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Efforts to create a scientific base for the health‐promoting school approach have so far not articulated a clear “Science of Delivery”. There is thus a need for systematic identification of clearly operationalised implementation components. To address a next step in the refinement of the health‐promoting schools' work, this paper sets out to delineate implementation components of health‐promoting schools and to identify their mechanisms.

The implementation components were identified through a narrative synthesis of documents describing implementation of health‐promoting school approaches. Studies were included if they were published between 1995 and June 2010 and could be identified in publicly accessible peer‐reviewed articles and grey literature, published in English. Eight sources were extracted, representing reports from all continents with the exception of Africa.

Eight components were identified: preparing and planning for school development; policy and institutional anchoring; professional development and learning; leadership and management practices; relational and organisational support context; student participation; partnerships and networking; and sustainability.

The components provide a practical tool/guide for schools to use in the implementation of health‐promoting schools. In a parallel paper theoretically and empirically based practice guidelines for the actual implementation of the components are articulated (“Filling the black box of implementation for health‐promoting schools”, this issue).

The identification of specified theory‐driven implementation components for health‐promoting schools aims will help practitioners to understand the function of each component, so they can execute them with fidelity and thus contribute to rigorous implementation of the health‐promoting school initiative.

Achieving organisational learning and greater specificity for implementation action for health‐promoting schools requires detailed understanding of the necessary components. They include: preparing and planning for school development, policy and institutional anchoring, professional development and learning, leadership and management practices, relational and organisational context, student participation, partnerships and networking, and sustainability. This paper seeks to elaborate a theoretically based rationale for how these eight components of implementation that needs to be put into action.

Building on the narrative synthesis in the complementary paper (“Theoretical base for implementation components of health‐promoting schools”, this issue), examples drawn from empirical research and evaluation reports in the field of health‐promoting schools are used to operationalise the function of the components.

This elaboration anchors specific implementation actions within their own theoretical and empirical base, a significant advance on previous guidelines. The eight components have been articulated separately. However, in practice they operate interdependently. Context and culture issues also need to be accommodated.

The level of specificity provided in this paper has the potential to enhance school staff professional learning, as it fulfils one of the characteristics for successful school‐based education, namely practical, detailed implementation and enough flexibility, allowing shaping to suit specific contexts.

The identification of this knowledge base should enable practitioners to develop an in‐depth understanding of the operational functioning of existing guidelines, thereby enhancing their practice. The specificity provided holds promise to enhance the science base and quality of implementation.

Over the past decades numerous policies, programmes and interventions have been undertaken to increase students’ participation in physical activity in school. Research shows that intervention effects are mostly related to the way in which the program or policy is implemented, nevertheless, few studies have focused on the implementation process. Thus, this paper aims to explore and identify key implementation successes and barriers as perceived by principals, project leaders, teachers and students.

A case study of eight schools participating in the Norwegian project “Physical activity and healthy school meals” was conducted, applying a qualitative approach.

Findings show that all schools managed to ensure extra time for physical activity, varying from 20 to 45 minutes per day. None managed, however, to fulfil the recommendation of 60 minutes daily. Factors promoting the implementation were related to formalisation and anchoring in terms of policy plans and establishment of a project group, while factors hindering the implementation were related to lack of competence and confidence among teachers and lack of allocated time from school leaders.

National, regional and school level structural conditions, in terms of time allocation and competence building, seem to be important targets for interventions aiming at facilitating daily physical activities in schools. More specific, governmental allocation of targeted schedule time seems also to be important.

The identification of factors influencing implementation efforts aiming at enhancing physical activity can help practitioners to address such barriers and thus contribute to better implementation of physical activities in schools

The health promoting benefits of sport participation are under-utilized and should be further developed, particularly at the grassroots level. The purpose of this paper is to examine how grassroots coaches in youth football perceive their coaching practices after participating in a community-based coach education program aimed at optimizing their experiences in youth sport, namely the Empowering Coaching™ training program, based on self-determination theory (SDT) and achievement goal theory (AGT). It compares French and Norwegian coaches to suggest whether the principles of the Empowering Coaching™ training program can be applied successfully in the two countries.

The Empowering Coaching™ training program is a six hour workshop and was delivered at the beginning of the 2011 football season. At the end of the season, the grassroots coaches’ reflections on their coaching practices were examined through a qualitative approach with in-depth interviews of 18 coaches in France and Norway, applying a hybrid analyses and comparing country-wise.

All coaches expressed the intention to embrace the philosophy of the program, and to apply several of the strategies they had learnt during the workshop. The coaches perceived that the program supported their efforts to develop and implement strategies to stimulate intrinsic motivation, enjoyment and long-term participation among the players. There were some differences between coaches from France and Norway (e.g. rules and involvement), but the similarities were more evident, supporting the universality of applying SDT in the youth sport setting.

The findings are encouraging for sport as a health promoting setting and for the development of the personal skills in grassroot coaches, as they imply that coaches who feel competent in how to structure practices and matches that provide the players with positive sport experiences are likely to enable players to feel supported and motivated.

This study explores qualitatively the impact of an intervention based on SDT and AGT, focussing on football coaches’ reflections on their coaching practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implementation of a theoretically grounded coach education training programme for youth football coaches in Norway, through observational methods. In particular, it focuses on implementation fidelity and programme adaptation, and possible differences between the coach educators (CEs) according to their level of experience.

Implementation fidelity and programme adaptations for seven CEs were explored through the use of a fidelity scale and in-depth qualitative analyses. Participant responsiveness was applied to inform the observational analyses.

Results showed that most of the programme was implemented with moderate to high fidelity, and that it was adapted when delivered. Most of the adaptations seemed to be positive, aligning with the programme’s theoretical foundation and goals. A few negative and neutral adaptations also occurred. The most experienced CEs seemed to deliver the programme with highest fidelity and they also made most positive adaptations. The findings, supported by the participants’ evaluation of the programme delivery, indicate that these CEs also delivered the programme with high quality.

In the field of implementation research there is a need for further studies applying observational methods to explore programme effectiveness in relation to implementation fidelity, adaptations made and the quality of programme delivery.

This study applies observational methods to evaluate the fidelity of implementation and adaptations made when implementing a coach education programme, and based on these findings quality of delivery is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe adolescents’ health-related behaviours from a socio-ecological perspective. Socio-ecological factors have been widely shown to be related to health behaviours (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity and diet) in adolescence and to affect health. The review integrates evidence with socio-ecological factors (social relationships, family, peers, schooling and environment).

The data were collected from electronic databases and by manual search consisting of articles (n=90) published during 2002-2014. The selected articles were analysed using inductive content analysis and narrative synthesis.

The findings suggest that there was a complex set of relations connected to adolescent health behaviours, also encompassing socio-ecological factors. The authors tentatively conclude that socio-ecological circumstances influence adolescents’ health-related behaviour, but that this review does not provide the full picture. There seemed to be certain key factors with a relation to behavioural outcomes that might increase health inequality among adolescents.

School health education is an important pathway for interventions to reduce unhealthy behaviours among adolescents including those related to socio-ecological factors.

Some socio-ecological factors were strongly related to health behaviours in adolescence, which may indicate an important pathway to current and future health. This paper may help schoolteachers, nurses and other school staff to understand the relationships between socio-ecological factors and health-related behaviours, which may be useful in developing health education to reduce health disparities during adolescence.