Health promotion in physical education through digital media: a systematic literature review

Background Digital devices and applications (apps) are already being used in various areas of sport and health. However, digital media are rarely used for the education of students and physical education teachers. The use of digital media in physical education could increase the potential for health promotion through physical activity in schoolchildren and contribute to the optimization of teaching and learning processes. Purpose The aim of the current systematic literature review was therefore to identify health-promoting interventions for schoolchildren through physical education using digital media. The overview also provides information for school teachers who want to use digital media in health-promoting physical education. Methodology To answer the research questions – what types of digital media have been used in health promotion in physical education (RQ 1) and with what results (RQ 2) – a systematic literature search was conducted in four databases (Web of Science, ERIC, Scopus and PubMed) using keywords related to physical education, health promotion and digital media according to the PRISMA guidelines and using the ‘Effective Public Health Practice Project’ (EPHPP) tool to assess the studies. Results In the original sample of 1492 articles, 17 empirical studies were included in the review. Positive results were found for the use of fitness technologies in physical education to improve motor skills, for online physical education and apps to improve physical activity, for the inclusion of digital games in physical education to increase motivation, for video feedback in physical education to improve knowledge and motor skills, and for flipped learning approaches using digital media to improve knowledge acquisition and student-teacher interactions in physical education. The studies were mostly classified as “weak” in terms of evidence using the EPHPP tool. Discussion The literature review shows a gap in research on the question of how health promotion can be implemented using digital media in physical education. Digital media types, such as apps, video feedback and online physical education, showed controversial results. In addition, whether physical activity is increased or decreased by digital media could not be clearly answered by the results in this review. However, these results can provide a basis for future studies in order to develop health-promoting interventions, whereby attention should be paid to the quality of the study methodology.