Curriculum-Focused Active Breaks: Barriers and facilitators from teachers´ perspective

Abstract

Education is evolving towards pedagogical approaches and teaching strategies to optimise learning. Curricular-Focused Active Breaks (CF-AB) are a growing strategy to address these challenges in school settings. This qualitative research has three objectives: 1) to find out the barriers and facilitators that teachers perceive during the intervention through Curricular-Focused Active Breaks (CF-AB) in the classroom; 2) to study the impact of CF-ABs on students‘ attention, concentration and academic performance (AP) from the teachers’ perspective; 3) to analyse teachers' impressions of the intervention through CF-ABs. Six Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) teachers (n=6) from a school in the Basque Autonomous Community (Spain), who taught Basque Language, participated in this research. The 8-week intervention used movement to review linguistic concepts. To obtain the data, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results of the research indicate that teachers perceive that the implementation of CF-AB in school settings can improve attention, concentration and learning despite the barriers of lack of time, space and resources. The general acceptance expressed by teachers indicates that the application of CF-ABs can be a valid method of teaching and learning.