AUTHOR: B. Peternelj; B. Skof J. Strel
TITLE: Differences between Slovenian Pupils Attending Sport Class and Those Attending a Regular School Programme
SOURCE: International Journal of Physical Education 45 no3 144-51 2008
COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.hofmann-verlag.de/
ABSTRACT
The aim of the study was to establish whether there were any differences between groups of pupils attending a 'sport class' for eight years and those attending a 'regular class', and which of the included variables contributed most to these differences. Three generations of pupils participated in the experiment, that is 134 pupils in total. 68 pupils attended the 'sport class' (the experimental group) and 66 were in the regular school programme (the control group). The sample of variables consisted of selected tests of pupils' motor abilities and morphological characteristics, grades in individual school subjects, values, attitude to physical activity, motivational orientation in physical education and their social status. The discriminant analysis confirmed the statistical significance of the differences between the groups of pupils attending the sport class and the regular school programme (Wilks' lambda = 0.51; F(l 1.122) = 10.68; p<0.000) and the significance of the discriminant power of the canonical discriminant function (own lambda = 0.91; Wilks' lambda. = 0.51; Hi[sup2] = 85.32; df =11; p<0.000). The largest and only significant correlation with the canonical discriminant function was recorded in the variable 'parents' education', based on which the function was named 'family educational level'.
It is evident that in a family environment, where high levels of knowledge and education are perceived as values, parents show a greater interest in and care for both education and for their children to develop a healthy lifestyle.
1 Introduction
The fundamental specific tasks of physical education in school as an important element of the education system include the development of motor abilities and sport knowledge, the promotion of a positive self-image as well as socialisation and growth in youth's psychophysical state and health (Auweele, Bakker, Biddle, Durand, & Seiler, 1999; Kovac & Novak, 1998). The keen interest of school management and sport teachers in changes that are adapted to the developmental characteristics and motivational structure of today's children and youth as well as adequate material resources in schools play an important role in the implementation of the planned programmes and objectives (Kovac & Strel, 2002; Kovac, Stare, & Jurak, 2003).
In Slovenia since the 1985/86 school year, when a school programme with additional sport subjects was allowed by the law (the first such programme was officially launched in the same school year), this programme has already been implemented in about 30 primary schools so as to contribute to the quality of the school's educational work in different periods of compulsory schooling.
The purpose of these programmes is not only to variegate the school curriculum but also to exploit the possibility of making organised education in the public school a way to compensate certain drawbacks of a non-stimulating family environment (Kroflic, 2000). The core aim of the study was to establish whether there are any differences between groups of pupils attending a 'sport class' for eight years and those attending a 'regular class'. Another aim was to determine which of the included variables concerning motivational orientation, attitude to physical activity, values, morphological characteristics, motor abilities, final grade and social status contribute the most to these differences.
2 Methods
2.1 Sample of Subjects
The sample was monitored longitudinally for eight years, from the age of 7 (1[supst] grade) to 15 (8[supth] grade). The sample included three generations of pupils who enrolled in the 1[supst] grade of primary school in Postojna, Slovenia, in the 1995/96, 96/97 and 97/98 school years and completed their schooling in the 2002/03-2004/05 school years. The sample consisted of 134 male and female pupils. The experimental group included 68 subjects who attended the programme with additional sport subjects. The control group consisted of 66 subjects who attended regular classes.
2.2 Programmes
In the period from 1[supst] to 4[supth] grade, pupils in the experimental group (EG) had five lessons of physical education a week, which were delivered concurrently by two teachers (a sport teacher and single class teacher). The control group (CG) had three lessons of physical education a week, which were delivered by their class teacher alone. In the 5[supth] and 6[supth] grades, the EG pupils had five lessons of physical education a week and, in the 7[supth] and 8[supth] grades, three lessons a week. The CG pupils had three lessons a week in the 5[supth] and 6[supth] grades and two lessons a week in the 7[supth] and 8[supth] grades. In the period from the 5[supth] to 8[supth] grade, lessons were delivered concurrently by two sport teachers, namely in experimental and control groups.
Table 1: Differences between the experimental and control groups in terms of number of physical education lessons in the eight-year schooling period
Group 1[supst]-4[supth] % 5[supth] and % 7[supth] and % 1[supst]-8[supth] %
grade 6[supth] grade 8[supth] grade grade
CG 420* 100 210** 100 150** 100 780 (360**) 100 (46% **)
EG 700** 167 350** 167 210** 140 1260** 162 (100% **)
Note: The baseline (100%) is the number of lessons in the CG (regular classes); * a single class teacher delivers the lesson; ** a single class teacher and sport teacher deliver the lesson concurrently
Pupils of sport classes (EG) also took part in additional sport activities of several hours' to several days' duration (hiking, cycling, bivouacking, cross-country skiing, dance courses, archery, bowling, boules etc.) and one open-air school a year. Pupils of the regular classes (CG) only had one summer (swimming course) and one winter (skiing course) open-air school and a prescribed number of sports days a year, which is the same as their schoolmates attending the sport programme.
2.3 Instruments
The dependent variables that were monitored for eight years include the pupils' grades in all subjects as well as selected tests for measuring motor abilities and morphological characteristics prescribed by the Sport-education Record (Strel, Ambrozic, Kondric, Kovac, Leskosek, Stihec & Sturm, 1996).
The sample of variables concerning values, attitude to physical activity and motivational orientation in physical education was acquired at the end of the 8[supth] grade, as follows:
(1) The questionnaire Musek's Scale of Values (MLV; Musek, 2000) was used to establish which of the stated items (values) the pupils appreciated the most. The reliability of the MLV is very high as the Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient is 0.94.
(2) The questionnaire on the pupils' motivational orientation in physical education was used to establish when pupils feel most successful in physical education. The questionnaire is a Slovenian adaptation (Cecic Erpic, Skof, Boben, & Zabukovec, 2002) of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (Duda, Chi, Newton, Walling, & Catley, 1995). It is based on the target orientation theory in the context of motivation of achievements, assuming the existence of two dominant targets on the basis of which one assesses one's achievement. One of the targets is 'task orientation' (Cronbach's alpha is 0.72) and the other is 'ego orientation' (Cronbach's a is 0.82).
(3) The Attitude Towards Physical Activity Questionnaire (Kenyon, 1968) was translated and adapted to the Slovenian sport and cultural environment and physical education (Marcina, Cecic Erpic, Skof, Boben, & Zabukovec, 2004). The questionnaire measures five dimensions of youth's attitudes to physical activity: excitement and risk, aesthetic dimension, social experience and relaxation, health and fitness and ascetic dimension (Cronbach's alpha for these dimensions are 0.83, 0.84, 0.62, 0.87 and 0.73, respectively).
(4) The questionnaire on the social and economic status of pupils' families was adapted for the purpose of this study and completed by the parents of the pupils participating in the study at the time they completed the 8[supth] grade. We wanted to establish how strongly the environment impacts on the investigated dimensions.
2.4 Statistical Methods
The basic statistical parameters for all used variables were calculated and the t-test for calculating statistical significance of the differences between the EG and the CG in terms of individual variables was carried out. To identify which variables best distinguish the two groups in the final phase, we additionally used discriminant analysis (the Forward method), whereby variables were added to the discriminant function one by one until the F of the variable exceeded the value of the required 'F to enter'.
3. Results
3.1 Basic Statistical Data
Table 2: Differences between pupils attending sport classes and those attending regular classes in terms of dependent variables
Dependent variables Experimental group Control group
M SD M SD t-value df p
Values
Hedonic 78.93 10.4 79.94 8.8 -0.61 132 .545975
Potency-related 63.49 18.5 68.25 16.1 -1.59 132 .114512
Moral 87.33 8.2 88.51 7.7 -0.86 132 .390948
Fulfilment-related 68.85 16.0 71.55 17.7 -0.93 132 .354077
Dionysian 73.78 12.1 76.04 10.4 -1.16 132 .249504
Apollonian 83.90 8.6 85.37 8.1 -1.01 132 .312190
Attitudes
Risk dimension (A_RD) 3.70 0.88 3.16 0.97 3.37 132 .000976
Aesthetic dimension (A_AE) 2.35 0.73 2.76 0.97 -2.76 132 .006620
Relaxation and 3.94 0.61 3.86 0.56 0.74 132 .461333
entertainment (A_RE)
Health and fitness(A_HF) 3.96 0.85 4.15 0.72 -1.40 132 .164917
Ascetic dimension (A-ASC) 3.10 0.95 2.87 0.84 1.62 132 .106804
Motivation
EGO orientation 2.64 0.98 2.79 1.16 -0.81 132 .418550
TASK orientation 3.78 0.81 3.72 0.72 0.44 132 .658337
Grade in:
Slovenian language 3.94 0.96 3.41 1.14 2.93 132 .003986
Mathematics 3.75 1.04 3.30 1.15 2.36 132 .019781
Art class 4.29 0.75 4.36 0.75 -0.54 132 .592912
Music Class 4.32 0.75 4.32 0.75 -0.02 132 .987720
Physical education 4.63 0.70 4.45 0.73 1.38 132 .170238
Final grade 4.15 0.64 3.87 0.76 2.38 132 .018939
Morphology
Body height 1696.19 76.60 1682.53 76.61 1.02 129 .642058
Body weight 585.97 78.27 638.00 139.30 -2.65 129 .002659
Skinfold 12.18 4.31 15.95 6.24 -4.06 130 .012847
Motor abilities
Tapping (TAP) 46.12 4.08 42.24 5.27 4.71 128 .000006
Standing broad jump (SBJ) 201.86 24.36 180.46 32.03 4.24 125 .000043
Polygon (POL) 104.20 20.18 132.48 31.87 -5.98 125 .000000
Sit-ups (SU) 50.20 10.19 39.90 10.37 5.67 126 .000000
Touch toes (TT) 48.77 6.28 46.67 6.82 1.83 127 .070303
Bent arm hang (BAH) 55.35 23.26 29.37 21.57 6.54 126 .000000
60m run 91.70 10.32 98.83 11.10 -3.65 119 .000387
600m run 140.06 23.24 154.00 23.32 -3.26 118 .001438
Social and economic status
S_SOC 2.92 0.54 2.68 0.70 2.17 124 .031686
S_EDL 4.47 0.98 3.71 0.98 4.36 124 .000027
S_FMB 7.09 8.17 4.17 4.43 2.54 129 .012280
S_HC 3.90 0.52 3.96 0.80 -0.49 124 .622356
Note: M = mean value; SD = standard deviation; p = statistical significance; df = degree of freedom; S_SOC = parents' average relative evaluation of family social status (scale of 1-5); S_EDL = parents' average education level (scale of 1-7); S_FMB = % of family's monthly budget spent on sport and recreation; S_HC = parents' average relative evaluation of their own health condition
The basic statistical data and the results of the t-test (Table 2) show that, at the end of the schooling, the groups of pupils attending different programmes statistically significantly differ in terms of their motor abilities, body characteristics and final grade. Statistically significant differences between the two groups were also discovered in the parameters of the family's social status and in some dimensions of pupils' attitudes to physical activity. No statistically significant differences were found in motivational orientation and values.
