Elementary Students' Accounts of Optimal Challenge in Physical Education

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary school students ' accounts of optimal challenge. Twenty-seven children (aged 7-9 years) participated in semi-structured interviews during which they were shown a video-recording of their participation in a physical education class and invited to describe their experiences of optimally challenging activities. Interview data were transcribed verbatim and initially subjected to an inductive coding procedure. Data were then more interpretively analyzed to explore relationships between identified categories and explain the process of optimal challenge in physical education. Findings revealed that optimally challenging experiences were facilitated by (a) the provision of opportunities to modify thethe challenge level of the activity and (b) possessing enough skill or ability. Optimally challenging experiences were associated with feelings of positive affect (i.e., fun, enjoyment, and motivation to continue engaging in the activity). Findings are discussed with reference to the extant optimal challenge literature and future research directions are considered.