Wearable Feedback and Self-Regulated Physical Activity in School Physical Education: A Narrative Review of Motivation, Assessment and Long-Term Behaviour Change

Abstract

Fitness bracelets have ceased being a consumer device and are now being introduced in school educational physical education and ASCA as a motivational, self-monitoring, and evaluation device. Nevertheless, the educational impact of these devices has been debated since the greater the number of steps, the less likely it is to reflect greater learning, equal participation, or long-term behaviour change. This narrative review critically analysed new evidence on wearable feedback in school and adolescent physical activity contexts, focusing on self-regulated learning, motivation, assessment design, and long-term behaviour maintenance. A thematic synthesis was conducted on primary studies and high-quality reviews published in the last 5 years (between 2021 and 2026). The review discovered wearables to be most pedagogical when part of teacher-lead goal setting, reflective feedback, autonomy-supportive instruction, and formative assessment. Conversely, interventions that conceptualised devices as prompting devices generated less powerful or adverse outcomes, especially where there was degradation of engagement or feedback was not translated into practical learning activities. Tensions persisted around privacy, data accuracy, teacher readiness, and student comparison and maintenance after interventions. This paper claims that wearable trackers cannot be comprehended as mechanisms of impartial measurement but as a feedback mechanism on pedagogy which can have effects determined by the alignment of curriculum, ethical design, and ongoing mediation of instruction.