3.2 Results of the Discriminant Analysis
Wilks' lambda = 0.51; F(l 1.122) = 10.68; p<0.000 corroborates the statistical significance of differences between the groups of pupils attending sport and regular classes as well as the significance of the discriminant power of the model used for comparing both groups of pupils (Table 3).
Likewise, the results confirm the statistically significant discriminant power of the calculated canonic discriminant function (Table 3).
Table 3: Discriminatory characteristic of the discriminant function
Function Own Canonic Wilks' Hi[sup2] df p
lambda correlation lambda
1 0.96 0.70 0.51 85.32 11 0.00
The discriminant analysis (the Forward method) eliminated nine variables (Table 4) characteristically contributing to discernment between the groups of pupils attending the sport classes and the regular programme. These are: bent arm hang, parents' education level, aesthetic dimension of the attitude, health and fitness dimension of the attitude, touch toes, risk dimension of the attitude, percentage of family's monthly budget spent on sport and recreation, standing broad jump and polygon.
Table 4: Variables that most differentiate the experimental and control groups
Wilks' lambda Partial lambda F-ods 1-Tolerance
(-1.122) p Tolerance (R-Sqr.)
BAH 0.553 0.921 10.393 0.002 ** 0.577 0.423
S_EDL 0.545 0.934 8.607 0.004 ** 0.937 0.063
A_AE 0.549 0.928 9.495 0.003 ** 0.714 0.286
TAP 0.517 0.986 1.792 0.183 0.783 0.217
A_HF 0.549 0.928 9.473 0.003 ** 0.538 0.462
TT 0.549 0.929 9.386 0.003 ** 0.768 0.232
A_RD 0.526 0.968 4.005 0.048 * 0.738 0.262
S_FMB 0.529 0.962 4.791 0.031 * 0.914 0.086
SBJ 0.535 0.952 6.126 0.015 * 0.365 0.635
POL 0.527 0.966 4.248 0.041 * 0.373 0.627
A_ASC 0.517 0.985 1.908 0.170 0.459 0.541
Note: VZG_8A = bent arm hang; S_EDL = parents' average education level (scale of 1-7), A_AE = aesthetic dimension; TAP = tapping; A_HF = health and fitness; TT = touch toes; A_RD = risk; S_FMB = % of family's monthly budget spent on sport and recreation; SBJ = standing broad jump; POL = polygon; A_ASC = ascetic dimension; p = statistical significance.
*p<0.5; **p<0.01
The discriminant analysis (the Forward method) eliminated nine variables that characteristically contributed to the discernment between the groups of pupils attending the sport classes and the regular programme. The discriminant function (Table 5) statistically significantly distinguishes between the two groups of pupils.
Table 5: Centroids of the canonic discriminant function
Group Function 1
Experimental group 0.96
Control group -0.99
The position of centroids for individual groups of pupils (Table 5 and Figure 1) confirm the differences between the groups. The standard coefficients of the canonic variable show that the differences are mostly due to the following: bent arm hang, health dimension of the attitude to physical activity, standing broad jump, aesthetic dimension of the attitude towards physical activity, touch toes and polygon.
Table 6: Correlations between independent variables and the canonic discriminant func
Variables Correlation with the function
S_EDL 0.398
A_HF 0.133
A_AE 0.089
TT 0.068
A_RD 0.053
A_ASC 0.049
S_FMB 0.045
TAP 0.042
BAH 0.024
SBJ 0.019
POL 0.016
In view of the correlations between the independent variables and the canonic discriminant function (Table 6) this function can also be termed the 'family's education level' which is an important factor of family education.
4 Discussion and Conclusions
At the end of primary school those pupils attending the sport classes differ statistically significantly from those attending the regular programme.
After completing their 8-year schooling, the pupils from sport classes are more efficient in motor terms and have more appropriate body dimensions in medical terms. The characteristically lower body mass along with higher body height and less fat tissue shows that the body composition of pupils from sport classes is considerably more favourable. Many studies have established a correlation between body fitness and the health status of children and youth (Skof, Zabukovec, Cecic-Erpic, & Boben, 2005; Currie, Roberts, Morgan, Smith, Settertobulte, Samdal, & Rasmussen, 2004; Malina, 1996). In the present study, it was found that pupils attending a programme with additional sport subjects attained 9% to 22% better results in individual motor tests. This merely supports the finding that additional sport activity at school clearly increases children's body fitness and thus improves their health.
The discriminant analysis (DA) shows that nine variables statistically significantly contribute to the discernment between the EG and the CG. Three variables concern attitudes to physical activity (health and fitness component, aesthetic component and excitement/risk component), four belong to motor tests (polygon, standing broad jump, touch toes and bent arm hang) and two to one's family's social and economic status (parents' education level and percentage of family's monthly budget spent on sport and recreation).
The discriminant model confirmed the effect exerted by the different programmes (and, of course, the effect of differences established upon enrolment in the school) since 90% of the pupils were correctly classified in the experiment and 80% in the control groups.
The results of the study also showed that one's parents' education level exerts the strongest effect on the canonic discriminant function, which statistically significantly differentiates between the EG and the CG. This is not surprising given that many studies and our everyday practice confirm the importance of one's family's economic status and, even more, one's parents' education level and their correlation with access to various curricular and extracurricular educational, cultural, sport and other programmes for children. Likewise, the parents' education level correlates with their children's final grade.
It is evident that in a family environment, where high levels of knowledge and education are perceived as values, parents show a greater interest in and care for education (they also have better possibilities for this) as well as for their children to develop a healthy lifestyle.
The key conclusions of the study are:
a) Many significant differences exist between the group of pupils attending the sport programme and the regular programme group.
b) The most important effect on the canonic discriminant function, which statistically significantly differentiates between the EG and the CG, is that of one's parents' education level.
If this extremely positive effect of the programme on selected motor and partly morphological parameters is expected, then other positive effects (a better final grade, some positive trends in motivational orientation and youth's attitudes to physical activity) bear even greater importance.
However, the finding that school programmes with additional sport subjects are attended by pupils from families with a higher socioeconomic status shows that the public school is failing to fully exploit the potential of successful compensation of school socialisation. This finding underscores the need for a further consideration of the quality development of the investigated classes.
References
Auwele, Y. V., Bakker, F., Biddle, S., Durand, M., Seiler, R. (1999). Psychology for physical educators. Human Kinetics.
Cecic Erpic, S., Boben, D., Skof, B., Zabukovec, V., (2002). Differences in pupils' motivation for physical education classes. In: Milanovic, D., Prot, F. (ed.), 3rd International Scientific Conference:
Kinesiology--New Perspectives, Opatija, Zagreb, Faculty of Kinesiology (pp. 141-144).
Currie, C, Roberts, C, Morgan, A., Smith, R., Settertobulte, W., Samdal, O., Rasmussen, V.B. (20049: Young people's health in context. Health Behaviour. In School-aged Children (HBSC) study: international report from the 2001/2002 survey. Copenhagen: WHO.
Duda, J. L., Chi, L., Newton, M., Walling, M. D. & Catley, D. (1995). Task and ego orientation and intrinsic motivation in sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 26, 40-63.
Kovac, M. & Novak, D. (1998). Ucni nacrt. Program osnovnosolskega izobrazevanja. Sportna vzgoja, [Curriculum. Primary Education Programme. Physical Education], Ljubljana: Office for Education.
Kovac, M., Strel, J., (2002). Spremembe v solskem sportu v Sloveniji [Changes in school sport in Slovenia], Ljubljana, Sport, 50, 2, 11-16.
Kovac, M., Stare, G., Jurak, G. (2003). Medpredmetno in medpodrocno povezovanje pri sportni vzgoji [Intra-curricular and inter-sectoral connection in physical education], Ljubljana, Sport, 51, 2, 11-15.
Kroflic, B. (2000). Naravne meje vzgoje v javni soli (Kaj je vzgoja in kaj ni?) [Natural boundaries to education in a public school (What education is and what it is not)], Ljubljana, Sodobna pedagogika, 1, 28-40.
Malina, R. M. (1996). Tracking of physical activity and physical fitness across the lifespan. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 67 (Suppl. 3), 48-57).
Marcina, P., Skof, B., Cecic Erpic, S., Boben, D., Zabukovec, V. (2004). The formation of attitudes toward physical activities: A questionnaire for Slovenian youth, In: Young Researcher Seminar, Innsbruck 2004: Book of Abstracts (pp.100-111). Innsbruck: Institute for Sport Science, University of Innsbruck.
Musek, J. (2000). Nova psiholoska teorija vrednot [New psychological theory of values], Ljubljana, Educy d.o.o., Ljubljana, and the Institute for Personality Psychology.
Pecek, M., Luksic-Hacin, M. (2003). Uspesnost in pravicnost v osnovnih solah v Sloveniji [High performance and impartiality in primary schools in Slovenia], In M. Pecek, & P. C. Razdesek. (Eds.), Uspesnost in pravicnost v soli [High performance and impartiality in school], Ljubljana: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education.
Strel, J., Ambrozic, F., Kondric, M., Kovac, M., Leskosek, B., Stihec, J. & Sturm, J. (1996). Sportnovzgojni karton [Sport-education record]: Ljubljana, Ministry of Education and Sport.
Skof, B., Zabukovec, V., Cecic Erpic, S. & Boben, D. (2005). Pedagosko-psiholoski vidiki sportne vzgoje [Pedagogical and psychological aspects of physical education]. Ljubljana: Faculty of Sport, Institute of Kinesiology.
ADDED MATERIAL
B. Peternelj, B. Skof J. Strel (Postojna*/Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Figure 1: Graphic presentation of centroids of individual groups and their variables
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Interesting Article #6: Exercise Seen as Priming Pump For Students' Academic Strides
AUTHOR: Viadero, Debra
TITLE: Exercise Seen as Priming Pump For Students' Academic Strides
SOURCE: Education Week 27 no23 14-15 F 13 2008
COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.edweek.org
Case grows stronger for physical activity's link to improved brain function.
