Students’ enjoyment of school playground activities

An emerging area of research is exploring the important link between enjoyment and student participation in activities. Enjoyment stems from kinaesthetic experiences, and the achievement of personal goals and is defined as ‘a positive affective response to an experience that reflects generalised feelings such as pleasure, liking, and fun’. It has been revealed that if a student enjoys participating in a particular activity (e.g. intrinsic motivation), this increases the likelihood of students wanting to continue to adopt and maintain participation in the activity. Enjoyment has been shown to mediate (mechanism of change) involvement and participation in a range of sport sand physical activities. A lack of effective strategies targeting students’ activity participation could be due to a lack of understanding of how enjoyment can influence students’ participation in school activities. The purpose of this chapter is to provide insight for researchers into students’ enjoyment of school playground activities and how enjoyment can vary within different contexts.