0000000000230068

AUTHOR

Bente Wold

Achieving health and educational goals through schools—a study of the importance of the school climate and the students' satisfaction with school

Over the past two decades many studies have examined the effectiveness of classroom teaching in influencing present and future health and health behaviours. Few of these studies have examined the importance of the students' satisfaction with school as a variable which explains effect, and in particular what determines their satisfaction with school. Based on data from the 'Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey', this paper presents a review of relevant literature and examines how the students' perception of school climate relates to their satisfaction with school. Data from 11-, 13- and 15year-old students in Finland, Latvia, Norway and Slovakia are used. In all countries, the old…

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Sport motivation among young adolescents in Finland, Norway and Sweden

Within a health promotion perspective, nationwide surveys on health behaviour and lifestyle in 11- to 15-year-old schoolchildren were carried out in Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1985–1986. The surveys were part of an international World Health Organization study on health behaviour in school-age children. The findings suggest that social, fun and health motives are perceived as the main motivations for sport participation. Competition and achievements were not rated as important reasons for liking sport, with older pupils seeming to attach more importance to sport being fun. Winning and achieving better skills in sport seem to decrease in importance as pupils grow older. The present findin…

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Nordic adolescents responding to demanding survey scales in boring contexts: Examining straightlining

Introduction Straightlining, or identical responses across all items within a multi-item scale, is often taken as an indication that responses to all items in a questionnaire are of poor quality. The purpose of this study was to examine straightlining on two scales: The Sense of Unity Scale (SUS) and the short version of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS). Methods Data stem from the 2017–2018 data collections in four Nordic countries of the Health Behaviour in School-children study (HBSC) (15-year-old students only; 50.9% girls; n = 5928). Data were weighted to adjust for oversampling of Swedish-speaking Finnish students and to equalize sample size across countries. The…

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Promoting Adolescent health through an intervention aimed at improving the quality of their participation in Physical Activity (PAPA): Background to the project and main trial protocol

International audience; Funded by the European Commission, the Promoting Adolescent health through an intervention is aimed at improving the quality of their participation in Physical Activity (PAPA) project revolved around the potential of youth sport to promote children's mental and emotional health and physical activity engagement. A theoretically grounded coach education training programme (i.e. Empowering CoachingTM), which was designed to create a sporting environment which was more positive and adaptive for young children, was customised for grassroots soccer, delivered and evaluated via a multi-method cluster RCT across five European countries; namely, England, France, Greece, Norwa…

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Leisure‐time physical activity and participation in organized sports: Changes from 1985 to 2014 in Finland and Norway

Participation in organized sports is a popular and important part of the lives of children and adolescents and is associated with improved psychological and social health, as well as an increased likelihood of meeting physical activity (PA) recommendations. Changes in modern society, including increased car ownership and use of technology and electronic media, have led to an additional focus on the importance of health‐enhancing PA among children and adolescents. The aim of this article was to study the secular changes in self‐reports of participation in organized sports clubs and leisure‐time vigorous physical activity (LVPA), and whether the relationship between participation in organized…

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Changes from 1986 to 2006 in reasons for liking leisure-time physical activity among adolescents

Reasons for participating in physical activity (PA) may have changed in accordance with the general modernization of society. The aim is to examine changes in self-reported reasons for liking leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and their association with self-reported LTPA over a 20-year period. Data were collected among nationally representative samples of 13-year-olds in Finland, Norway, and Wales in 1986 and 2006 (N = 9252) as part of the WHO cross-national Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Univariate ANOVAs to establish differences according to gender, year, and country were conducted. In all countries, 13-year-olds in 2006 tended to report higher importance in te…

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Comparing self-reported leisure-time physical activity, subjective health, and life satisfaction among youth soccer players and adolescents in a reference sample

The aim of the study was to examine to what extent young people who play organised soccer rate their leisure-time moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, life satisfaction, and health more positively and higher than a same-aged population-based reference group (including some adolescents who also played organised soccer). Data from two samples of five countries (England, France, Greece, Norway, and Spain) were included: a sample of soccer players aged 10-14 years who participated in the Promoting Adolescent Physical Activity project [Duda, J.L., Quested, E., Haug, E., Samdal, O., Wold, B., Balaguer, I., …  Cruz, J. (2013). Promoting Adolescent health through an intervention aimed at improvi…

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Leisure-time physical activity and participation in organized sports : changes from 1985-2014 in Finland and Norway

Participation in organized sports is a popular and important part of the lives of children and adolescents and is associated with improved psychological and social health, as well as an increased likelihood of meeting physical activity (PA) recommendations. Changes in modern society, including increased car ownership and use of technology and electronic media, have led to an additional focus on the importance of health‐enhancing PA among children and adolescents. The aim of this article was to study the secular changes in self‐reports of participation in organized sports clubs and leisure‐time vigorous physical activity (LVPA), and whether the relationship between participation in organized…

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Initial psychometric testing of the coach-adapted version of the empowering and disempowering motivational climate questionnaire: A Bayesian approach.

The present study examined the psychometric properties of the coach-adapted version of the Empowering and Disempowering Motivational Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ) using Bayesian structural equation modelling (BSEM). The sample included 780 (

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Oral Hygiene Habits of 11-year-old Schoolchildren in 22 European Countries and Canada in 1993/1994

This study is part of the Cross-National Survey on Health Behaviour in School-aged Children-a WHO Collaborative Study, which started in 1982. The aim of the study was to describe the oral hygiene habits (toothbrushing and flossing) of 11-year-old schoolchildren in 22 European countries (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Scotland, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, and Wales) and Canada. The data were collected from standardized anonymous questionnaires in school classrooms during the 1993-1994 school year. At least 1300 schoolchildren, representing the w…

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