Health, physical activity and fitness monitoring within the secondary physical education curriculum in England
Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Aims: The aims of this study are three-fold: to review the worldwide literature on\nmonitoring the health, physical activity and fitness of young people; to determine the\npurpose and prevalence of the monitoring of young people's health, physical activity\nand fitness within secondary PE school curricula in England and to explore the\nfactors affecting teachers' views of and approaches to such monitoring; and to\npropose recommendations for monitoring health, physical activity and fitness within\nsecondary school PE curricula in England which may have relevance and applicability\nto the Taiwanese context. Methods: The research design involved the integration of\nquantitative and qualitative methods, including a national survey of selected state\nsecondary schools and interviewing a sample of Head of PE department (HoPE).\nDescriptive statistics and Chi-Square analysis were employed to analysis quantitative\ndata of the prevalence of monitoring pupils' health, physical activity or fitness within\nschool curriculum, and to exam the homogeneity of HoPEs' attitudes and views\n(agree v.s disagree) towards specific statements with different gender, and teaching\nexperience. The significant level of Chi-square is .05. Coding and thematic analysis\nwere employed to analysis qualitative data. Results: 118 schools (38.4%) returned the\nquestionnaires and 12 teachers were interviewed. The proportion of schools which\nmonitored pupils' health, physical activity and fitness was 39%, 61.9%, and 89.0%\nrespectively. The interview data revealed issues including purpose and value of\nmonitoring; responsibility and accountability; pupils' responses; teachers' conceptual\nconfusion, and resource limitations. Recommendations: Nine recommendations were\nproposed including: (1) physical educators should broaden their monitoring approach\nbeyond fitness; (2) formal guidance on monitoring within the PE school curriculum\nshould be produced; (3) teachers should be offered continuing professional development on this topic; (4) PE teachers should be encourage to employ simply,\nmanageable monitoring methods; (5) health benefits of physical activity and physical\nactivity promotion should be weighted through monitoring processes; (6) PE teachers\nshould realise that the processes of monitoring health, physical activity and fitness are\nappropriate contexts for learning; (7) it is unnecessary to make comparisons between\nstudents or against standardized norms; (8) teachers should aim to personalise\nmonitoring procedures and ensure that pupils' experience of monitoring is positive; (9)\nPE teachers should encourage and teach children self-monitor skills to develop their\nindependence and self- management skills. An example formal guidance for key stage\n3 on monitoring health, physical activity and fitness within the PE curriculum has\nbeen proposed to help PE teachers broaden their approaches on monitoring and\npresent them a range of implementation example.
Author: Ming-Hung Chen
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W789819954