Executive functions (EFs) are essential for early childhood development, and effective programs to improve EFs in preschool education are becoming increasingly crucial. There is rising evidence that combined physical–cognitive intervention training utilizing active video games (exergames) could be a viable strategy to improve EFs. However, there is a shortage of empirical evidence on the application of this approach in preschool education. The effectiveness of exergame intervention training in preschools must be evaluated. This study conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of exergames intervention training on preschool children’s EFs. A total of 48 participants aged 4–5 years were enrolled; 24 were randomly allocated to receive exergames physical activity training, and the remaining 24 received conventional physical activity training. After a four-week intervention, the children who received the exergames intervention training exhibited considerably greater gains in all three EFs tasks than children who received the conventional physical activity program. Follow-up interviews revealed that the children accepted the exergames well. The results demonstrate the viability of incorporating exergames into preschool education to improve children’s EFs, supporting prior findings and offering more empirical evidence from early childhood research.

Virtual-reality 3D modeling helps primary school students to develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills. Through hands-on practice, students can understand abstract concepts more intuitively, and can realize the combination of theory and practice. However, in conventional virtual 3D modeling teaching, students often lack immersive modeling experience, and the modeling method may not be in line with the cognitive way of thinking of primary school students, which, in turn, causes high cognitive load. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) environments provide students with more immersive and intuitive interactions, which can help promote students’ cognitive, emotional, and social development. Therefore, this study combined IVR with 3D virtual modeling to form an immersive virtual-reality-based 3D modeling approach (IVR-based 3D modeling) and designed a quasi-experiment to compare it with the conventional virtual reality 3D modeling approach (CVR-based 3D modeling) to explore its effectiveness. The results of the study show that the IVR-based 3D modeling approach significantly enhanced elementary school students’ creative thinking, including its sub-dimensions (e.g., challenge, imagination, and curiosity), when compared to the CVR-based 3D modeling approach. The same conclusion was reached for problem-solving skills. IVR-based 3D modeling also reduced students’ cognitive load during the learning process, especially in terms of mental effort. The results of the interviews complement the experimental results, and the learners’ perceptions of the new approach explain the experimental results to some extent.