BACKGROUND Active video games (exergames) increase energy expenditure (EE) and physical activity (PA) compared with sedentary video gaming. The physiological cost and enjoyment of exergaming in adolescents, and young and older adults has not been documented, nor compared with aerobic exercise. This study compared the physiological cost and enjoyment of exergaming on Wii Fit with aerobic exercis...

One of the central challenges of integrating game-based learning in school settings is helping learners make the connections between the knowledge learned in the game and the knowledge learned at school, while maintaining a high level of engagement with game narrative and gameplay. The current study evaluated the effect of supplementing a business simulation game with an external conceptual sca...

BACKGROUND Research has shown how academic emotions are related to achievement and to cognitive/motivational variables that promote achievement. Mediated models have been proposed to account for the relationships among academic emotions, cognitive/motivational variables, and achievement, and research has supported such mediated models, particularly with negative emotions. AIMS The study teste...

OBJECTIVE To determine, using a social-cognitive framework and structural equation modeling, if parent-reported family physical activity (PA) variables are related to PA of young children. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Children attending 23 preschools in and around Columbia, South Carolina. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred sixty-nine children (48.0% male and 50.4% black) and their paren...

BACKGROUND Students tend to rate university courses more positively if they do well. Greenwald and Gillmore (1997a) suggested that it is not students' absolute grades that are important but rather how these grades compare to their expectations. However, this hypothesis is difficult to evaluate because few studies have measured grade expectations at the beginning of courses. AIM By measuring s...

People often look to others for guidance when selecting narrative entertainment. Previous work has demonstrated that this social guidance forms the basis of people’s expectations and subsequently affects people’s experience. The current work extends previous research by exploring the influence of peer evaluations of a story, on enjoyment of and psychological transportation in the written narrat...

A cross-sectional study was conducted to examine whether the relationship between enjoyment of tactile play and food neophobia observed in children (Coulthard & Thakker, 2015) would be related to levels seen in their parents. One hundred and twenty six participants were recruited from playgroup centres in the Walsall area of the West Midlands, UK; 63 children (2-5 years; 30 girls and 33 boys) a...

BACKGROUND Situational interest is articulated theoretically as a construct associated with five dimensional sources: novelty, challenge, attention demand, exploration intention, and instant enjoyment. AIMS This study aimed to examine the influence of the dimensional sources on situational interest. It was hypothesised that the dimensional sources function differently to contribute to situati...

Extant literature has established a consistent association between aspects of reading motivation, such as enjoyment and self-perceived ability, and reading achievement, in that more motivated readers are generally more skilled readers. However, the developmental etiology of this relation is yet to be investigated. The present study explores the development of the motivation-achievement associat...

The spread of smartphones triggers the universal use of smartphone-based social networking services (SNS) from younger generations in their teens and twenties to older ones in their fifties and sixties. SNS would no longer be the preserve of younger generations. Smartphone-based SNS can be enjoyed by everyone irrespective of age or gender. Under the circumstances, this study attempts to shed li...