At 7:45 a.m. each weekday, while most of his peers at Naperville Central High School in Naperville, Ill., are sitting in class and groggy with sleep, 15-year-old Matt Bray is running sprints, jumping rope, lifting weights, and engaging in other activities, all aimed at getting his heart pumping.
This early-morning exercise class is about more than getting in shape, though. A small but growing number of experts and educators suggest that Mr. Bray is priming his brain for learning at the same time he's sculpting his biceps.
"It's been actually raising my grades a little bit higher," Mr. Bray, a freshman, said of the class, which he has been taking since September. "Now I'm getting A's and B's on average," he said. "In junior high, I was getting B's and C's."
Seven or eight years ago, studies offered mixed results on the question of whether exercise can boost brain function in children and adolescents. Experts are beginning to contend, however, that the case is getting stronger.
"There's sort of no question about it now," said Dr. John J. Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "The exercise itself doesn't make you smarter, but it puts the brain of the learners in the optimal position for them to learn."
RANGE OF BENEFITS
Dr. Ratey is the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Education and the Brain, a book published last month by Little, Brown and Co. It draws together emerging findings from neuroscientific, biomedical, and educational research that correlate exercise with a wide range of brain-related benefits -- improving attention, reducing stress and anxiety, and staving off cognitive decline in old age, for example.
The interest in documenting a link between exercise and learning in children and adolescents comes as trends in physical activity seem to point in the opposite direction. Studies suggest that, with 30 percent of the nation's schoolchildren classified as overweight, childhood obesity is reaching epidemic proportions.
Proponents of the educational benefits of exercise maintain that the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which puts pressure on schools to raise students' test scores in core academic subjects, is prompting some schools to cut back on time for physical education classes and recess. Nationwide, Dr. Ratey writes in his book, only 6 percent of schools now offer PE five days a week. "At the same time," he adds, "kids are spending 5.5 hours a day in front of a screen of some sort -- television, computer, or hand-held device."
"Had the creators of No Child Left Behind looked at the data, they would've realized that physical activity is good for the brain," said Charles H. Hillman, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
With his university colleague Darla M. Castelli, Mr. Hillman assessed the physical-fitness levels of 239 3rd and 5th graders from four Illinois elementary schools. Their findings published last year Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology;, show that children who got good marks on two measures of physical fitness -- those that gauge aerobic fitness and body-mass index -- tended also to have higher scores on state exams in reading and mathematics. That relationship also held true regardless of children's gender or socieconomic differences.
'BOWLED OVER'
Another study published last year, involving 163 overweight children in Augusta, Ga., found, in addition, that the cognitive and academic benefits of exercise seemed to increase with the size of the dose.
For that study, a cross-disciplinary research team randomly assigned children to one of three groups. One group received 20 minutes of physical activity every day after school. Another group got a 40-minute daily workout, and the third group got no special exercise sessions.
After 14 weeks, the children who made the greatest improvement, as measured by both a standardized academic test and a test that measured their level of executive function -- thinking processes, in other words, that involve planning, organizing, abstract thought, or self-control -- were those who spent 40 minutes a day playing tag and taking part in other active games designed by the researchers. The cognitive and academic gains for the 20-minutes-a-day group were half as large.
"I was frankly bowled over by the results," said Catherine L. Davis, the lead author of the study, a preliminary version of which was published in December in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. "It's like a staircase, which is considered strong evidence for causation," added Ms. Davis, who is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
PE EXPERIMENT
In the meantime, educators in Naperville District 203, a suburban district of 18,600 students just west of Chicago, have been conducting some informal experiments on their own. With advice from Dr. Ratey, the school instituted what is now called a "learning readiness" PE class where students such as Mr. Bray can choose from more than a dozen heart-pumping activities.
The students wear heart monitors, which they check to maintain a heart rate of 160 to 190 beats a minute for 25-minute stretches at a time throughout the week.
When the class started in the fall of 2004, it included about a dozen students who were targeted for extra help based on low test scores in reading and teacher recommendations. Reading teachers were also recruited to infuse a bit of literacy instruction into some of the activities.
One game called for students to race around on scooters to match words with their definitions written on pieces of paper on the floor, said Paul Zientarski, the school's instructional coordinator for physical education and health.
After their early-morning PE session, the students joined other struggling readers and writers in a special literacy class designed to give them extra academic help in those areas.
At the end of one semester, Naperville educators found, students who took part in both the early-morning exercise program and the literacy class showed 1.34 of a year's growth on standardized reading tests, according to Mr. Zientarski. The gain for the students in the literacy-only group, in comparison, was seven-tenths of a year.
Naperville educators tried the same approach the following school year with an introductory algebra class for students having difficulty in mathematics and saw even more dramatic gains. Students who both exercised and took the extra-help math class increased their scores on a standardized algebra test by 20.4 percent. The gain for students in the control group was 3.87 percent, according to Mr. Zientarski.
The school did not get the same results, though, a year later when the "learning readiness" classes and the literacy classes were scheduled six hours apart.
Students who had literacy lessons right after exercising did just as well, but improvements were smaller for students with afternoon literacy classes. That led Naperville Central's guidance counselors to recommend that all students schedule their toughest academic classes right after PE.
"We now have three years of data showing what we have, and we really think we're on to something," Mr. Zientarski added.
But district administrators would like to enlist university-based researchers to do more-formal studies before incorporating major scheduling changes districtwide.
"We have so many different variables that could affect how we evaluate the course," said Jody Wirt, the district's associate superintendent for instruction. "Is it the class size? Or the teachers?"
MENTAL 'MIRACLE-GRO'
Likewise, scientists are still not entirely sure how exercise primes the brain for learning. But, according to Dr. Ratey, they have some good ideas.
Laboratory studies in mice and humans, for instance, show that exercise prompts the brain to produce greater amounts of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, which Dr. Ratey likes to call "Miracle-Gro" for the brain.
It encourages brain cells to sprout synapses, which are crucial to forming the connections the brain needs to make in order to learn. It also strengthens cells and protects them from dying out.
Other research also suggests that exercise plays a role in neurogenesis, the production of new brain cells, in middle-aged and older adults and in laboratory animals.
"There's no way to say for sure that improves learning capacity for kids, but it certainly seems to correlate to that," Dr. Ratey said. What seems to continue to be important, though, is what gets put in those brain cells -- in other words, whether students are given complex learning fodder to practice and master.
It's also not likely, Dr. Ratey said, that just any physical education curriculum will produce the kinds of benefits that Naperville saw with its "learning readiness" classes.
At the instigation of former physical education teacher Phil Lawler, the Naperville district has been at the forefront of a national movement for the "new PE," a philosophy that promotes teaching students how to be fit and lead healthy lives, rather than focusing on sports skills and game rules.
"No more getting picked last for basketball. No more climbing ropes or playing dodgeball," said Mr. Lawler, who now works for a Kansas City, Mo.-based foundation, called PE4Life, that trains teachers and promotes the concept nationwide.
Mr. Lawler and Mr. Zientarski, for instance, began using heart-rate monitors with all their classes more than a decade ago.
They also raised money to install climbing walls and ropes courses in their schools and brought in kayaks and sophisticated exercise equipment that incorporates video games and virtual-reality technology to make exercise more engaging for students.
Traditional sports are still taught, but the games, such as three-on-three basketball, take place in smaller groups, Mr. Lawler said. "This isn't just a few PE teachers with a wild idea anymore," he said. "It's combining what should go on in a quality physical education program with some of the highest-quality research in the world in neuroscience and cognitive science."
ADDED MATERIAL
Coverage of education research is supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation.
TITLE: Exercise Seen as Priming Pump For Students' Academic Strides
SOURCE: Education Week 27 no23 14-15 F 13 2008
COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.edweek.org
Case grows stronger for physical activity's link to improved brain function.
At 7:45 a.m. each weekday, while most of his peers at Naperville Central High School in Naperville, Ill., are sitting in class and groggy with sleep, 15-year-old Matt Bray is running sprints, jumping rope, lifting weights, and engaging in other activities, all aimed at getting his heart pumping.
This early-morning exercise class is about more than getting in shape, though. A small but growing number of experts and educators suggest that Mr. Bray is priming his brain for learning at the same time he's sculpting his biceps.
"It's been actually raising my grades a little bit higher," Mr. Bray, a freshman, said of the class, which he has been taking since September. "Now I'm getting A's and B's on average," he said. "In junior high, I was getting B's and C's."
Seven or eight years ago, studies offered mixed results on the question of whether exercise can boost brain function in children and adolescents. Experts are beginning to contend, however, that the case is getting stronger.
"There's sort of no question about it now," said Dr. John J. Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "The exercise itself doesn't make you smarter, but it puts the brain of the learners in the optimal position for them to learn."
RANGE OF BENEFITS
Dr. Ratey is the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Education and the Brain, a book published last month by Little, Brown and Co. It draws together emerging findings from neuroscientific, biomedical, and educational research that correlate exercise with a wide range of brain-related benefits -- improving attention, reducing stress and anxiety, and staving off cognitive decline in old age, for example.
The interest in documenting a link between exercise and learning in children and adolescents comes as trends in physical activity seem to point in the opposite direction. Studies suggest that, with 30 percent of the nation's schoolchildren classified as overweight, childhood obesity is reaching epidemic proportions.
Proponents of the educational benefits of exercise maintain that the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which puts pressure on schools to raise students' test scores in core academic subjects, is prompting some schools to cut back on time for physical education classes and recess. Nationwide, Dr. Ratey writes in his book, only 6 percent of schools now offer PE five days a week. "At the same time," he adds, "kids are spending 5.5 hours a day in front of a screen of some sort -- television, computer, or hand-held device."
"Had the creators of No Child Left Behind looked at the data, they would've realized that physical activity is good for the brain," said Charles H. Hillman, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
With his university colleague Darla M. Castelli, Mr. Hillman assessed the physical-fitness levels of 239 3rd and 5th graders from four Illinois elementary schools. Their findings published last year Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology;, show that children who got good marks on two measures of physical fitness -- those that gauge aerobic fitness and body-mass index -- tended also to have higher scores on state exams in reading and mathematics. That relationship also held true regardless of children's gender or socieconomic differences.
'BOWLED OVER'
Another study published last year, involving 163 overweight children in Augusta, Ga., found, in addition, that the cognitive and academic benefits of exercise seemed to increase with the size of the dose.
