Children in Digital Movement – Facilitating Exergame-based Learning

Abstract

Exergame-based Learning (EBL) offers a way to reconcile concerns about children’s increasing screen time with the need to promote physical activity, social participation, and academic learning in schools. This paper explores how EBL can be facilitated in a Danish preschool context using the Multiball system. Grounded in embodied cognition and embodied learning, we conceptualise EBL as learning through bodily participation in technologically mediated learning, where movement, perception, and thinking are intertwined (Dourish, 2001; Malinin, 2019; Skovbjerg & Jensen, 2024). Drawing on Reidsma et al.’s (2022) framework for facilitator roles in movement-based design, we view facilitation as situated mediation through framing, orchestration, and reflection rather than mere technical operation. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative single-case design with embodied fieldwork in one preschool class (17 children, aged 5–6 years) over four months. Weekly Multiball sessions integrated exergames with analogue materials and targeted physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional aims. Data consisted of video-recorded observations, participatory field notes, and a follow-up semi-structured teacher interview, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Findings show that children’s engagement and learning opportunities emerged through facilitation rather than technology alone. Effective EBL depended on the facilitator’s ability to shift between instructor/game master, coach/mediator, role model, and initiator/animator roles, regulating intensity, clarifying goals, and connecting gameplay to academic and socio-emotional development (Reidsma et al., 2022; Baalsrud et al., 2021). The study concludes that EBL holds promise for holistic learning in pre-school, but only when supported by robust pedagogical framing, classroom management, and facilitator competence, rather than by exergame systems alone.