A growing body of evidence suggests that circus arts instruction (CAI) is an effective means of developing an array of social, psychological and physical competencies in young people. Implementations of CAI in physical education classes are of particular interest due to the expansive reach of physical education in public schools. Further, the outcomes associated with CAI align with various attributes of quality physical education (QPE) outlined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),^1,2 making CAI a potential exemplar of QPE practices. The alignment between QPE and CAI positions CAI as a pedagogical and curricular approach that can potentially enhance the physical, psychological and affective outcomes of PE for a wide swath of the population that may not have access to CAI.

In a quasi-experimental design, Kriellaars et al.³ found that CAI-PE classes led to improvements in motor competence and confidence among fourth and fifth-grade students relative to standard PE classes. These improvements were more dramatic in girls than in boys, effectively reducing the sex/gender-based disparity in motor competence that is often apparent by this age.^3,4 These enhancements in motor competence and confidence have been shown to be a strong predictor of resilience—a psychological feature related to a person’s ability to cope with stressors and obstacles in life.^5,6 This resilience might stem from exposure to autonomous positive challenges creating an appropriate entry point for each student’s ability level and allowing individualized and autonomous skill modification. These individualized adaptations are plentiful in CAI,⁷ where multiple skill disciplines (juggling, aerial, balance), skill progressions (each individual self-selects the difficulty of their attempt) and entry points (for example, “juggling” can refer to a wide variety of object manipulation skills) are readily available.

Resilience is not the only psychological attribute that CAI and physical literacy have been linked with; in a study examining recreational CAI with a focus on psychological development, Agans et al.⁸ found that in their group of 111 students (ages ten to 21 years) with a wide range of circus experience, psychological need satisfaction in circus positively predicted outcomes such as resilience, concentration and positive affect, and negatively predicted negative affect.

A qualitative longitudinal study of circus arts in Brazilian public schools also found high engagement from students of all genders and described in detail the pedagogical approaches used in CAI-PE in Brazil. These practices included free play, circuit activities, socialization, problem-solving and creativity-permissive environments,⁹ all of which have been associated with positive psychometric and physical outcomes in and out of school.^10-14 These approaches may be ubiquitous in CAI,¹⁵ and the creative, individualized and diverse nature of activities in CAI may predispose teachers toward these approaches.¹⁶

CAI also has social competency benefits related to trust-building, belonging and healthy risk perspective^17-19 when utilized in marginalized communities where these factors play a critical role in well-being.^17,20 The incorporation of creative, non-competitive activities in CAI²¹ is an important feature that separates it from traditional sport-centric PE delivery models^22,23 and places it firmly within a family of arts activities that have been shown to have their own unique and positive influences on well-being.^24-27

The processes through which CAI accomplishes these outcomes are unknown but likely linked to the development of physical literacy. Definitions of physical literacy and its associated processes^28,29 identify affect as an important component. The capacity of CAI to engender positive affect⁸ and activate the competence-confidence cycle in the physical literacy engine¹ may be due in part to an increased likelihood of positive emotional experiences related to the achievement of skills,³⁰ as well as the way CAI enables students to pursue their own movement interests at their own pace.³¹ For example, when students have multiple stations within a circus discipline like juggling, they can choose an entry point that matches their interests (ball, rings, flower sticks, etc.) and ability level, as opposed to cases in which all students start at the same entry level.

While CAI occurs in many different contexts, it is particularly salient in physical education because the outcomes and strategies detailed above align with the QPE features outlined by UNESCO². A comparative analysis of student emotions in CAI-QPE and QPE using specific emotions rather than positive and negative affect alone^32,33 may yield insights into the student experience of CAI-QPE in comparison to QPE. This study seeks to provide data on the emotional experiences associated with CAI-QPE using QPE as a comparison group. These findings may allow for a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the benefits of CAI, as well as inform the practice and implementation of QPE.

This comparative analysis was embedded within a cross-sectional study of fourth and fifth-grade students (n = 145, fourth grade = 72, fifth grade = 73, average age = ten years) from a single school division in Winnipeg, Canada. This study met all the criteria for reporting cross-sectional studies based on the STROBE checklist.³⁴

Table 1 shows a comparison of the prevalence and intensity of emotional and self-descriptive variables between CAI-QPE (n = 101) and QPE (n = 44) groups. Most emotional variables showed statistically significant differences favouring CAI-QPE, with small effect sizes ranging from 0.17 to 0.25. Post hoc power analysis revealed that the study was appropriately powered to detect differences between groups with effect sizes of 0.30 or greater.

While the differences in prevalence, intensity and self-descriptive features between groups universally favoured the CAI-QPE group, not all differences were statistically significant. Although no significant differences were seen in PLSD, movement valuation or self-esteem between groups, Figure 1 shows a unique bimodal distribution in the PLSD of the QPE group.

Chi-square analysis revealed that there were significantly greater odds of experiencing pride (OR = 3.0, p<0.05), enjoyment (OR = 5.3, p<0.05) and aggregate positive emotions (OR = 7.3, p<0.05) for the CAI-QPE group. The p-values for the odds of experiencing shame (p = 0.2), anger (p = 0.3), boredom (p = 0.07) or aggregate negative emotions (p = 0.06) ranged widely, with two variables (boredom and aggregate negative emotions) approaching p<0.05.

