Affordance-based designed stools invite dynamic sitting for children: a classroom study

Children spend much of their day sitting in classrooms, often in prolonged static postures. Sedentary behavior is associated with health risks. This study investigates whether stools designed to afford more dynamic sitting, promote greater postural variety and more frequent posture transitions compared to regular school chairs. We observed the sitting behaviors of 34 children aged 6 to 8 years at the beginning and end of a two-week classroom intervention. Results showed that the stools significantly increased posture diversity and the frequency of posture transitions. The initial effects sustained over time, underlining that the stools facilitated more than a novelty effect as children continued to engage with the affordances provided. Additionally, we observed that the stools encouraged sitting in unconventional postures rarely seen with regular chairs, further supporting their role in promoting posture diversity. These findings highlight the potential of affordance-based designs in classroom environments to foster healthier sitting behaviors.