For that study, a cross-disciplinary research team randomly assigned children to one of three groups. One group received 20 minutes of physical activity every day after school. Another group got a 40-minute daily workout, and the third group got no special exercise sessions.
After 14 weeks, the children who made the greatest improvement, as measured by both a standardized academic test and a test that measured their level of executive function -- thinking processes, in other words, that involve planning, organizing, abstract thought, or self-control -- were those who spent 40 minutes a day playing tag and taking part in other active games designed by the researchers. The cognitive and academic gains for the 20-minutes-a-day group were half as large.
"I was frankly bowled over by the results," said Catherine L. Davis, the lead author of the study, a preliminary version of which was published in December in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. "It's like a staircase, which is considered strong evidence for causation," added Ms. Davis, who is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
PE EXPERIMENT
In the meantime, educators in Naperville District 203, a suburban district of 18,600 students just west of Chicago, have been conducting some informal experiments on their own. With advice from Dr. Ratey, the school instituted what is now called a "learning readiness" PE class where students such as Mr. Bray can choose from more than a dozen heart-pumping activities.
The students wear heart monitors, which they check to maintain a heart rate of 160 to 190 beats a minute for 25-minute stretches at a time throughout the week.
When the class started in the fall of 2004, it included about a dozen students who were targeted for extra help based on low test scores in reading and teacher recommendations. Reading teachers were also recruited to infuse a bit of literacy instruction into some of the activities.
One game called for students to race around on scooters to match words with their definitions written on pieces of paper on the floor, said Paul Zientarski, the school's instructional coordinator for physical education and health.
After their early-morning PE session, the students joined other struggling readers and writers in a special literacy class designed to give them extra academic help in those areas.
At the end of one semester, Naperville educators found, students who took part in both the early-morning exercise program and the literacy class showed 1.34 of a year's growth on standardized reading tests, according to Mr. Zientarski. The gain for the students in the literacy-only group, in comparison, was seven-tenths of a year.
Naperville educators tried the same approach the following school year with an introductory algebra class for students having difficulty in mathematics and saw even more dramatic gains. Students who both exercised and took the extra-help math class increased their scores on a standardized algebra test by 20.4 percent. The gain for students in the control group was 3.87 percent, according to Mr. Zientarski.
The school did not get the same results, though, a year later when the "learning readiness" classes and the literacy classes were scheduled six hours apart.
Students who had literacy lessons right after exercising did just as well, but improvements were smaller for students with afternoon literacy classes. That led Naperville Central's guidance counselors to recommend that all students schedule their toughest academic classes right after PE.
"We now have three years of data showing what we have, and we really think we're on to something," Mr. Zientarski added.
But district administrators would like to enlist university-based researchers to do more-formal studies before incorporating major scheduling changes districtwide.
"We have so many different variables that could affect how we evaluate the course," said Jody Wirt, the district's associate superintendent for instruction. "Is it the class size? Or the teachers?"
MENTAL 'MIRACLE-GRO'
Likewise, scientists are still not entirely sure how exercise primes the brain for learning. But, according to Dr. Ratey, they have some good ideas.
Laboratory studies in mice and humans, for instance, show that exercise prompts the brain to produce greater amounts of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, which Dr. Ratey likes to call "Miracle-Gro" for the brain.
It encourages brain cells to sprout synapses, which are crucial to forming the connections the brain needs to make in order to learn. It also strengthens cells and protects them from dying out.
Other research also suggests that exercise plays a role in neurogenesis, the production of new brain cells, in middle-aged and older adults and in laboratory animals.
"There's no way to say for sure that improves learning capacity for kids, but it certainly seems to correlate to that," Dr. Ratey said. What seems to continue to be important, though, is what gets put in those brain cells -- in other words, whether students are given complex learning fodder to practice and master.
It's also not likely, Dr. Ratey said, that just any physical education curriculum will produce the kinds of benefits that Naperville saw with its "learning readiness" classes.
At the instigation of former physical education teacher Phil Lawler, the Naperville district has been at the forefront of a national movement for the "new PE," a philosophy that promotes teaching students how to be fit and lead healthy lives, rather than focusing on sports skills and game rules.
"No more getting picked last for basketball. No more climbing ropes or playing dodgeball," said Mr. Lawler, who now works for a Kansas City, Mo.-based foundation, called PE4Life, that trains teachers and promotes the concept nationwide.
Mr. Lawler and Mr. Zientarski, for instance, began using heart-rate monitors with all their classes more than a decade ago.
They also raised money to install climbing walls and ropes courses in their schools and brought in kayaks and sophisticated exercise equipment that incorporates video games and virtual-reality technology to make exercise more engaging for students.
Traditional sports are still taught, but the games, such as three-on-three basketball, take place in smaller groups, Mr. Lawler said. "This isn't just a few PE teachers with a wild idea anymore," he said. "It's combining what should go on in a quality physical education program with some of the highest-quality research in the world in neuroscience and cognitive science."
ADDED MATERIAL
Coverage of education research is supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation.
Interesting Article # 5: Relationship between Academic Learning Time in Physical Education and Skill Concepts Acquisition and Retention
AUTHOR: Vassiliki Derri; Kyriaki Emmanouilidou; Olga Vassiliadou; George Tzetzis; Efthimis Kioumourtzoglou
TITLE: Relationship between Academic Learning Time in Physical Education (ALT-PE) and Skill Concepts Acquisition and Retention
SOURCE: The Physical Educator 65 no3 134-45 Fall 2008
COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between time-related variables of the physical education lesson and skill concepts acquisition and retention. One hundred and four students aged 6.4 to 7.9 years, and their six physical educators participated. The motor behavior of thirty-six selected students was videotaped during a four-week instruction, and analyzed with Academic Learning Time-Physical Education (ALT-PE) observation instrument (Siedentop, Tousignant, & Parker, 1982). Students were also pre-, post-, and retention tested on overhand throwing and catching concepts by completing a cognitive test. Regression analysis was applied to calculate students' residual acquisition and retention gain scores, and correlation analysis to identify their relationship with ALT-PE categories. Results indicated significant correlations between residual acquisition and retention gain scores in skill concepts and a) "ALT", and b) "student motor engaged". Significantly negative correlations were found between residual acquisition and retention gains and "general content". Moreover, the category "subject matter motor" was significantly correlated with skill concepts learning. It was concluded that time spent in developmentally appropriate skill practice, in contrast to the time spent in activities irrelevant to the instruction's goals, contributes to fundamental skill concept learning.
Review of Literature
Theories
Physical education, apart from guiding children to acquire psychomotor and affective skills, aims to enhance their cognitive skills as well. Cognition has been described as the capacity to acquire and use information in order to adapt to environmental demands (Lidz, 1987). The process, through which information is organized, stored in memory and made available for recall and application in various settings has been described as cognitive learning (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003). Piaget (1952) was among the first theorists to highlight the importance of movement in the cognitive development of infants and young children, but also the dependence of motor development on intellectual abilities (Payne & Isaacs, 1995). Similarly, in motor skill learning models described by Fitts and Posner (1967), Adams (1971), and Gentile (1972), cognition is considered a critical aspect of motor skill acquisition. Besides, higher thought processes are required for all voluntary movements to occur (Payne & Isaacs, 1995).
Gallahue and Cleland (2003) consider perceptual-motor learning and concept development as crucial aspects of cognitive learning during childhood. Among the elements of cognitive concept learning in physical education are the skill concepts, which deal with the ways the body should move while performing fundamental or sport skills. Sage (1984) supported that skill learning does not begin with practice but earlier, with the cognitive understanding of the skill's performance criteria. Buschner (1994) also stated that practicing mentally the learnable criteria enhances the chance of achieving mature movement forms and that thinking and moving integration occurs with time and practice. Improvement in the task specific knowledge base may lead to a better task-specific sport performance and to the reduction of motor performance deficits due to the lack of a sufficient knowledge base (Payne & Isaacs, 1995; Rink, 1996). In general, cognitive concept learning aids retention, recall, decision making, and application, providing children with tools for critical thinking.
Fundamental movement skill learning, one of the most important topics in the physical education curriculum during the early elementary years (e.g., Graham, 1991), is achieved by an active learning process interrelated with cognition (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003). Graham (1987) stressed that students do not learn to perform correctly a fundamental movement skill by being "exposed" to the correct way but by learning its qualitative aspects. In relation to that, Pangrazi (2001) and Wood (1997) emphasized the use of cues to help students become involved cognitively in class, especially during the initial stage of skill learning. Taking also into account the insufficient amount of time allotted for physical education as well as other factors which influence negatively skill development, learning the concepts that are related to successful skill performance will enable children's effective participation in movement activities in a variety of settings (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003).
Research on how children learn and develop particular content has been used across classroom subjects (e.g., reading, mathematics, science, writing, etc.), in some instances extensively, to guide the selection of curriculum design, instructional techniques, and national standards. Walkwitz and Lee (1992) reported that although the amount of similar research is not identical for physical education, it has been shown to contribute to pedagogical content knowledge. The use of motor development research as a basis for observing the learner's movement is widely evident in current elementary textbooks and has been used to create similar information about skills (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003). Describing the qualitative changes in coordination patterns as children's movement patterns become more mature (Roberton & Halverson, 1984; Wickstrom, 1983), this type of research guides the selection of tasks, cues, and feedback. The qualitative aspects, cues or otherwise skill concepts have aided children focus on the relevant aspects of the tasks in a rather constantly varying environment, and achieve motor skill learning (e.g., Ladewig & Gallagher, 1994; Masser, 1993; Winter & Thomas, 1981). Research in physical education also focused on the relationship between student/teacher behavior (process) and student learning (product). In related studies student learning is associated with the way the teacher uses qualitative aspects of teaching (e.g., cues, feedback, guidelines) and the lesson time to provide learning experiences to children.
Academic Learning Time
The process-product studies, conducted since the 1950s in order to determine the relationship between student/teacher behavior and student learning, have indicated that correct practice is the most crucial component of such a relationship (Graham & Heimerer, 1981; Metzler, 1989). According to Bloom (1974), the time needed to learn a skill is one of the fundamental variables in studies for school learning. Academic Learning Time (ALT), which is considered to be the connection between teaching and learning, is a unit of time in which students are engaged in activities and instructional materials to be learned at an appropriate level of difficulty, resulting in high success and low error rates (Rink, 2002). According to Rink (1996) a task is at an "appropriate level of difficulty" when the learner can be successful with effort. "High success" depends on the level of complexity of the skill and is defined as the performance of an instructional task with no errors (Lee & Poto, 1988).
