Quality Of Virtual Instructor-led Exercise Videos To Promote Youth Physical Activity At Home

BACKGROUND: Exercise videos that work to minimize cognitive load (the amount of information that working memory can hold at one time) are hypothesized to be more engaging, leading to increased physical activity (PA) participation. PURPOSE: To assess the cognitive load of virtual instructor-led exercise videos associated with the Interrupting Prolonged Sitting with ACTivity (InPACT) at Home program. METHODS: Exercise videos were created by physical education teachers and fitness professionals. An evaluation rubric was used to identify elements each video must contain to reduce cognitive load, which included 3 domains with 4 components each [technical (visual quality, audio quality, matching modality, signaling), content (instructional objective, met objective, call to action, bias), and instructional (learner engagement, content organization, segmenting, weeding)]. Each category was scored on a 3-point scale from 0 (absent) to 2 (proficient). A video scoring 20-24 points induced low cognitive load, 13-19 points induced moderate cognitive load, and less than 13 points induced high cognitive load. Three reviewers independently evaluated the videos then came to a consensus on scores and feedback. RESULTS: A total of 132 videos were evaluated (mean duration of 8 minutes). Mean video total score was 20.1 ± 0.7 out of 24 points. Eighty-five percent of videos were rated low cognitive load, 15% were rated moderate cognitive load, and 0% were rated high cognitive load. The following components scored the highest: audio quality and matching modality. The following components scored the lowest: signaling and call to action. CONCLUSIONS: On average the InPACT at Home exercise videos had low cognitive load. Few virtual instructor-led exercise videos have been examined for quality allowing this study to be a framework in which to do so. Future exercise video developers can utilize the evaluation rubric and recommended video improvements to create adaptations to reduce the cognitive load of current videos and provide guidance in the development of future videos to promote youth PA at home.