Making a HIIT: study protocol for assessing the feasibility and effects of co-designing high-intensity interval training workouts with students and teachers

Abstract

Background High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is an effective strategy for improving a variety of health outcomes within the school setting. However, there is limited research on the implementation of school-based HIIT interventions and the integration of HIIT within the Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum. The aims of the Making a HIIT study are to: 1) describe the methodology and evaluate the feasibility of co-designing HIIT workouts with students and teachers in HPE; 2) determine the effect of co-designed HIIT workouts on cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, and executive function; 3) understand the effect of co-design on students’ motivation, enjoyment, and self-efficacy towards the workouts; and 4) evaluate the implementation of the intervention. Methods Three schools will participate. Within each school, three different groups will be formed from Year 7 and 8 classes: 1) Co-Designers; 2) HIIT Only; and 3) Control. The study will include two phases. In phase one, Group 1 will co-design HIIT workouts as part of the HPE curriculum using an iterative process with the researcher, teacher, and students as collaborators. This process will be evaluated using student discussions, student surveys, and teacher interviews. In phase two, Groups 1 and 2 will use the co-designed 10-minute HIIT workouts in HPE for 8-weeks. Group 3 (control) will continue their regular HPE lessons. All students will participate in cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness, and executive function assessments before and after the HIIT program or control period. Students will complete questionnaires on their motivation, enjoyment, and self-efficacy of the workouts. Differences between groups will be assessed using linear regressions to account for covariates. Heart rate and rating of perceived exertion will be collected during each HIIT session. The implementation will be evaluated using the Framework for Effective Implementation. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee and other relevant bodies. Discussion This study will be the first to co-design HIIT workouts with teachers and students within the HPE curriculum. As this study relies on co-design, each HIIT workout will differ, which will add variability between HIIT workouts but increase the ecological validity of the study. Trial registration ACTRN, ACTRN12622000534785, Registered 5 April 2022 – Retrospectively registered, https://www.anzctr.org.au/ACTRN12622000534785.aspx

Analysis of College Students’ Psychological Education Management in Public Emergencies Based on Big Data

“…Existing studies have found that some scholars have put forward the conceptual model and mechanism of psychological crisis management based on big data [ 26 , 27 ], but the operability is not strong. Based on this, on the basis of analyzing the concept and characteristics of college students' psychological crisis, combined with the problems and the needs of college students' psychological health education, this paper puts forward suggestions on deepening the application of technology in college students' psychological health education, systematically builds a college students' psychological crisis early warning system under big data, and puts forward scientific, targeted, and effective countermeasures and reference methods for college students' psychological crisis, in order to provide theoretical and methodological support for college mental health management.…”

Making a HIIT: High-intensity interval training interventions in educational settings

“…The Making a HIIT study has previously been described in detail in Chapter Three [207]. An overview of the study is provided below to contextualise the findings.…”

“…The Making a HIIT study is a real-world school-based HIIT intervention adapted for implementation at three separate schools using HIIT workouts co-designed at each school [207]. Teachers led the intervention within Year 7 and 8 health and physical education (HPE) lessons and adapted the intervention to fit the school and class context [207]. The aim of this paper was to comprehensively evaluate the implementation of the Making a HIIT study using the Framework for Effective Implementation [161].…”

“…The Making a HIIT study consisted of two phases [207]. In phase one, students co-designed HIIT workouts with their class, teacher, and a researcher as part of their HPE curriculum through an iterative process.…”

“…No data were collected during the intervention for the differentiation dimension. The uniqueness of the study was determined during the design of Making a HIIT [207] based on a systematic review and meta-analysis on school-based HIIT conducted by the authors [155].…”