‘Activity choice’ and physical education in England and Wales

Though agencies, such as the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and the Australian Sports Drug Agency, argue that much effort is being directed toward educating athletes about the virtues of fair play, the risks of drug use, and the ethics of cheating, the primary focus of government led initiatives is catching cheaters through testing. As a result, a decade following the inaugural Canadian Inquiry random drug testing is an accepted part of the culture of elite sport and is recognised as the most powerful deterrent for prospective abusers. As public confidence rests implicitly upon testing as the best and only direct means to establish a fair level of competition, it is perhaps not surprising that little attention is given to the ethical implications of testing as an invasion of privacy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ethical implications of testing athletes for the use of banned substances and determine if the current course of action is a morally justified suspension of privacy.     

Preschoolers’ Physical Activity Participation Across a Yearlong Mastery-Motivational Climate Intervention

Purpose: This study sought to determine how children’s participation in physical activity during a mastery-motivational climate changed during a 20-week intervention and to compare it to children’s free-play activity during a typical day at their local day-care facility. Method: Twelve 4-year-old children participated in a mastery-motivational climate physical activity program delivered 2 days a week for 20 weeks during a period of 8 months. All children were fitted with an Actigraph GT3X triaxial accelerometer. Data from the accelerometers were reduced to determine minutes of sedentary time, light physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during (a) all 20 weeks, and (b) Weeks 1 through 4, Weeks 9 through 12, and Weeks 17 to 20 for the mastery climate. Activity levels in the mastery condition were compared to the children’s activity during unplanned free play in Weeks 1, 10, and 20. Results: During the course of the mastery-motivational climate program, participation in sedentary behavior decreased statistically significantly, while participation in MVPA increased statistically significantly. Within the free-play condition, there were no changes in the levels of activity across time, with the children spending on average more than 80% of their time being sedentary. Conclusions: Findings indicate that when specific task structures associated with a mastery climate are included in an instructional setting, these climate manipulations seem to have a direct effect on physical activity levels once the children learned how to manage themselves in the setting. Free-play activity in and of itself does not appear to stimulate MVPA.     

A Sport Education Fitness Season’s Impact on Students’ Fitness Levels,Knowledge, and In-Class Physical Activity

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which a sport education season of fitness could provide students with recommended levels of in-class moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) while also increasing students’ fitness knowledge and fitness achievement. Method: One hundred and sixty-six 5th-grade students (76 boys, 90 girls) participated in a 20-lesson season called “CrossFit Challenge” during a 4-week period. The Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run, push-ups, and curl-ups tests of the FITNESSGRAM® were used to assess fitness at pretest and posttest, while fitness knowledge was assessed through a validated, grade-appropriate test of health-related fitness knowledge (HRF). Physical activity was measured with Actigraph GT3X triaxial accelerometers. Results: Results indicated a significant time effect for all fitness tests and the knowledge test. Across the entire season, the students spent an average of 54.5% of lesson time engaged in MVPA, irrespective of the type of lesson (instruction, free practice, or competition). Conclusions: The results suggest that configuring the key principles of sport education within a unit of fitness is an efficient model for providing students with the opportunity to improve fitness skill and HRF knowledge while attaining recommended levels of MVPA.     

Physical Education Students’ Ownership,Empowerment, and Satisfaction With PE and Physical Activity

Individuals experiencing a highly caring, task-involving, and low ego-involving exercise climate have reported greater ownership in exercise class and empowerment to exercise in general. Purpose: This study examined the relationship between ownership and empowerment in exercise, with 2 context-specific outcomes, satisfaction with physical education (PE) and physical activity, respectively. Given the mission of PE to foster individuals’ lifelong physical activity habit, the perceptions of high school students were collected for this study. Ownership in exercise was hypothesized to be significantly, positively correlated with students reporting satisfaction in PE more than their satisfaction in physical activity, whereas empowerment in exercise was hypothesized to be more strongly, positively correlated with students’ physical activity satisfaction. A second purpose of this study was to test the measurement quality of the updated Empowerment in Exercise Scale (EES; now 13 items). Method: High school students (N = 502, 43% female) in a Midwestern U.S. school district completed a survey. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis supported the internal measurement structure of the EES (λ = .62–.91; McDonald’s omega = .89) across student gender (strong invariance). Additionally, the structural equation modeling analysis revealed only 1 parameter moderated by the students’ gender (latent mean of ownership). The hypotheses were supported, such that ownership in exercise was more strongly correlated with PE satisfaction (r = .87) and empowerment in exercise had a stronger correlation with physical activity satisfaction (r = .92). Conclusion: These results support the beneficial effect a satisfying experience in PE can have on students’ satisfaction with physical activity outside of school.     

