Fitness testing in physical education classes has emerged as an important component in efforts to assess and address health concerns related to childrens physical inactivity. To date, motivational aspects of fitness testing, especially in regard to students future intention to participate in fitness-related activities, have not been closely examined. Fitness testing practices have been identified as a dominant discourse in physical education that continue to separate girls and boys physicalities along gendered lines. This lack of understanding about the motivational implications of fitness testing programs, coupled with concerns related to the gendered nature of fitness testing, emphasize the significance of this dissertation. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate motivational and gendered aspects of fitness testing in physical education. The first quantitative study investigated students motivational orientations towards the Presidents Challenge Physical Fitness Test [PCPFT] by comparing students who received awards with those who did not. Students who completed the PCPFT and received an award reported higher levels of task-involvement, perceived competence, effort, enjoyment, and future intention to participate in fitness testing programs than those who did not. The second quantitative study explored students motivation orientations, perceptions of the climate, and future intention to participate in fitness-related activities by comparing students who completed the PCPFT with those who completed FitnessGram. Students who participated in FitnessGram reported higher levels of task-involvement, perceived competence, and future intention to participate in fitness-related activities. The qualitative study investigated how students who participated in the two programs made sense of the gender disparities apparent across the tests, and two themes emerged. First, knowledge about gender-related conceptions of fitness was created by the students based on their schooling experiences, various modes of popular culture, familial expectations/roles, and historically-situated events that served to establish and perpetuate boys and girls as essentially different. Second, the students positioning within the two different testing programs allowed the students to produce knowledge and meaning that led to restricted bodily movements. This research extends the work of previous feminist and motivation scholars in the physical education domain and provides a basis for further study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06072009-111849 |
| Date | 08 June 2009 |
| Creators | Domangue, Elizabeth A |
| Contributors | Melda Kunduk, Alex Garn, Amelia Lee, Michelle A. Massé, Melinda A. Solmon |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06072009-111849/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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