Third-Party Funded Research
The Division of Training and Movement Science realizes various research projects in close collaboration with other universities and with non-university partners.
EMOTIKON
Research Objective:
Physical fitness is a powerful marker of health in children and adolescents. Previous research has established positive associations between physical fitness, psychological and emotional traits, cognitive function (e.g., attentional capacity), and academic achievements (e.g., grade in mathematics) in youth. Furthermore, there is evidence indicating that low levels of physical fitness during childhood and adolescence are associated with an increased risk for overweight/obesity and cardiovascular diseases.
The negative effects of increased sedentariness, declines in physical fitness and concomitant increases in time spent with media intensified public, scientific and political discussions. Various professional organisations (e.g., Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, Germany; German Olympic Sports Confederation) recommended to continuously monitor and assess youth physical fitness. In accordance with these recommendations, the Federal State of Brandenburg decided to establish the project EMOTIKON which is a German acronym for the “Assessment of physical fitness in third graders in the Federal State of Brandenburg to continuously evaluate physical education and promote physical activity and fitness”. It is a collaborative project between the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport, Federal State of Brandenburg, the University of Potsdam, and the State Sports Association, Federal State of Brandenburg.
The primary purpose of EMOTIKON is to assess and evaluate physical fitness of third graders aged 8.0 to 9.0 years in a state-wide effort and to deduce recommendations for the promotion of physical activity and fitness. Ever since 2009, 173,280 third graders’ (see Figure 1) physical fitness has been assessed annually in September/October by trained teachers using an easy-to-administer, valid and reliable physical fitness test battery. The battery includes five different tests for the assessment of cardiorespiratory endurance (i.e., 6 min run test), coordination/change-of-direction (i.e., star run test), speed (i.e., 20-m linear sprint test), a proxy of lower limbs muscle power (i.e., standing long jump test), and a proxy of upper limbs muscle power (i.e., ball push test).
Research Questions:
- How did third graders’ physical fitness change between 2009 and 2020?
- Which associations exist between physical fitness and factors such as living area, socioeconomic status, physical activity status, and participation in sport clubs?
Major publications from the EMOTIKON project are listed below:
Fühner, T., Gebel, A. & Granacher, U. (2020). Entwicklung und Förderung von Kraft und Gleichgewicht von Kindern und Jugendlichen unter Berücksichtigung des Sportunterrichts: ein narrativer Überblicksbeitrag. Leipziger Sportwissenschaftliche Beiträge, 61 (1), 29-50.
Golle, K., Muehlbauer, T., Wick, D., & Granacher, U. (2015). Physical Fitness Percentiles of German Children Aged 9-12 Years: Findings from a Longitudinal Study. PLoS One, 10(11), e0142393.
Golle, K., Granacher, U., Hoffmann, M., Wick, D., & Muehlbauer, T. (2014). Effect of living area and sports club participation on physical fitness in children: a 4 year longitudinal study. BMC Public Health, 14(1), 499.
Further Information can be found on the project website.
Both in German www.uni-potsdam.de/de/emotikon/index
and English www.uni-potsdam.de/en/emotikon/startseite
Contact
(Project coordination)