The primary purpose of this study was to compare the affective and self- descriptive outcomes of CAI-QPE and QPE. Prior to interpreting this comparison, it is important to emphasize that all classes in the QPE comparison group were delivered by experienced specialist teachers with extensive professional development in physical literacy. In interviews and observations conducted as part of a concurrent study,¹ the pedagogical approaches of all participating teachers were aligned with the quality QPE principles outlined by UNESCO. It is also important to consider that the comparison group represents a high standard of PE delivery and may not have been representative of student experiences in PE more broadly. Rather, this sample compared high-quality PE delivered by experienced teachers familiar with physical literacy principles to CAI delivered by similarly experienced teachers. While no significant differences were found in the PLSD, movement valuation or self-esteem between the two groups, the median (IQR) PLSD of the aggregate fourth/fifth-grade sample (37[7]) was higher compared to a group of children (36.5[7]) approximately one grade level higher; this was measured using PLAYself after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,⁴³ providing further support for the notion that the studied context was an example of QPE and that QPE may benefit students self-descriptive features.⁴⁴

The absence of a difference in these self-description measures does not necessarily suggest that CAI-QPE has no effect on these factors, but rather that both groups in this sample had activated the competence-confidence loop of the physical literacy engine,²⁸ thereby contributing to the development of PLSD, self-esteem and movement valuation of students. While the median PLSD scores were similar between groups, the unique bimodal distribution of PLSD in the QPE group (Figure 1) may indicate the early stages of a reduction in movement valuation and participation that is well-documented among older students.^45-49 As this distribution is not present in the CAI-QPE group, it may be that CAI-QPE delays or diminishes this effect, but a longitudinal study that tracks PLSD through this critical transition would be necessary to confirm this conjecture.

While the self-descriptive measures were similar between the two groups, the CAI-QPE group showed greater prevalence and greater intensity of positive emotions, which may have positive downstream ramifications for motivation and self-esteem related to movement for those students. Inclusivity is an essential aspect of QPE,² and it is important to recognize how a movement experience can be inclusive or exclusive; “affective inclusivity,” or students sharing similar emotional experiences during class, may be a meaningful form of inclusivity. To be more specific, when the prevalence of positive emotions increases, more students are enjoying PE, which may be an indicator of greater affective inclusivity. The greater prevalence of positive emotions and the unimodal distribution of PLSD in the CAI-QPE group aligns with previous research^31,50 on the outcomes of CAI, suggesting that these effects may be related to the impact of CAI on students. While this study did not detect significant differences between groups in any of the negative emotions, the measures of aggregate negative emotions (OR = 0.49, p = 0.06) and boredom (OR = 0.44, p = 0.07) were likely subject to Type II errors at this sample size, as suggested by post hoc power analysis.

Interestingly, we also found a significant difference in emotional intensity between the two groups; students in CAI-QPE described their emotions as more intense, implying a greater valuation of their CAI-QPE experience than their peers in QPE.^37,51 While studies of emotional intensity (rather than emotional type) are scarce, it has been demonstrated that valuation of an activity aligns with emotional intensity and vice-versa,^32,52,53 and that intense emotional activation can be related to memory formation.⁵⁴ It is possible that promoting high movement valuation via positive emotional experiences in this age group may insulate students from the drop-off in physical activity levels seen during the transition from elementary to middle school.⁴⁷

Although this study did not examine sources of the differences in emotional measures, the similarity in PLSD and self-esteem between the two groups diminishes the likelihood of pre-existing self-description as an explanation. For example, if the difference in PLSD between the groups were statistically significant, it would be plausible that students’ perceptions of their competency influenced their experiences of enjoyment or pride in PE class. As the differences in PLSD or self-esteem were minimal between the two groups, it can be surmised that the contribution of self-descriptive features to differences in positive emotions between groups was also minimal. Instead, characteristics of CAI-QPE, which have been shown to have positive effects in other studies (e.g., autonomy, mastery environments and skill progression), may have played a role in the differences in emotional prevalence and intensity between the groups.^30,55,56

Regardless of the mechanisms, the prevalence of positive emotions was greater in CAI-QPE compared to QPE. These results indicate that CAI-QPE may have the potential to promote positive affect, increase the intensity of those emotions and possibly affect the valuation of movement. This study paves the way for using CAI as a QPE instructional approach that would have global utility and applicability in school contexts by building on accumulating evidence revealed in a recent scoping review on the health benefits of circus.²⁷ While the experience of positive emotions in PE is a laudable goal in itself,³³ it may also create habitual associations with movement contexts that support future participation.^57,58 Given that CAI-QPE includes a wide variety of activities, these positive associations may feed into a variety of activities and delay or prevent domain specificity in motivation related to movement. The creative, non-competitive aspect of circus arts may also contribute to a climate of inclusivity in PE,^49,59,60 creating the potential for students to develop movement identities suited to their interests and abilities rather than having to choose between discrete sports activities.²²

These findings lay the foundation for future research on how circus arts can be used to enhance PE teacher delivery and understanding of physical literacy principles, the effects of different pedagogical approaches within CAI delivery and the development of student movement identities.

In this study, CAI-QPE demonstrated a greater prevalence and higher intensity of positive emotions (pride and enjoyment) than QPE, even when self-descriptive features (PLSD, movement valuation and self-esteem) between the two groups were very similar. This increase in positive affect and overall intensity of emotions may indicate higher valuations of PE and greater “affective inclusivity,” warranting further study of CAI-QPE approaches and their alignments with physical literacy-enriched pedagogy and QPE more generally.