Exergaming Effects on Secondary School Students’ Interest to Participate in Physical and Health Education (PHE) Class

Physical and health education class is a platform to promote and educate about physical activity which is important for children and teens to grow up healthy and helps avoid chronic diseases later in life. Now, there are declining student engagement in PHE due to factors such as excessive screen time and lack of motivation. Exergaming has emerged as a tool to promote active lifestyles by combining physical exercise with engaging video game elements. The purpose of this study was to determine exergaming effects on secondary school students’ interest to participate in physical and health education (PHE) class. 40 participants from SMK Ceria participated in this experimental research which done within PHE class. Participants were divided equally into intervention (n=20) and control group (n=20). The participants’ level of interest in PHE class were analyzed pre and post research using adopted Revised Situational Interest Scale. EEQ was used to determine the exergame enjoyment among participants in intervention group. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, mean, SD) and inferential statistics (Mann Whitney U test and ANCOVA). At baseline, the control group reported higher level of interest in PHE class (mean rank = 30.53) compared to the intervention group (mean rank = 12.48). Later, the intervention group showed a significant increase in interest (mean rank = 30.50) compared to the control group (mean rank = 10.50). Students in the intervention group also reported high enjoyment levels during exergaming across all dimensions. There was a significant effect of exergaming on interest levels in PHE (Mann-Whitney U test, p = 0.000; ANCOVA, p = 0.002). In conclusion, this study concludes that exergaming has a significant positive impact on secondary school students’ interest in participating in Physical and Health Education (PHE) classes. The results demonstrate that students in the intervention group exhibited higher levels of interest across all dimensions compared to those in the control group. Therefore, this study would provide significant baseline to integrate exergaming in PHE curriculum in Malaysia.