Changes in At-Risk Boys’ Intrinsic Motivation Toward Physical Activity: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study

Intrinsic motivation (IM) is an important predictor of children’s physical activity participation. The present 3-year longitudinal study examined changes in IM toward physical activity among a group of at-risk boys (N = 92) at a summer sports camp. Results showed the boys were intrinsically motivated in their first camp year, but their IM levels declined throughout 3 years of participation. This decline might be due to insufficient instructor support and repetitively scheduled activities at the camp. There were no ethnic differences in the initial IM mean scores or rates of IM change. Such homogeneity might be attributable to the boys’ similar demographic characteristics. Future research should identify possible causes of declined IM for camp coordinators and instructors to better design and implement sports and physical activities to sustain the boys’ IM.     

Parent Support for Children’s Physical Activity: A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers and Strategies

Purpose: Parents play an important role in supporting children’s physical activity (PA) behavior. Parent PA support is a behavior unto itself that has been examined within the framework of an adapted theory of planned behavior (TPB). The primary purpose of this research was to identify key barriers to parent PA support to understand perceptions of control in relation to parent PA support. The second purpose of this research was to identify potential strategies to enhance parent PA support via enhanced perceived behavioral control. Method: Focus groups were conducted with parents (N = 21) of children aged 5 to 11 years old. A deductive content analysis was employed to analyze the data guided by an adapted TPB. Results: Themes related to barriers included parents’ motivation, affective experiences in providing PA support, and control factors (e.g., cost, time, safety concerns, screen). Themes related to potential strategies included opportunities for participation and improved affective experiences for parents, community parenting, and self-regulatory strategies. Conclusion: The identification of specific barriers to parent PA support can guide the development of interventions to facilitate parent PA support. Informational, programming, and self-regulatory training interventions may be useful in enhancing parent support.     

SHAPE America’s 50 Million StrongTM: Critical Research Questions Related to Youth Physical Activity

SHAPE America – Society of Health and Physical Educators has targeted youth physical activity (PA) as 1 of its 4 goals within the 50 Million Strong^TM campaign. Only 27.1% of youth met the target of all students (preK–12) participating in at least 60 min of PA that increases their heart rate enough to breathe hard at least some of the time for 7 days/week. Thus, improvements for child and adolescent engagement in PA need to be made now through 2029 and beyond. The need for these improvements warrants research related to PA and youth. We present a plethora of research questions within 3 general areas: PA and school PA programs, PA and sedentary behavior measurement, and PA and social justice imperatives. Each question is framed within the social-ecological framework levels of learning, opportunity, policy, and population health.     

External Activity Demands Differ Between Referees and Players During a Sub-Elite,Men’s Basketball Match

ABSTRACT

Match activity demands of basketball players have been well reported but little exists in terms of quantifying the demands encountered by referees during match-play. Potential differences between referees and players may identify different fitness capacities and subsequent need for different training regimes. Purpose: The aims of this brief report were to: 1) document the activity demands of sub-elite basketball referees during a match; and 2) compare referee and player match activity demands. Method: Three referees and six players participating in the same sub-elite, basketball match were monitored for external activity (PlayerLoad?, PL) via microsensor technology. The proportion of each quarter and entire match time spent in pre-set PL bands was also examined to develop PL profiles. Differences in activity demands between referees and players were calculated using effect size (ES) analyses (± 95% confidence intervals). Results: Referees experienced an absolute PL of 310 ± 28 arbitrary units (4.2 ± 0.4 AU.min^?1) during the match which was ~40% lower than that of the players (ES = 1.14; ?0.45, 2.48). Referees exhibited a match PL profile dominated by the lowest PL band (~91%) with the players’ PL profile shifted slightly towards higher bands. Conclusion: Sub-elite basketball referees experienced activity demands substantially lower than that of players during the same match. Limited movement patterns due to recommended court positioning may have contributed to the lower PL of referees. Differences in PL between referees and players highlight a need to develop specific training regimes to focus on key fitness capacities for each match role.     

