title: Enhancing personal agency and competence in eating and moving: formative evaluation of a middle school curriculum--Choice, Control, and Change.
abstract: The purpose of this formative evaluation was to examine the impact of an innovative inquiry-based science education curriculum for middle school students, called Choice, Control, and Change, that is designed to foster healthful eating and physical activity and a healthy weight through enhancing agency and competence. The 24-session curriculum helps students develop understandings about the interactions between biology, personal behavior, and the environment and personal agency through cognitive self-regulation skills in navigating today's complex food system and sedentary environment. An extended theory of planned behavior served as the design framework. The study used a pretest-posttest evaluation design involving 278 middle school students in 19 science classes within 5 schools. Based on paired t tests, students significantly improved on several curriculum-specific eating and physical activity behaviors: they decreased several sedentary activities and increased their frequencies of fruit and vegetable intake. They decreased the frequency of sweetened beverages, packaged snacks, and eating at a fast-food restaurant, and ate and drank smaller portions of some items. Their outcome beliefs and overall self-efficacy, but not their attitudes, became more positive. A strategy based on fostering personal agency, cognitive self-regulation, and competence can be effective in increasing healthful eating and physical activity behaviors in middle school children and should be explored further.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. irc6@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Isobel R
authors.initials: IR
authors.lastname: Contento
authors.forename: Pamela A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: Heewon
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sauberli
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Calabrese-Barton
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003479:Curriculum / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004032:Diet / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology / Q000592:standards; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D015438:Health Behavior; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009518:New York; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D016730:Program Development; D012574:Schools; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012931:Social Environment