# Development, Feasibility, and Acceptability of Aim to Play, a User-Friendly Digital Application for Teacher Skills Training and Physical EducationActivities for 3-5 Grade Elementary Students

> **NIH ALLCDC R44** · SAAVSUS, INC. · 2024 · $981,512

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 Childhood physical inactivity is associated with a myriad of preventable health inequities among children, including
greater prevalence and more severe childhood obesity, poorer cardiovascular and bone health and lower levels of
cognitive functioning, mental health, and self-esteem. Children from low-income, minority, and rural backgrounds are
particularly vulnerable for not meeting recommended levels of health-enhancing physical activity (PA) and rely more
heavily on schools to obtain quality PA opportunities than other children. While 43 states currently have laws mandating
elementary school physical education (PE) to promote student public health objectives, most students do not achieve
adequate PE participation because teachers (both PE certified and regular classroom teachers or paraprofessionals who
teach PE) have limited or no access to easy-to-use and low-cost programmatic resources that address salient barriers for
conducting effective, evidence-based, and standards-based PE.
 The Pocket PE 3-5™ digital app (initially conceptualized as Aim to Play 3-5TM) developed and piloted in our SBIR
Phase I project, is designed for 3rd - 5th grade teachers and students and works across common platforms and devices,
online and offline, and provides simple, easy to use, standards-based PE lesson activities tailored by time, instructional
setting (classroom, gym, outside), grade, student skill level, and equipment resources. The app is low-cost and includes
brief teacher skill demonstration videos for each activity, along with printable activity cards, music, and audio cues to
signal transitions to assist teachers and students with class management in ‘real time’ during PE. The program also
includes embedded data tracking of PE minutes and completed instructional standards to assist with district and/or state
mandated reporting. Pocket PE 3-5 offers a technology-driven solution to promote the adoption of Comprehensive School
Physical Activity Programs (CSPAPs) by providing a scalable, evidence-based resource to underserved schools to
promote high-quality physical education (PE) participation among students.
 Within Phase I, we showed that the Pocket PE 3-5 prototype met all benchmarks for program usability, acceptability,
user satisfaction, consumer satisfaction, and fidelity of implementation. During Phase II, we plan to (1) complete the final
development of the Pocket PE 3-5 digital app using an iterative development process with national experts, including the
creation of 256 standards-based PE activities and associated demonstration videos and enhanced app functionality for
curriculum planning, and (2) conduct a clustered randomized trial with 24 elementary schools involving 72 classroom
teachers and their students to evaluate the effectiveness of the Pocket PE 3-5 program for improving classroom teacher PE
self-efficacy and evidence-based PE instructional best practices, and student moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA)
participation in PE and ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10917819
- **Project number:** 2R44DP006743-02
- **Recipient organization:** SAAVSUS, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Deborah Johnson-Shelton
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $981,512
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2024-09-30 → 2026-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10917819

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10917819, Development, Feasibility, and Acceptability of Aim to Play, a User-Friendly Digital Application for Teacher Skills Training and Physical EducationActivities for 3-5 Grade Elementary Students (2R44DP006743-02). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-24 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/10917819. Licensed CC0.

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