Related studies, in which ALT was used to assess student behavior, had as subject matter math and language (Brophy & Good, 1986). Similarly, the Academic Learning Time-Physical Education (ALT-PE) systematic observation instrument in physical education (Parker, 1989; Siedentop, Tousignant & Parker, 1982) has been applied to determine the relationship between student behavior and motor learning (Lee & Poto, 1988; Metzler, 1989). Even though the reported results were not always consistent, time appeared to be one of the variables for predicting sport skill learning. Specifically, process-product studies in physical education attempted to identify the relationship between time-related variables and quantitative or qualitative sport skill performance. Based on the findings, motor engaged time seems to be a necessary condition for learning ice hockey (Godbout, Brunelle, & Tousignant, 1987), badminton (Beckett, 1989), volleyball (Godbout et al., 1987; Silverman, Devillier & Ramirez, 1991), and golf skills (Metzler, 1983). Similar findings were reported for swimming skills (Silverman, 1985) but only for high-skilled participants. On the other hand, Silverman (1985) found negative correlations between cognitive engagement and the achievement score in a swimming skill only for low- and moderately-skilled participants. The author attributed this finding either to the inappropriate level of cognitive information or to the lag between cognitive understanding and translation of this knowledge into improved performance. On the contrary, high-skilled participant scores were positively related to the cognitive engagement time.
Despite the importance of the above findings, research on the relationship between time-related variables and skill concepts learning seems insufficient, meaning that it has been focused in subject areas like math and language. With regard to physical education, only few studies examined the relationship between ALT-PE and fundamental motor skill learning and none to our knowledge that of ALT-PE and cognitive concepts related to physical education. To describe and analyze the relations between student ALT-PE categories and skill concepts acquisition and retention the following questions were posed as framework of the study: a) What is the mean ALT in the observed classes, b) Is there a significant correlation between student ALT and skill concepts learning, c) Which variables of the context level or of the student involvement level of ALT-PE are related to student skill concepts learning?
Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between time-related variables of the physical education lesson and fundamental skill concept acquisition and retention by first grade students, taking into consideration the importance of the qualitative performance and cue learning in early elementary years. First grade students were selected because they are those who begin to participate in a structured physical education program. It was hypothesized that there would be significant correlations between student skill concepts acquisition and retention and the categories of ALT-PE.
Method
A data base that includes students pre-, post and retention scores for concepts of throwing and catching and their behaviour, as analyzed with the ALT-PE instrument was used for the study. Relations between ALT-PE categories and students achievement were examined.
Participants
One hundred and four first grade students, 6.4 to 7.9 years of age (M = 6.9, SD = 0.3) from six elementary schools in Northern Greece, and their physical education teachers participated in the classes observed in this study. Teachers (N=6) had a Bachelor Degree in Physical Education and Sports, and 5 to 10 years of teaching experience, but no more than three years in the elementary school. Each participating physical education teacher recommended six students, two high, two medium and two low skilled to participate in the ALT-PE observations (N=36). None of the student participants had ever received instruction in throwing or catching. Once permissions were obtained from the Ministry of Education, all elementary school principals and physical education teachers, schools were randomly selected from a greater sample located in varied socioeconomic areas.
Measurement
A knowledge test and ALT-PE observation instrument were used in the study to provide descriptive data on student skill concepts and motor behavior during class time, respectively.
Skill Concepts. The knowledge test in this study concerned the identification of throwing and catching skills among other manipulative skills (e.g., ball rolling, striking), and the identification of the correct performance of each skill. It was created based on the indicative ways of assessing skill concepts in early elementary ages, proposed by Hopple (1995) and Graham, Holt/Hale and Parker (2003). It consisted of four tasks: two of them required matching each skill's name (e.g. throwing, catching) with the correct figure out of five with different skills, and two required the student to circle the picture with the correct performance of the skill out of five pictures of the same skill. The score ranged from 0 to 4 points (each answer was graded with one point if it was correct and with zero point if it was wrong). The reliability of the test was estimated with a test-retest measure and the intra-class correlation coefficient was .90. The test has logical validity and internal consistency (Cronbach's a =.75).
Observation Instrument. Student behavior was measured with the Academic Learning Time--Physical Education (ALT-PE) observation instrument (Siedentop, Tousignant, & Parker, 1982), which uses a twelve second interval observation/record technique. A student was observed for the first six seconds of the interval and two decisions were made and recorded on the coding sheet for the next six seconds: one for the context level (general, subject matter knowledge, subject matter motor), and the other for the learner's involvement level (not motor or motor engaged). The intervals and their percentage in all categories and subcategories of the instrument were calculated. According to Parker (1989), the intervals in which the context level was subject matter motor and the learner's involvement level was motor appropriate, were considered to be the amount of academic learning time (ALT). In the present study, ALT was recorded when the activities in the subject matter motor intervals were relevant to the lesson purpose, and learner involvement was motor appropriate. This occurred because teachers in some cases used activities irrelevant to throwing and catching like tag and rope games.
Procedure
Initially, all students completed the knowledge test. Afterwards, the physical education teachers were required to teach only catching and overhand throwing for eight 40-minute consecutive lessons, twice a week, during the regular school program. They were encouraged to use lesson time as best as they can and choose the type of task, and the number of repetitions for student improvement in the two skills. A total number of 48 lessons (8 lessons per 6 physical educators) were videotaped. The 36 chosen students wore pinafores to be ever identifiable on videotapes. Students were post tested the day after the completion of the lessons, and re-tested after ten days (during a regular physical education lesson), that is two days before the end of the school year. The focus of the lessons between the last two measures was on dance activities.
Videotaped lessons were analyzed with the ALT-PE instrument by two trained observers, separately. Their training was based on learning the behavior categories and the coding procedure, on coding videotapes to identify ambiguous patterns, on discussion of disagreements and on coding separately until an interobserver agreement of over .90 was established on all subcategories. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was determined by percent agreement, IOA= agreements/[agreements+disagreements] for individual subcategories and context levels. After actual data analysis had begun, four lessons were randomly selected for interobserver agreement control. At all lessons reliability was at or above the .92 level. The six target students from each school were observed in sequence (i.e. the first time interval was assigned to the first student, followed by the second, third, etc) and that order was repeated until the end of each lesson. A total number of 5544 intervals were coded for 36 students while a preprogrammed audiotape provided the observation and recording intervals.
Data analysis
For each student achievement a residual score was calculated. For the entire sample a posttest on pretest and a retention test on pretest regression equation were determined. Based on this equation, predicted scores were calculated (Silverman, 1988). The actual post- and retention test scores minus the predicted scores were the residual acquisition and residual retention gain scores, respectively. These scores were positive if a student's performance was better than the predicted score, or negative if it was worse than the predicted score. Residual gain scores were selected because they separate out pretest skill level, and are reliable, uncorrelated with entry skill, and not subject to ceiling effects (Cronbach & Furby, 1970; Silverman, 1988). The mean of residual scores was calculated for each school and used for the correlation with ALT-PE percentages.
Results
A dependent samples t-test was used to identify changes in students' knowledge between measures. Results showed significant differences between pre- and posttest measures (t= 3.1, p < .05), as well as between pre- and retention test measures (t = 4.15, p < .001). The mean score increased from 2.96 in the pretest to 3.22 in the posttest and to 3.38 in the retention test, while the maximum score could be 4. These results show that acquisition and retention occurred.
Means and standard deviations for each school in all measures as well as the corresponding residual scores are presented in Table 1. The percentages of time allocated for each of the ALT-PE's categories and subcategories are depicted in Table 2.
Pearson Product Moment correlation was applied to identify possible correlations between the residual scores (acquisition and retention gains) in skill concepts and the percentages of intervals of ALT-PE categories and subcategories. Categories related to residual acquisition and retention gain scores in skill concepts were a) "ALT" (r = .84, p < .05 and r = .92, p < .01 respectively), and b) "student motor engaged" (r = .73, p < .05 and r = .90, p < .01 respectively). Although negative, correlations were also indicated between residual acquisition and retention gains and a) "student not motor engaged" variables, (r = -.72, p < .05 and r = -.90, p < .01 respectively) and b) "general content" (r = -.83, p < .05 and r = -.88, p < .01 respectively). The lesson content "subject matter knowledge" had no significant correlation neither with skill concept acquisition nor with their retention, while "subject matter motor" and "motor appropriate" were correlated with skill concepts retention (r = .79, p < .05 and r = .85, p <. 05 respectively). All correlations are presented in Table 3.
Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between time- related variables of the physical education lesson and skill concept acquisition and retention. Results indicated that after the implementation of an eight lesson unit, concept learning of throwing and catching occurred. Examining the way time was spent during practice, it appeared that almost half class time was devoted to a general lesson content and predominantly to managerial, organizational, and warm-up activities whereas students were "motor engaged", that is, they participated in motor activities relevant to the goals of the setting only at 1/5 of the total class time. For the rest of the time, although students were on task they waited for instructions or opportunity to respond, and participated in activities irrelevant to the goal of the lesson. Also, the extremely low percentage of time in the category "knowledge subject matter", and especially in "technique", seems that teachers did not take into consideration students' need to cognitively rehearse the movement cues associated with throwing and catching. This finding might be attributed to the low experience of the physical education teachers to teach fundamental skill concepts along with skills since they started to teach the lesson in the early elementary years only a few years ago. As far as the basic time-concept, (ALT), is concerned, it occupied only 6% of lesson time. Given that the typical lesson time in Greece lasts 40 minutes, the above percentage, which is ALT, is translated in actual lesson time that is consistent with Silverman et al. (1991), and Silverman, Dodds, Placek, Shute and Rife (1984). However, ALT was lower than in previous descriptive studies (Cousineau & Luke, 1990; Godbout, Brunelle & Tousignant, 1983; Silverman et al, 1991; Silverman et al., 1984) in which it fluctuated from 10% to 34%. The low amount of ALT may be attributed to the type of activities, grade, and organization. Most classes included long warm-up and games in which only a few students were involved at a time whereas the rest were waiting.
Table I. Means and SDs for pre-, post- and retention tests, and residual acquisition and retention gain scores.
