Background: An important issue for pediatric health is to understand how to enhance the level of physical activity of children and adolescents during the pandemic. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of a physical education- based online intervention on promoting motivation and physical activity of adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: The present study used an experimental design with pre-test and post-test conducted in Iran, 2020. The participants were 68 high school students who were randomly allocated into intervention and control groups. The participants of the intervention group were exposed to a three-month intervention based on Self-Determination theory within the online physical education classes while those in the control group followed their regular online physical education classes. Perceived autonomy support, motivation, intention, and physical activity behavior were measured using standard questionnaires. Independent t test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were utilized to analyze the data.
Results: The pre-test showed that the participants of both groups had similar perceived autonomy support, motivation, intention, and physical activity behavior at baseline. However, the participants in the intervention group reported higher perceived autonomy support (3.2 vs. 1.48, p <0.001), motivation (3.03 vs. 1.49, p <0.001), intention (2.75 vs. 1.51, p <0.001), and physical activity level (2.4 vs. 1.11, p <0.001) in the post-test in comparison to those in the control group.
Conclusions: These results highlighted the importance of developing strategies in online physical education classes for improving motivation and physical activity level of adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.