Psychometric Properties of a Parental Questionnaire for Assessing Correlates of Toddlers’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior

This study examined the psychometric properties of a questionnaire developed with the guidance of the socialization model of child behaviour to understand modifiable correlates of toddlers’ physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Findings are based on 118 parents (33.7 ± 4.9 years; 86% female) of toddlers (19.3 ± 2.7 months; 48% female) from Edmonton, Canada in The Parents’ Role in Establishing healthy Physical activity and Sedentary behaviour habits study (PREPS). The PREPS questionnaire encompassed 21 variables across the constructs of the socialization model of child behaviour. Of the nine variables assessed for internal consistency reliability, eight had good (α ≥ 0.70) reliability. Of the 15 continuous variables assessed for 1-week test–retest reliability, 10 had moderate (intra-class correlation = 0.50–0.74) and 5 had good (intra-class correlation ≥ 0.75) reliability. Of the six categorical variables assessed for 1-week test–retest reliability, two had fair (К = 0.21–0.40), one had moderate (К = 0.41–0.60), one had substantial (К = 0.61–0.80), and two had almost perfect (К = 0.81–1.00) reliability. Of the 12 sedentary behaviour variables assessed for convergent validity, 7 were significantly correlated with children’s screen time, of which three were small (r ≤ 0.29), two were medium (r = 0.30–0.49), and two were large (r ≥ 0.50) effect sizes.     

Research on China＇s Private Entrepreneurs＇ Physical Activity Level and Amount of Physical Activity

以中国义乌小商品城287名民营企业家为例,以体力活动阶段量表、国际体力活动量表（短卷）为评估工具,探讨民营企业家体力活动阶段分布特征,体力活动量及阶段分布与体力活动量的相关性。结果显示,民营企业家阶段分布特征明显,体力活动量较低,不同体力活动阶段的体力活动量有差异。     

Adolescents‘ Self-Efficacy to Overcome Barriers to Physical Activity Scale

This paper describes a revised measure of self-efficacy to overcome barriers to moderate and vigorous physical activity in a sample of 484 high school students in Toronto, Ontario. The students had a mean age of 15.3 years. Principal axis factoring with oblique rotation yielded five factors: self-efficacy to overcome internal, harassment, physical environment, social environment, and responsibilities barriers. Two problematic items were removed, which resulted in a 22-item measure. Subsequent analyses were conducted on responses to this shortened measure. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the five-factor model and demonstrated age- and sexinvariance. The subscales had good internal consistency reliability. Structural regressions demonstrated a strong relationship between the resulting factors and a physical activity measure (energy expenditure), showing predictive validity.     

总结’96 展望’97

1996年11月24～26日,全国足球工作会议在广州举行。 当中国足协常务副主席王俊生面带倦容落座于主席台上时,望着与会的代表和新闻记者,他的心情是复杂的。王俊生这天(11月24日)在会议的开幕式上履行了他的职责:作了工作报告。果然,这位常务副主席在总结1996年的工作时,带给人们的正如他的心情一样,是喜忧参半的。 王俊生在他的工作报告中指出,1996年继续深化了足球体制的改革和内部运行机制的转换,逐步建立     

Is In-Class Physical Activity at Risk in Constructivist Physical Education?

Constructivist physical education emphasizes cognitive engagement. This study examined the impact of a constructivist curriculum on in-class physical activity. Caloric expenditure in metabolic equivalents (MET) and vector magnitude count (VM) data from a random sample of 41 constructivist lessons were compared with those from a random sample of 35 nonconstructivist lessons. Statistical analyses revealed that students in both curriculum conditions were active at a similarly low-moderate level (MET = 2.6 for experimental, 2.5 for comparison, p = .30). Differences (p < .05) were found between the three units within the constructivist curriculum. The findings suggest that the constructivist approach may facilitate knowledge learning with little risk of reducing in-class physical activity.     

’97—’98新赛季风流人物

常规赛造就明星,超级明星则诞生于季后赛。公牛、步行者、湖人和爵士进入四强,乔丹、米勒、奥尼尔和马龙端坐“四大天王”的宝座;最佳新人邓肯和最佳替补曼宁只能满足于明星的身份。