Residual scores Residual
School N Pretest Posttest Retention test (acquisition) scores
(retention)
M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
1[supst] 6 3.35 .93 3.29 .77 3.67 .49 -.10 .67 .10 .52
2[supnd] 6 2.00 1.47 3.00 1.57 3.46 .78 .04 1.47 .29 .69
3[suprd] 6 3.24 1.2 3.52 .59 3.54 .50 .11 .72 .00 .63
4[supth] 6 3.09 .95 2.91 1.04 3.12 1.13 -.17 .77 -.20 .87
5[supth] 6 2.65 .98 2.95 1.43 3.00 1.35 -.18 1.18 -.25 1.10
6[supth] 6 3.17 .94 3.81 .40 3.91 .30 .47 .54 .39 .43
Total 36 2.96 1.14 3.22 1.07 3.38 .93 .00 .93 .00 .78
Results showed that skill concepts acquisition and retention was significantly related to practice at an appropriate level of difficulty (ALT). Although ALT occupied a small portion of the lesson time, it is obvious that not only the movement skills but also the skill concepts can be enhanced if the content of the lesson is subject matter motor and children are appropriately motor engaged. This finding seems to support Yongue's (1998) statement that apart from verbal transmission of the skill from the teacher to the students, appropriate practice time develops understanding of how the body should move, and leads to a coordinated and successful performance. It also indicates the interrelation between movement and cognition.
The categories of "learner's involvement level" in ALT-PE, that is "motor engaged" and "not motor engaged" had a positive and a negative relationship respectively with skill concepts acquisition and retention. Analyzing the "motor engaged" category, it can be seen that retention of skill concepts in the present study was positively related to the time that children a) assisted others in learning or performing the manipulative skills ("supporting" subcategory), and b) were engaged in motor activities in such way as to produce a high degree of success ("motor appropriate" subcategory). It appears that participation in activities which require supporting others in the learning setting encourages questioning, analysis, integration, and application of cognitive concepts. Also, motor appropriate engagement has already been found to relate to the achievement in a volleyball skill (Silverman et al, 1991). On the other hand, participation in motor inappropriate activities ("motor inappropriate" subcategory) such as trying to hit a target which was placed too high for children does not seem to affect negatively concepts' retention. However, this finding might be different if the goal was not the cognitive but the motor skills learning.
Table 2. Percentage of time allotted for ALT-PE categories.
ALT-PE categories N M (% ) SD
Context Level
General Content
Management 6 6.56 3.92
Transition 6 23.12 5.91
Break 6 1.76 1.12
Warm-up 6 8.91 7.86
Total 6 40.35 8.08
Subject Matter
knowledge
Technique 6 3.35 5.14
Strategy 6 6.65 2.47
Rules 6 1.47 0.66
Social Behavior 6 0.00 0.00
Background 6 0.00 0.00
Total 6 11.47 6.72
Subject Matter Motor
Skill practice 6 27.76 11.40
Scrimmage 6 5.14 8.10
Game 6 13.91 10.50
Fitness 6 1.45 1.58
Total 6 48.26 11.58
Learner's Involvement Level
Not Motor Engaged
Interim 6 1.17 1.36
Waiting 6 38.03 7.98
Off-Task 6 1.55 1.43
On-Task 6 29.06 8.91
Cognitive 6 11.26 6.61
Total 6 81.07 11.24
Motor Engaged
Motor Appropriate 6 11.21 5.38
Motor Inappropriate 6 5.62 4.13
Supporting 6 2.37 2.14
Total 6 19.2 10.81
ALT 6 5.95 3.58
Table 3. Correlations between ALT-PE categories and student achievement in skill concepts.
Achievement
ALT-PE categories Residual Residual
acquisition gains retention gains
Context Level
General Content
Management -.39 -.60
Transition -.45 -.75
Break -.22 -.56
Warm-up -.33 .18
Total -.83* -.88**
Subject Matter knowledge
Technique .18 .00
Strategy -.31 -.63
Rules -.81* -.79*
Social Behavior - -
Background - -
Total -.04 -.37
Subject Matter Motor
Skill practice .08 .50
Scrimmage -.06 .03
Game -.08 -.13
Fitness .17 .53
Total .57 79*
Learner's Involvement Level
Not Motor Engaged
Interim .35 .46
Waiting -.54 -.60
Off-Task -.43 -.55
On-Task -.53 .37
Cognitive -.43 - 36
Total -.72* -.90**
Motor Engaged
Motor Appropriate .59 .85*
Motor Inappropriate .76* .76*
Supporting .75* .90**
Total .73* .90**
ALT .84* .92**
*p<.05 **p<.01
Note: - = no time was allotted for this category.
On the contrary, negative were the relationships between skill concepts acquisition and retention and the total time devoted in actions irrelevant to the purpose of the lessons, such as managerial and organizational activities ("general content" categories). Similarly, time spent in not motor engaged tasks, such as waiting for instruction or opportunity to practice, was negatively related to skill concepts' acquisition and retention. It is obvious that such actions reduce the motor engagement time that produces gains in skills. These findings support the notion that it is more important to get actively in contact with the content than spending high amounts of time receiving instruction. Previous studies (Silverman et al., 1991; Silverman, Tyson & Morford, 1988) found similar relationships between non instructional categories (i.e. scrimmage, transition) and student achievement in sport skills.
It is notable that skill concepts learning was related to the time allotted on motor involvement ("subject matter motor") but not to the time allotted for cognitive involvement "subject matter knowledge content" and specifically to 'technique', which concerns the time that students are informed about the appropriate way of executing a motor skill. This finding contradicts that of De Knop (1986) who found that the more effective groups in tennis spent more time than the less effective groups receiving information about the tasks, remarking about the correctness or the results of the movement, and watching teacher's demonstration.
The fact that children in the current study received little or even in some instances erroneous instruction on the manipulative skill concepts but they improved their performance in the skill concept test, leads to the conclusion that it was the time of motor involvement which assisted them. That means that children acquired and retained skill concepts mostly through movement practice and watching or helping their peers to practice. However, as it has already been mentioned, the amount of time for physical education in the elementary curriculum is limited, and consequently adequate instruction seems necessary for learning more complex cognitive concepts as well as for effective skill practice outside the school setting.
On the other hand, the negative relation between skill concept learning and transmitting information for regulations and plans of action ("rules") indicates the necessity to provide students with brief, specific, and accurate guidelines. Based on the above, the hypothesis of the study, that there would be significant correlations between ALT-PE categories and skill concepts acquisition and retention, was not verified only for the "subject matter knowledge" category.
In general, the relationships between the categories of ALT-PE and skill concepts are in accordance with previous research findings in classroom concerning math and language (Brophy & Good, 1986) with which can not be directly compared. Also they are only partially in agreement with the findings of relevant studies in physical education (Beckett, 1989; Silverman, 1985; Silverman, et al., 1991) may be because the latter assessed product scores in sport skills rather than skill concepts.
Based on the findings of the current study, Academic Learning Time seems to be an important factor for the acquisition and retention of skill concepts by first grade students. Specifically, practicing at an appropriate level of difficulty and helping classmates to perform correctly are important for the achievement of concept learning. On the contrary, class time spent in activities irrelevant to the instruction's goals, such as in managerial and organizational activities, in transmitting information concerning regulations and plans of action, and time spent waiting for instruction or opportunity to practice, affect negatively skill concepts acquisition and retention.
Teacher plays an important role on children's skill concept acquisition and retention through physical education, in terms of planning for reducing time spent in organizational and managerial activities, arranging the learning environment, and implementing motor appropriate activities. A learning environment that enables students to be actively involved most of the class time, and to think and act in ways that maximize learning opportunities is necessary.
Further research is needed to identify if an increase in ALT and in the knowledge content of the lesson would differentiate research findings. The relation between skill concepts and motor skill learning in conjunction with ALT could also be examined. In addition, research on how skill concept learning affects children's performance in real game situations could be of great interest.
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ADDED MATERIAL
Vassiliki Derri and Efthimis Kioumourtzoglou, Kyriaki Emmanouilidou and Olga Vassiliadou are faculty members in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Science at the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.
TITLE: Relationship between Academic Learning Time in Physical Education (ALT-PE) and Skill Concepts Acquisition and Retention
SOURCE: The Physical Educator 65 no3 134-45 Fall 2008
COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between time-related variables of the physical education lesson and skill concepts acquisition and retention. One hundred and four students aged 6.4 to 7.9 years, and their six physical educators participated. The motor behavior of thirty-six selected students was videotaped during a four-week instruction, and analyzed with Academic Learning Time-Physical Education (ALT-PE) observation instrument (Siedentop, Tousignant, & Parker, 1982). Students were also pre-, post-, and retention tested on overhand throwing and catching concepts by completing a cognitive test. Regression analysis was applied to calculate students' residual acquisition and retention gain scores, and correlation analysis to identify their relationship with ALT-PE categories. Results indicated significant correlations between residual acquisition and retention gain scores in skill concepts and a) "ALT", and b) "student motor engaged". Significantly negative correlations were found between residual acquisition and retention gains and "general content". Moreover, the category "subject matter motor" was significantly correlated with skill concepts learning. It was concluded that time spent in developmentally appropriate skill practice, in contrast to the time spent in activities irrelevant to the instruction's goals, contributes to fundamental skill concept learning.
Review of Literature
Theories
Physical education, apart from guiding children to acquire psychomotor and affective skills, aims to enhance their cognitive skills as well. Cognition has been described as the capacity to acquire and use information in order to adapt to environmental demands (Lidz, 1987). The process, through which information is organized, stored in memory and made available for recall and application in various settings has been described as cognitive learning (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003). Piaget (1952) was among the first theorists to highlight the importance of movement in the cognitive development of infants and young children, but also the dependence of motor development on intellectual abilities (Payne & Isaacs, 1995). Similarly, in motor skill learning models described by Fitts and Posner (1967), Adams (1971), and Gentile (1972), cognition is considered a critical aspect of motor skill acquisition. Besides, higher thought processes are required for all voluntary movements to occur (Payne & Isaacs, 1995).
Gallahue and Cleland (2003) consider perceptual-motor learning and concept development as crucial aspects of cognitive learning during childhood. Among the elements of cognitive concept learning in physical education are the skill concepts, which deal with the ways the body should move while performing fundamental or sport skills. Sage (1984) supported that skill learning does not begin with practice but earlier, with the cognitive understanding of the skill's performance criteria. Buschner (1994) also stated that practicing mentally the learnable criteria enhances the chance of achieving mature movement forms and that thinking and moving integration occurs with time and practice. Improvement in the task specific knowledge base may lead to a better task-specific sport performance and to the reduction of motor performance deficits due to the lack of a sufficient knowledge base (Payne & Isaacs, 1995; Rink, 1996). In general, cognitive concept learning aids retention, recall, decision making, and application, providing children with tools for critical thinking.
