The goals of Dr. Wen-Yi Wang’s visit include (a) analyzing the data and publishing the results based on her study on academic benefits of adding short physical activity breaks in elementary school mathematics lessons and (b) observing, experiencing, and assisting the Science of Essential Balance (SEB) project (PI: Ang Chen) in the Pedagogical Kinesiology Laboratory of the Department of Kinesiology.

(a)  Dr. Wang successfully completed data organization, cleaning, and analysis. She also reviewed the literature extensively and worked with Dr. Chen to conceptualize a conceptual framework based on the domain learning theory to guide her manuscript writing. Dr. Wang has completed the introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of the manuscript and is currently working on the conclusion section. She is expecting to submit the manuscript for publication before departing UNCG.

(b)  Dr. Wang actively participated in the SEB project throughout the year despite the impact of COVID-19. She quickly learned from the research activities about the goals of the project, incorporated her research and teaching expertise to assist in teacher professional development events of the intervention, participated in the field-based data collection activities, and helped train our graduate students using accelerometers (a sophisticated and important equipment). The Lab and graduate students benefited from her sharing of expertise in other areas as well.

(c)  In addition to the above major accomplishments, Dr. Wang was also able to accomplish other tasks such as publishing existing work initiated prior to coming to UNCG. She also submitted a major research grant to Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology. We recently learned that the grant was funded for the academic year of 2022-2023 when she returns to her university. The funded research will replicate the middle-school physical education intervention study of our Lab.

(d)  Dr. Wang just learned that due to her scholarly accomplishments (including those at UNCG), she has been promoted to the rank of full professor!