children from 11 ECEC

settings in the Illawarra region of New South Wales,

Australia. A RTLS and Actigraph GT3X+

accelerometers will be concurrently used to measure

the level and location of the children’s and educators’

physical activity while in outside environments.

Children and educators will wear accelerometers on

their hip that record triaxial acceleration data at

100 Hz. Children and educators will also wear a tag

watch on their wrist that transmits a signal to anchors

of the RTLS and the triangulation of signals will

identify their specific location. In addition to these, up

to three random periods (10–25 min in length) will be

used to collect observational data each day and

assessed with the classroom assessment and scoring

system to measure the quality of interactions. In

conjunction with the real-time location system (RTLS)

and accelerometers, these observations will measure

the relationship between the quality of interactions and

children’s physical activity.

Ethics and dissemination: The results of this study

will be disseminated through peer-reviewed

publications and presentations. Ethical approval was

obtained through the University of Wollongong Human

Research Ethics Committee (HE14/330).