Smartwatch research app

There is growing international evidence that children have less contact with their peers, both inside and outside school. Those informal relationships play a part in engagement, learning outcomes and how children feel about school. The UCL researchers want to understand the daily patterns behind them.

• Investigate the links between social activity in the playground, engagement in class and the wellbeing of primary school children
• Understand those links so school staff can improve engagement, learning and wellbeing

Collecting data from primary school children is usually difficult and labour intensive. We helped the researchers use digital technology alongside traditional methods.

What the smartwatch application collects:

• Step count, heart rate and momentary measures through questionnaires
• Pupils' feelings and engagement with learning, through the questionnaire module
• Automatic transfer to a local laptop, with a real-time view of the data collected

The research group is scaling the study up. The results form the basis for studies into how momentary measures relate to longer-term effects, within and between the classroom and the play environment.