Physical Activity and Fitness Knowledge in Middle School Physical Education

Background/Purpose: Constructivist learning theory postulates that changing conceptions through integrating new information into existing knowledge structure lead to behavior change. To help children and adolescents develop and sustain a physically active life, physical education must teach sufficient knowledge about fitness and benefits of exercise. However it can be a challenge in physical education to provide students with both sufficient physical activity and fitness knowledge at the same time. As part of a large-scale curriculum intervention research, the purpose of this study was to specify the relationship between in-class physical activity and fitness knowledge growth. 

Method: The intervention study was conducted in a random sample of 24 middle schools.  The sample for this study consisted of 7 sixth, 8 seventh, and 10 eighth grade classes selected through random stratification from 10 schools that were using the constructivist curriculum designed for the intervention research.  The intervention curriculum included 20 lessons on physical activity and cardio-respiratory health.  To assess students’ knowledge growth about fitness concepts and exercise principles, validated standardized knowledge tests were administered pre- and post-instruction.  Students’ in-class physical activity data were collected from 63 lessons encompassing 19 of the 20 lessons. The data were recorded at a 10-sec interval using three-axial Actigraph accelerometers.  The recorded vector magnitude data were converted to activity intensity in MET and activity amount in caloric expenditure. 

Analysis/Results: The students made stride progress in learning fitness knowledge evidenced by a 22% increase (p<.001) in percentage correct scores in the post-intervention knowledge test (58%, SD=.24) from the pre-intervention level (28%, SD=.13). Students on average expended 330.10 calories in each lesson. Results from the correlation analysis indicated that in-class physical activity (MET mean = 3.68, SD=.77) was not correlated with knowledge gain (r=.04, p=.66).

Conclusions: The findings suggest that (a) the intervention lessons can induce moderate to vigorous physical activities (mean MET>3.0, the threshold of moderate PA) and (b) learning cognitive knowledge about fitness in physical education is not related to how intensive the physical activities are in classes. In other words, engaging in intensive physical activity and learning fitness knowledge can be independent tasks for students to engage in a physical education lesson. The finding is educationally meaningful in that it provides physical educators flexibility to plan physical and cognitive tasks simultaneously or separately to ensure students will receive adequate in-class physical activity and knowledge.