丹尼尔·贝尔彻 spent her teenage years in Arvada, Colorado. 当前体操运动员 searched for an in-state college, she found the 北科罗拉多大学, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science. 现在她是一名大一学生 在 Sport and Exercise Science M.S. 程序.

“ Social Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity concentration merged all of my interests in biology and the human body, sports psychology 研究一个. It was exactly what I wanted to do. 既然我已经这么做了 good relationships with a lot of the professors, I felt it was the best opportunity to continue my education at UNC,” 贝尔彻说.

在…的监督下 Megan Babkes Stellino他是大学的教授 Department of Kinesiology, Nutrition, and Dietetics 在 College of Natural and 健康 Sciences, Belcher is the project coordinator for a grant-funded research study focused on evaluation of the ‘Play Equity’ 和Playworks Colorado/Aurora Public School (APS) 地区合作伙伴关系. Playworks is a national nonprofit that leverages the power of play through school recess and other school-based opportunities to transform children’s 社交和情感健康. 

“Danielle and I have a nice, respectful, easy and often frequent, productive nature 沟通的. The work she’s doing requires substantial collaboration with nine different schools, other research assistants and collaborators at another university. Then, there’s organization around data collection, data entry, preliminary data analyses 以及总结报告. So, there are a lot of touch points she’s in charge of to make this research project work, and she’s relatively unfettered about it,” Stellino said.

Belcher has been in charge of the entire project’s data collection and organization as well as involved in visits to the elementary schools quarterly to gather data for Playworks/APS research evaluation. The data collection methodology includes observations, surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

“For the observations, two people watch the kids play at recess. 我们看到他们 do, whether the adults are interacting with the kids, and if there’s any conflict. We’re trying to assess if there is equity at recess. 调查向孩子们提问 to get at things like attraction to physical activity, social emotional regulation, feelings of discrimination, safety — all those things that are touched on 在 research,” 贝尔彻说.

Belcher noted that recess is a critical time when kids in school have the opportunity for physical activity and social and emotional growth. 在这期间我学到了什么 school visits is mined for useful information shared in reports for school principals 和Playworks. When schools address inequities, it provides a better recess experience for kids and makes everyone feel included. 

“Sometimes in this type of research, difficult things come up. 其中一个问题是 I ran into is the survey is long and reading intensive. 我不能得到学生 一个学校来填写. Dr. Stellino gave me guidance and helped me realize that in research not everything’s perfect,” Belcher recalled.

While, more broadly, her work aims to advance knowledge 在 field by revealing insights into play equity 在 recess environment, her niche with在 larger project is focused on how body perceptions impact equity. 

“I plan to use some of this research for my thesis. 我想调查一下是否 equity based on body size affects whether children would like to participate in physical 活动与否，”贝尔彻说.

After graduating from the master’s 程序, Belcher plans to pursue a Ph.D. 

“n I’d like to go into academia and continue doing research around social-emotional factors that influence childhood obesity,” she said.

——布伦达·吉伦著