posted on 2012-07-02, 14:48authored byChen Ming-Hung
Aims: The aims of this study are three-fold: to review the worldwide literature on
monitoring the health, physical activity and fitness of young people; to determine the
purpose and prevalence of the monitoring of young people's health, physical activity
and fitness within secondary PE school curricula in England and to explore the
factors affecting teachers' views of and approaches to such monitoring; and to
propose recommendations for monitoring health, physical activity and fitness within
secondary school PE curricula in England which may have relevance and applicability
to the Taiwanese context. Methods: The research design involved the integration of
quantitative and qualitative methods, including a national survey of selected state
secondary schools and interviewing a sample of Head of PE department (HoPE).
Descriptive statistics and Chi-Square analysis were employed to analysis quantitative
data of the prevalence of monitoring pupils' health, physical activity or fitness within
school curriculum, and to exam the homogeneity of HoPEs' attitudes and views
(agree v.s disagree) towards specific statements with different gender, and teaching
experience. The significant level of Chi-square is .05. Coding and thematic analysis
were employed to analysis qualitative data. Results: 118 schools (38.4%) returned the
questionnaires and 12 teachers were interviewed. The proportion of schools which
monitored pupils' health, physical activity and fitness was 39%, 61.9%, and 89.0%
respectively. The interview data revealed issues including purpose and value of
monitoring; responsibility and accountability; pupils' responses; teachers' conceptual
confusion, and resource limitations. Recommendations: Nine recommendations were
proposed including: (1) physical educators should broaden their monitoring approach
beyond fitness; (2) formal guidance on monitoring within the PE school curriculum
should be produced; (3) teachers should be offered continuing professional development on this topic; (4) PE teachers should be encourage to employ simply,
manageable monitoring methods; (5) health benefits of physical activity and physical
activity promotion should be weighted through monitoring processes; (6) PE teachers
should realise that the processes of monitoring health, physical activity and fitness are
appropriate contexts for learning; (7) it is unnecessary to make comparisons between
students or against standardized norms; (8) teachers should aim to personalise
monitoring procedures and ensure that pupils' experience of monitoring is positive; (9)
PE teachers should encourage and teach children self-monitor skills to develop their
independence and self- management skills. An example formal guidance for key stage
3 on monitoring health, physical activity and fitness within the PE curriculum has
been proposed to help PE teachers broaden their approaches on monitoring and
present them a range of implementation example.