Impact Findings from a Randomized Experiment of Playworks

Introduction - Regular physical activity in youth has been linked to health, academic, and social benefits, but many school-aged children in the United States, especially those in lower-income areas, do not get enough opportunity to engage in physical activity during their school day. Playworks is a program that places full-time coaches in low-income, urban schools to provide more opportunities for organized play during recess and throughout the school day. The current study was the first ever randomized controlled trial conducted on the Playworks program.

Methods - Twenty nine schools from six U.S. cities participated in the study. During either the 2010-2011 school year (cohort 1) or the 2011-2012 school year (cohort 2), schools within the same city were groups into blocks based on similar school-level characteristics and randomly assigned to either a treatment group that received Playworks during the school year or to a control group that was not eligible to implement Playworks until the following year. We estimated the impact of Playworks at the end of the school year using student and teacher surveys, which measured outcomes in six domains: school climate, conflict resolution and aggression, learning and academic performance, youth development, student behavior, and physical activity. We also measured students’ physical activity during recess using accelerometers, which students wore around their waists, and recess observations which were conducted by trained staff in the school play areas. Impact estimates for all outcomes from the student and teacher surveys, accelerometers, and recess observations were calculated as the differences between treatment and control group means controlling for demographic and design characteristics using regression-based adjustments. We also used multiple-comparison adjustments to account for multiple hypothesis testing.

Results/Implications - There were statistically significant, beneficial impacts of Playworks on some but not all outcome measures. Students in the treatment group engaged in more intense physical activity during recess and, more specifically, spent more recess time engaged in vigorously-intense activity. Teachers’ perceptions of students’ safety and engagement in inclusive behavior at recess, teachers’ reports of student bullying and exclusionary behavior during recess, and the transition to learning after recess were all more favorable in the treatment group compared to the control group. There were also a few statistically significant differences in outcomes measured in the student survey. The analyses did not reveal any adverse impacts of Playworks across all outcomes we measured.