Director of the School of Kinesiology’s Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory, Zan Gao,  Ph.D., and doctoral students/co-authors June Lee and Zachary Pope, had a recent study published in Games for Health Journal.

The study investigated the effect of school-based active video games on underserved minority children’s on-task classroom behavior, academic effort, and cardiovascular fitness over the course of a 6-week intervention. Findings indicated children’s on-task classroom behavior and academic effort to increase significantly over time. However, while improvements in cardiovascular fitness were seen over time, these improvements were not significant. Nonetheless, findings indicated that a school-based active video gaming program may be able to promote improved classroom behavior and academic effort–possibly by decreasing children’s self-stimulated behavior following gameplay. Read the full article here.