Physical Education, Sport and Corona virus pandemic: Understanding consequences of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns on children’s and youth physical literacy

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Till Utesch
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: from 2021 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 470250884

The International Charter for Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport identifies participation in meaningful physical activity throughout the life course as a priority and fundamental right for all people. Physical Literacy is a rapidly evolving scientific concept that is also increasingly used in policy. It means that a person has the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to engage in and take responsibility for purposeful physical activity across the life course. For childhood and adolescence, previous research has shown a positive impact of physical competence on overall school success. However, during the pandemic, a variety of interventions, such as full school attendance closure, partly attendance closure in schools (i.e., accompanying cancellation of physical education), and prohibition of recreational and professional sports, were implemented that potentially threaten the positive physical and affective-cognitive development of children and adolescents.The goal of this project is to examine the impact of COVID-19 induced lockdowns in spring to summer 2020 and fall 2020 to summer 2021 on the physical and affective-cognitive development (physical literacy; physical literacy) of children and adolescents in Germany. A particular focus lies on influences of social factors. The lockdown periods will be used as natural experiments to study the effects with a special focus on social factors.The PESCov project consists of two secondary analyses of existing longitudinal data on components of physical performance and education in childhood and adolescence. A cohort design with a dataset from Berlin representing a metropolitan region (> 6,600 third graders) and a longitudinal design with representative samples from all over Germany with the Motor Module Study (1,700 4-17-year-olds) serve as the data basis.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants