Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) maintains the position that a portion of an individual’s knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions (Bandura, 1977). Physical Education teachers in particular appear to have a powerful influential effect on learners in the instructional environment through the manner in which they model those behaviors and practices they espouse (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1998). As such, the National Standards and Guidelines for Physical Education Teacher Education expect teachers to be fitness-competent in order to model those espoused messages (National Standards & Guidelines for PETE, 2009). The purpose of this investigation is to 1) Determine observable fitness levels of practicing teachers using the fitness battery Fitnessgram9, and 2) Compare those scores against the Fitnessgram Healthy Fitness Zone outcome standards.
Method:
Participants: Secondary physical education teachers (N=148: 112 male, 36 female) from Georgia public schools were administered the Fitnessgram assessment (FG) using the 20m pacer test, push-up test, curl-up test, single leg sit-and-reach, and height-weight BMI. Participants ranged in age from 23 to 55, (M=37, SD=8.5); women (range:23-53, M=34, SD=9.2); men (range:24-55, M=38, SD=8.1). Instrumentation: Fitnessgram9 software was used to record fitness measurements. Procedures: Each participant was administered the FG assessment individually by one of five trained assessors, implementing all appropriate scoring procedures. All assessment periods were videotaped for future analysis. Reliability: Prior to data collection, both inter and intra-scorer reliability were established at >90%. Post assessment, twenty randomly selected recordings were rescored. Reliability was establish at >95%.
Analysis/Results:
Participant results were compared against Healthy Fitness Zone (HFZ) outcome standards for >17 year olds, according to FG9, by gender. Descriptive statistics were generated to depict mean scores, by gender, on each of the five assessment areas. Single-sample t-tests were run to compare the participants mean scores to HFZ scores. Statistical significance was set at p<.05. Results signify that men and women are performing significantly below the HFZ for >17 in every category except curl-ups, where men (t(111)=-1.74, p=.08) and women (t(35) =.465, p=.645) were performing near HFZ standards.
Conclusions:
The data obtained supports the position that physical education teacher fitness levels are not representative of healthy individuals as defined by the Fitnessgram assessment instrument. To what degree this hinders student fitness development is yet unknown. However, if the tenets of SCT hold true, then it is paramount that initiatives be undertaken to remediate the disconcerting fitness levels of practicing teachers.