Energy expenditure and qualitative aspects of physical education lessons in Buenos Aires city, Argentina
Year: 2010
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The aims of this paper were to describe physical activity levels in relation to content and teacher interventions, and the influence of selected variables, during physical education lessons in elementary schools within Buenos Aires, Argentina. This study uses SOFIT (System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time), which is a validated observation method. It is a comprehensive system based on the observation of student activity, lesson context, and teacher involvement. The authors examined each phase using percentages of observed intervals. A total of 359 boys and 353 girls, aged 6−12, were studied. The energy expenditure rate (EER) of the lessons (N = 55 classes) was estimated. The influence of the type of group (mixed, boys, girls) and of the grade attended by the participants was determined by the Kruskall-Wallis test (p<0.05). Among the sixth and seventh graders who attended single-sex classes, girls spent a higher fraction of time standing, and boys walking. Among all of the students, the percentage of time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was 46.57%. Mean EER was 0.0872 (±0.002) kcal/kg/min. Overall, for phase 2-, the general content (management activities, transition, and breaks) ranked highest at 38.9%, with game play coming in second (20.2%). For phase 3-, instructs generally ranked first (41.9% of the observed intervals). In all of the variables, significant differences were found among sixth and seventh graders. First graders had the highest mean EER. The percentage of MVPA is slightly lower than the U.S. recommendation of 50%. These findings should have broad general application for the planning of school-based physical education.
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W789101706