This study was conducted as part of the evaluation process of a federally funded
physical activity initiative undertaken by a large urban school district. The purpose of
this study was two-fold: (1) to provide evidence of effectiveness of Project ESCAPE 25-
Alive, an innovative physical activity promotion initiative; and (2) to examine the
relationships among a number of factors related to observed changes in the health
promoting physical activity levels of high school students.
The sample for the evaluation process consisted of 26 high school physical
education teachers and their respective students enrolled in physical education class.
Each teacher was observed three times while teaching physical education. Observations
resulted in objective measures of the level and duration of physical activity in the
classroom. Each teacher also was asked to complete a survey designed to measure his or
her intent to adopt the Project ESCAPE 25-Alive program into their class curriculum.
Finally, teachers were asked to complete a survey designed to measure self-efficacy
related to teaching physical education. The data from the class observations suggested that initially, physical education
teachers conducted what could only be called sedentary class activities. However,
activity levels did appear to improve over time. When the correlation between the levels
of program adoption, teacher self-efficacy, and observed physical activity level were
examined, only one significant association was found. The one positive significant
correlation that was found was between the teacher adoption scores and the class
observation scores obtained during the second observation.
While there were almost no significant correlations in this study, the study had
merit. Over time the observed health promoting physical activity in physical education
classes increased. This suggested that Project ESCAPE 25-Alive positively impacted the
way physical education classes were run in the school district. With continued
observation and training of teachers, the levels of health promoting physical activity
were expected to continue to rise.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1131 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Ledingham, Christopher Michael |
| Contributors | Pruitt, Buster E |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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