Joy James

Followers

Following

Co-authors

Public Views

Interests

Uploads

Papers by Joy James

Prescribing Outdoor Physical Activity to Children: Health Care Providers' Perspectives

Global Pediatric Health, 2017

Little evidence exists on health care provider (HCP) prescriptions for children's outdoor physica... more Little evidence exists on health care provider (HCP) prescriptions for children's outdoor physical activity (PA). Semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 children's HCPs to explore perspectives on outdoor PA prescription programs for children and barriers to implementation. Thematic analytic techniques were used to analyze the data. Most participants reported an awareness of health benefits to children being in the outdoors. Ten themes emerged from the data related to 3 thematic categories: (1) current strategies that HCPs are using to promote PA among children, (2) barriers that HCPs see to prescribing outdoor PA, and (3) potential strategies for promoting outdoor PA among children. Assessment of the local outdoor PA environment and resource development must be done prior to a prescription program. HCPs should be skilled in conducting conversations and setting goals related to outdoor PA tailored to the patient. Developing a system for follow-up with patients on established goals should also be included.

Download

Parental Impact on Child Physical Activity and Sedentary Time in Parental Impact on Child Physical Activity and Sedentary Time in Appalachian North Carolina Appalachian North Carolina

Journal of Appalachian Health, 2020

Introduction: Introduction: Physical activity has positive health benefits across the lifespan in... more Introduction: Introduction: Physical activity has positive health benefits across the lifespan including reduced rates of chronic disease. Despite having ample availability of outdoor space for physical activity in the Appalachian Mountain region, there are low rates of physical activity along with high rates of sedentary time and increased prevalence of overweight individuals across all age groups. Therefore, there is a need to understand the factors that influence family's physical activity and sedentary time. Purpose: Purpose: To assess whether parental attitudes and behaviors influence children's physical activity and sedentary time. Methods: Methods: The current study was a secondary analysis of the baseline data from a pilot study of a pediatrician prescription program for outdoor physical activity. Parents (N = 70) with children aged 5-13 years living in a county served by a single-pediatrician office completed surveys in the pediatrician's office during a well-child visit. The survey included questions related to parental attitudes toward children's physical activity and the physical activity and sedentary time performed by the parent and their child. Results: Results: Parent sedentary time was the only factor that had an impact on child sedentary time, with 18% of the variance in children's sedentary time being explained by parent sedentary time. No factors predicted children's physical activity. Implications: Implications: To decrease child sedentary time, interventions should focus on reducing parental and joint parent-child sedentary time.

Download

A historical and critical analysis of park prescriptions

Journal of Leisure Research, 2019

Park Prescription (PP) is a grassroots movement encouraging physicians to “prescribe” parks to pa... more Park Prescription (PP) is a grassroots movement encouraging physicians to “prescribe” parks to patients, promoting healthy parks and people. However, little is known specifically about PP’s ability to increase participant health outcomes. While some enthusiastically see PPs as a form of delivering a medical treatment, others question the lack of evidence to support writing a nonmedical prescription. A critical analysis of the PP movement’s history and related research is needed to not only drive its research agenda but also to assist in its desire to see parks and natural areas as an accepted and holistic part of the health care system. The authors believe an interdisciplinary discussion focusing on PP history, its collaborations, and setting a unified research agenda is necessary to moving forward the idea of PPs for parks and natural settings.

Download

From Play to Pedagogy: Formative Childhood Experiences and the Development of Preservice Elementary Science Educators

Journal of Science Teacher Education, 2019

In this study, we explore the concerns of elementary education (ELED) teaching candidates regardi... more

Download

From Play in Nature, to Recreation then Vocation: A Developmental Model for Natural History-Oriented Environmental Professionals

Much research on environmental socialization and significant life experiences indicates the prima... more Much research on environmental socialization and significant life experiences indicates the primacy of childhood play in wild environments in shaping later adult interest in wild places. Less is known about what happens after childhood. This study investigated the remembered childhood, teen and early adult years of young adults (age 19 to 35) involved with natural history professions and/or highly committed hobbyists, identified as exceptional by environmental leaders. A comparison group of disinterested individuals nominated by the same environmental leaders or identified through a screening questionnaire provided an additional contrast. A four-stage descriptive model emerged from the qualitative data. Participants' natural history involvement evolved from unstructured nature play, to structured recreation and school activities, eventually to natural history dominant professional and serious leisure identities. Results suggest that accumulation of experiences, a complementary i...

Children's Role in Meaning Making Through Their Participation in an Environmental Education Program

The Journal of Environmental Education, 2008

... When asked what makes the instructors cool, or novel, the students indicated things like s... more ... When asked what makes the instructors cool, or novel, the students indicated things like she&amp;#x27;s just fun and crazy or she was funny and nice. Also, in the interviews and letters, students indicated the instructors&amp;#x27; teaching methods or behaviors were cool compared with their ...

Environmental Socialization Incidents with Implications for the Expanded Role of Interpretive Naturalists in Providing Natural History Experiences

Journal of Interpretation Research

Natural history has all but disappeared from formal education in the United States. This places t... more Natural history has all but disappeared from formal education in the United States. This places the responsibility of introducing people to natural history within nonformal educational settings, with interpretive naturalists taking a leading role. This qualitative study of the life histories of 51 natural history-oriented professionals establishes additional roles for interpretive naturalists interacting with and programming for people with an emerging interest in natural history. Young adults with a strong interest in competency in natural history topics were characterized by having access to a variety of natural environments, social support, opportunities to develop environmental competencies, and accumulation of many and varied environmental experiences that resulted in creation of robust personal and social identities around natural history. Findings suggest that the work of interpretive naturalists is part of an amorphous web of people, places, institutions, and personal experi...

Download

The Unified Core

SCHOLE: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education

Rooted in Teaching

STEM Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2015

With their permission: Skeptics, resisters, and supporters

by Corey W Johnson, Joy James, and Gwynn Powell

Schole: The Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education, 2013

No major change in thought or action occurs without mistakes, casualties and growth. This article... more No major change in thought or action occurs without mistakes, casualties and growth. This article is designed to examine the implementation of integrated curriculum design from a more critical perspective. While the integrated curriculum innovators were confident about the design and their process, not all of their colleagues were interested in the change or agreed it was effective. Thus, the goal of this article is to give voice to the concerns of those who are not directly engaged in the implementation, in an effort to reveal some of the more personal ramifications of the process, highlight the evolution of thinking as the process matured and to offer advice

Download

Environmental socialization phenomena with implications for the expanding role of interpretive naturalists in providing natural history experiences

by Joy James and Robert Bixler

This article provides dozen concrete interactions that interpretive naturalists, school teachers,... more This article provides dozen concrete interactions that interpretive naturalists, school teachers, environmental educators, parents and peers can engage in with children, youth and young adults to provide opportunities for continued exploration of activities and skills around nature, natural history and the environment.

Download

Joy James

Uploads

Papers by Joy James

Log In