Fundamental movement skill learning, one of the most important topics in the physical education curriculum during the early elementary years (e.g., Graham, 1991), is achieved by an active learning process interrelated with cognition (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003). Graham (1987) stressed that students do not learn to perform correctly a fundamental movement skill by being "exposed" to the correct way but by learning its qualitative aspects. In relation to that, Pangrazi (2001) and Wood (1997) emphasized the use of cues to help students become involved cognitively in class, especially during the initial stage of skill learning. Taking also into account the insufficient amount of time allotted for physical education as well as other factors which influence negatively skill development, learning the concepts that are related to successful skill performance will enable children's effective participation in movement activities in a variety of settings (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003).
Research on how children learn and develop particular content has been used across classroom subjects (e.g., reading, mathematics, science, writing, etc.), in some instances extensively, to guide the selection of curriculum design, instructional techniques, and national standards. Walkwitz and Lee (1992) reported that although the amount of similar research is not identical for physical education, it has been shown to contribute to pedagogical content knowledge. The use of motor development research as a basis for observing the learner's movement is widely evident in current elementary textbooks and has been used to create similar information about skills (Gallahue & Cleland, 2003). Describing the qualitative changes in coordination patterns as children's movement patterns become more mature (Roberton & Halverson, 1984; Wickstrom, 1983), this type of research guides the selection of tasks, cues, and feedback. The qualitative aspects, cues or otherwise skill concepts have aided children focus on the relevant aspects of the tasks in a rather constantly varying environment, and achieve motor skill learning (e.g., Ladewig & Gallagher, 1994; Masser, 1993; Winter & Thomas, 1981). Research in physical education also focused on the relationship between student/teacher behavior (process) and student learning (product). In related studies student learning is associated with the way the teacher uses qualitative aspects of teaching (e.g., cues, feedback, guidelines) and the lesson time to provide learning experiences to children.
Academic Learning Time
The process-product studies, conducted since the 1950s in order to determine the relationship between student/teacher behavior and student learning, have indicated that correct practice is the most crucial component of such a relationship (Graham & Heimerer, 1981; Metzler, 1989). According to Bloom (1974), the time needed to learn a skill is one of the fundamental variables in studies for school learning. Academic Learning Time (ALT), which is considered to be the connection between teaching and learning, is a unit of time in which students are engaged in activities and instructional materials to be learned at an appropriate level of difficulty, resulting in high success and low error rates (Rink, 2002). According to Rink (1996) a task is at an "appropriate level of difficulty" when the learner can be successful with effort. "High success" depends on the level of complexity of the skill and is defined as the performance of an instructional task with no errors (Lee & Poto, 1988).
Related studies, in which ALT was used to assess student behavior, had as subject matter math and language (Brophy & Good, 1986). Similarly, the Academic Learning Time-Physical Education (ALT-PE) systematic observation instrument in physical education (Parker, 1989; Siedentop, Tousignant & Parker, 1982) has been applied to determine the relationship between student behavior and motor learning (Lee & Poto, 1988; Metzler, 1989). Even though the reported results were not always consistent, time appeared to be one of the variables for predicting sport skill learning. Specifically, process-product studies in physical education attempted to identify the relationship between time-related variables and quantitative or qualitative sport skill performance. Based on the findings, motor engaged time seems to be a necessary condition for learning ice hockey (Godbout, Brunelle, & Tousignant, 1987), badminton (Beckett, 1989), volleyball (Godbout et al., 1987; Silverman, Devillier & Ramirez, 1991), and golf skills (Metzler, 1983). Similar findings were reported for swimming skills (Silverman, 1985) but only for high-skilled participants. On the other hand, Silverman (1985) found negative correlations between cognitive engagement and the achievement score in a swimming skill only for low- and moderately-skilled participants. The author attributed this finding either to the inappropriate level of cognitive information or to the lag between cognitive understanding and translation of this knowledge into improved performance. On the contrary, high-skilled participant scores were positively related to the cognitive engagement time.
Despite the importance of the above findings, research on the relationship between time-related variables and skill concepts learning seems insufficient, meaning that it has been focused in subject areas like math and language. With regard to physical education, only few studies examined the relationship between ALT-PE and fundamental motor skill learning and none to our knowledge that of ALT-PE and cognitive concepts related to physical education. To describe and analyze the relations between student ALT-PE categories and skill concepts acquisition and retention the following questions were posed as framework of the study: a) What is the mean ALT in the observed classes, b) Is there a significant correlation between student ALT and skill concepts learning, c) Which variables of the context level or of the student involvement level of ALT-PE are related to student skill concepts learning?
Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between time-related variables of the physical education lesson and fundamental skill concept acquisition and retention by first grade students, taking into consideration the importance of the qualitative performance and cue learning in early elementary years. First grade students were selected because they are those who begin to participate in a structured physical education program. It was hypothesized that there would be significant correlations between student skill concepts acquisition and retention and the categories of ALT-PE.
Method
A data base that includes students pre-, post and retention scores for concepts of throwing and catching and their behaviour, as analyzed with the ALT-PE instrument was used for the study. Relations between ALT-PE categories and students achievement were examined.
Participants
One hundred and four first grade students, 6.4 to 7.9 years of age (M = 6.9, SD = 0.3) from six elementary schools in Northern Greece, and their physical education teachers participated in the classes observed in this study. Teachers (N=6) had a Bachelor Degree in Physical Education and Sports, and 5 to 10 years of teaching experience, but no more than three years in the elementary school. Each participating physical education teacher recommended six students, two high, two medium and two low skilled to participate in the ALT-PE observations (N=36). None of the student participants had ever received instruction in throwing or catching. Once permissions were obtained from the Ministry of Education, all elementary school principals and physical education teachers, schools were randomly selected from a greater sample located in varied socioeconomic areas.
Measurement
A knowledge test and ALT-PE observation instrument were used in the study to provide descriptive data on student skill concepts and motor behavior during class time, respectively.
Skill Concepts. The knowledge test in this study concerned the identification of throwing and catching skills among other manipulative skills (e.g., ball rolling, striking), and the identification of the correct performance of each skill. It was created based on the indicative ways of assessing skill concepts in early elementary ages, proposed by Hopple (1995) and Graham, Holt/Hale and Parker (2003). It consisted of four tasks: two of them required matching each skill's name (e.g. throwing, catching) with the correct figure out of five with different skills, and two required the student to circle the picture with the correct performance of the skill out of five pictures of the same skill. The score ranged from 0 to 4 points (each answer was graded with one point if it was correct and with zero point if it was wrong). The reliability of the test was estimated with a test-retest measure and the intra-class correlation coefficient was .90. The test has logical validity and internal consistency (Cronbach's a =.75).
Observation Instrument. Student behavior was measured with the Academic Learning Time--Physical Education (ALT-PE) observation instrument (Siedentop, Tousignant, & Parker, 1982), which uses a twelve second interval observation/record technique. A student was observed for the first six seconds of the interval and two decisions were made and recorded on the coding sheet for the next six seconds: one for the context level (general, subject matter knowledge, subject matter motor), and the other for the learner's involvement level (not motor or motor engaged). The intervals and their percentage in all categories and subcategories of the instrument were calculated. According to Parker (1989), the intervals in which the context level was subject matter motor and the learner's involvement level was motor appropriate, were considered to be the amount of academic learning time (ALT). In the present study, ALT was recorded when the activities in the subject matter motor intervals were relevant to the lesson purpose, and learner involvement was motor appropriate. This occurred because teachers in some cases used activities irrelevant to throwing and catching like tag and rope games.
Procedure
Initially, all students completed the knowledge test. Afterwards, the physical education teachers were required to teach only catching and overhand throwing for eight 40-minute consecutive lessons, twice a week, during the regular school program. They were encouraged to use lesson time as best as they can and choose the type of task, and the number of repetitions for student improvement in the two skills. A total number of 48 lessons (8 lessons per 6 physical educators) were videotaped. The 36 chosen students wore pinafores to be ever identifiable on videotapes. Students were post tested the day after the completion of the lessons, and re-tested after ten days (during a regular physical education lesson), that is two days before the end of the school year. The focus of the lessons between the last two measures was on dance activities.
Videotaped lessons were analyzed with the ALT-PE instrument by two trained observers, separately. Their training was based on learning the behavior categories and the coding procedure, on coding videotapes to identify ambiguous patterns, on discussion of disagreements and on coding separately until an interobserver agreement of over .90 was established on all subcategories. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was determined by percent agreement, IOA= agreements/[agreements+disagreements] for individual subcategories and context levels. After actual data analysis had begun, four lessons were randomly selected for interobserver agreement control. At all lessons reliability was at or above the .92 level. The six target students from each school were observed in sequence (i.e. the first time interval was assigned to the first student, followed by the second, third, etc) and that order was repeated until the end of each lesson. A total number of 5544 intervals were coded for 36 students while a preprogrammed audiotape provided the observation and recording intervals.
Data analysis
For each student achievement a residual score was calculated. For the entire sample a posttest on pretest and a retention test on pretest regression equation were determined. Based on this equation, predicted scores were calculated (Silverman, 1988). The actual post- and retention test scores minus the predicted scores were the residual acquisition and residual retention gain scores, respectively. These scores were positive if a student's performance was better than the predicted score, or negative if it was worse than the predicted score. Residual gain scores were selected because they separate out pretest skill level, and are reliable, uncorrelated with entry skill, and not subject to ceiling effects (Cronbach & Furby, 1970; Silverman, 1988). The mean of residual scores was calculated for each school and used for the correlation with ALT-PE percentages.
Results
A dependent samples t-test was used to identify changes in students' knowledge between measures. Results showed significant differences between pre- and posttest measures (t= 3.1, p < .05), as well as between pre- and retention test measures (t = 4.15, p < .001). The mean score increased from 2.96 in the pretest to 3.22 in the posttest and to 3.38 in the retention test, while the maximum score could be 4. These results show that acquisition and retention occurred.
Means and standard deviations for each school in all measures as well as the corresponding residual scores are presented in Table 1. The percentages of time allocated for each of the ALT-PE's categories and subcategories are depicted in Table 2.
Pearson Product Moment correlation was applied to identify possible correlations between the residual scores (acquisition and retention gains) in skill concepts and the percentages of intervals of ALT-PE categories and subcategories. Categories related to residual acquisition and retention gain scores in skill concepts were a) "ALT" (r = .84, p < .05 and r = .92, p < .01 respectively), and b) "student motor engaged" (r = .73, p < .05 and r = .90, p < .01 respectively). Although negative, correlations were also indicated between residual acquisition and retention gains and a) "student not motor engaged" variables, (r = -.72, p < .05 and r = -.90, p < .01 respectively) and b) "general content" (r = -.83, p < .05 and r = -.88, p < .01 respectively). The lesson content "subject matter knowledge" had no significant correlation neither with skill concept acquisition nor with their retention, while "subject matter motor" and "motor appropriate" were correlated with skill concepts retention (r = .79, p < .05 and r = .85, p <. 05 respectively). All correlations are presented in Table 3.
Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between time- related variables of the physical education lesson and skill concept acquisition and retention. Results indicated that after the implementation of an eight lesson unit, concept learning of throwing and catching occurred. Examining the way time was spent during practice, it appeared that almost half class time was devoted to a general lesson content and predominantly to managerial, organizational, and warm-up activities whereas students were "motor engaged", that is, they participated in motor activities relevant to the goals of the setting only at 1/5 of the total class time. For the rest of the time, although students were on task they waited for instructions or opportunity to respond, and participated in activities irrelevant to the goal of the lesson. Also, the extremely low percentage of time in the category "knowledge subject matter", and especially in "technique", seems that teachers did not take into consideration students' need to cognitively rehearse the movement cues associated with throwing and catching. This finding might be attributed to the low experience of the physical education teachers to teach fundamental skill concepts along with skills since they started to teach the lesson in the early elementary years only a few years ago. As far as the basic time-concept, (ALT), is concerned, it occupied only 6% of lesson time. Given that the typical lesson time in Greece lasts 40 minutes, the above percentage, which is ALT, is translated in actual lesson time that is consistent with Silverman et al. (1991), and Silverman, Dodds, Placek, Shute and Rife (1984). However, ALT was lower than in previous descriptive studies (Cousineau & Luke, 1990; Godbout, Brunelle & Tousignant, 1983; Silverman et al, 1991; Silverman et al., 1984) in which it fluctuated from 10% to 34%. The low amount of ALT may be attributed to the type of activities, grade, and organization. Most classes included long warm-up and games in which only a few students were involved at a time whereas the rest were waiting.
Table I. Means and SDs for pre-, post- and retention tests, and residual acquisition and retention gain scores.
Residual scores Residual
School N Pretest Posttest Retention test (acquisition) scores
(retention)
M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
1[supst] 6 3.35 .93 3.29 .77 3.67 .49 -.10 .67 .10 .52
2[supnd] 6 2.00 1.47 3.00 1.57 3.46 .78 .04 1.47 .29 .69
3[suprd] 6 3.24 1.2 3.52 .59 3.54 .50 .11 .72 .00 .63
4[supth] 6 3.09 .95 2.91 1.04 3.12 1.13 -.17 .77 -.20 .87
5[supth] 6 2.65 .98 2.95 1.43 3.00 1.35 -.18 1.18 -.25 1.10
6[supth] 6 3.17 .94 3.81 .40 3.91 .30 .47 .54 .39 .43
Total 36 2.96 1.14 3.22 1.07 3.38 .93 .00 .93 .00 .78
Results showed that skill concepts acquisition and retention was significantly related to practice at an appropriate level of difficulty (ALT). Although ALT occupied a small portion of the lesson time, it is obvious that not only the movement skills but also the skill concepts can be enhanced if the content of the lesson is subject matter motor and children are appropriately motor engaged. This finding seems to support Yongue's (1998) statement that apart from verbal transmission of the skill from the teacher to the students, appropriate practice time develops understanding of how the body should move, and leads to a coordinated and successful performance. It also indicates the interrelation between movement and cognition.
The categories of "learner's involvement level" in ALT-PE, that is "motor engaged" and "not motor engaged" had a positive and a negative relationship respectively with skill concepts acquisition and retention. Analyzing the "motor engaged" category, it can be seen that retention of skill concepts in the present study was positively related to the time that children a) assisted others in learning or performing the manipulative skills ("supporting" subcategory), and b) were engaged in motor activities in such way as to produce a high degree of success ("motor appropriate" subcategory). It appears that participation in activities which require supporting others in the learning setting encourages questioning, analysis, integration, and application of cognitive concepts. Also, motor appropriate engagement has already been found to relate to the achievement in a volleyball skill (Silverman et al, 1991). On the other hand, participation in motor inappropriate activities ("motor inappropriate" subcategory) such as trying to hit a target which was placed too high for children does not seem to affect negatively concepts' retention. However, this finding might be different if the goal was not the cognitive but the motor skills learning.
Table 2. Percentage of time allotted for ALT-PE categories.
ALT-PE categories N M (% ) SD
Context Level
General Content
Management 6 6.56 3.92
Transition 6 23.12 5.91
Break 6 1.76 1.12
Warm-up 6 8.91 7.86
Total 6 40.35 8.08
Subject Matter
knowledge
Technique 6 3.35 5.14
Strategy 6 6.65 2.47
Rules 6 1.47 0.66
Social Behavior 6 0.00 0.00
Background 6 0.00 0.00
Total 6 11.47 6.72
Subject Matter Motor
Skill practice 6 27.76 11.40
Scrimmage 6 5.14 8.10
Game 6 13.91 10.50
Fitness 6 1.45 1.58
Total 6 48.26 11.58
Learner's Involvement Level
Not Motor Engaged
Interim 6 1.17 1.36
Waiting 6 38.03 7.98
Off-Task 6 1.55 1.43
On-Task 6 29.06 8.91
Cognitive 6 11.26 6.61
Total 6 81.07 11.24
Motor Engaged
Motor Appropriate 6 11.21 5.38
Motor Inappropriate 6 5.62 4.13
Supporting 6 2.37 2.14
Total 6 19.2 10.81
ALT 6 5.95 3.58
Table 3. Correlations between ALT-PE categories and student achievement in skill concepts.
Achievement
ALT-PE categories Residual Residual
acquisition gains retention gains
Context Level
General Content
Management -.39 -.60
Transition -.45 -.75
Break -.22 -.56
Warm-up -.33 .18
Total -.83* -.88**
Subject Matter knowledge
Technique .18 .00
Strategy -.31 -.63
Rules -.81* -.79*
Social Behavior - -
Background - -
Total -.04 -.37
Subject Matter Motor
Skill practice .08 .50
Scrimmage -.06 .03
Game -.08 -.13
Fitness .17 .53
Total .57 79*
Learner's Involvement Level
Not Motor Engaged
Interim .35 .46
Waiting -.54 -.60
Off-Task -.43 -.55
On-Task -.53 .37
Cognitive -.43 - 36
Total -.72* -.90**
Motor Engaged
Motor Appropriate .59 .85*
Motor Inappropriate .76* .76*
Supporting .75* .90**
Total .73* .90**
ALT .84* .92**
*p<.05 **p<.01
Note: - = no time was allotted for this category.
On the contrary, negative were the relationships between skill concepts acquisition and retention and the total time devoted in actions irrelevant to the purpose of the lessons, such as managerial and organizational activities ("general content" categories). Similarly, time spent in not motor engaged tasks, such as waiting for instruction or opportunity to practice, was negatively related to skill concepts' acquisition and retention. It is obvious that such actions reduce the motor engagement time that produces gains in skills. These findings support the notion that it is more important to get actively in contact with the content than spending high amounts of time receiving instruction. Previous studies (Silverman et al., 1991; Silverman, Tyson & Morford, 1988) found similar relationships between non instructional categories (i.e. scrimmage, transition) and student achievement in sport skills.
It is notable that skill concepts learning was related to the time allotted on motor involvement ("subject matter motor") but not to the time allotted for cognitive involvement "subject matter knowledge content" and specifically to 'technique', which concerns the time that students are informed about the appropriate way of executing a motor skill. This finding contradicts that of De Knop (1986) who found that the more effective groups in tennis spent more time than the less effective groups receiving information about the tasks, remarking about the correctness or the results of the movement, and watching teacher's demonstration.
The fact that children in the current study received little or even in some instances erroneous instruction on the manipulative skill concepts but they improved their performance in the skill concept test, leads to the conclusion that it was the time of motor involvement which assisted them. That means that children acquired and retained skill concepts mostly through movement practice and watching or helping their peers to practice. However, as it has already been mentioned, the amount of time for physical education in the elementary curriculum is limited, and consequently adequate instruction seems necessary for learning more complex cognitive concepts as well as for effective skill practice outside the school setting.
On the other hand, the negative relation between skill concept learning and transmitting information for regulations and plans of action ("rules") indicates the necessity to provide students with brief, specific, and accurate guidelines. Based on the above, the hypothesis of the study, that there would be significant correlations between ALT-PE categories and skill concepts acquisition and retention, was not verified only for the "subject matter knowledge" category.
In general, the relationships between the categories of ALT-PE and skill concepts are in accordance with previous research findings in classroom concerning math and language (Brophy & Good, 1986) with which can not be directly compared. Also they are only partially in agreement with the findings of relevant studies in physical education (Beckett, 1989; Silverman, 1985; Silverman, et al., 1991) may be because the latter assessed product scores in sport skills rather than skill concepts.
Based on the findings of the current study, Academic Learning Time seems to be an important factor for the acquisition and retention of skill concepts by first grade students. Specifically, practicing at an appropriate level of difficulty and helping classmates to perform correctly are important for the achievement of concept learning. On the contrary, class time spent in activities irrelevant to the instruction's goals, such as in managerial and organizational activities, in transmitting information concerning regulations and plans of action, and time spent waiting for instruction or opportunity to practice, affect negatively skill concepts acquisition and retention.
Teacher plays an important role on children's skill concept acquisition and retention through physical education, in terms of planning for reducing time spent in organizational and managerial activities, arranging the learning environment, and implementing motor appropriate activities. A learning environment that enables students to be actively involved most of the class time, and to think and act in ways that maximize learning opportunities is necessary.
Further research is needed to identify if an increase in ALT and in the knowledge content of the lesson would differentiate research findings. The relation between skill concepts and motor skill learning in conjunction with ALT could also be examined. In addition, research on how skill concept learning affects children's performance in real game situations could be of great interest.
REFERENCES
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ADDED MATERIAL
Vassiliki Derri and Efthimis Kioumourtzoglou, Kyriaki Emmanouilidou and Olga Vassiliadou are faculty members in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Science at the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Project as of February 7
-Target Audience: My target audiences are parents and teachers. My goal is to make information about how movement can enhance cognitive development, available to those who could integrate it into their children’s lives.
-My Research Thus Far: So far I have mostly worked on “Pros” to see if it was a legitimate project idea. I will begin this week to research “Cons” in order to develop a more “well-rounded” project.
-What This Project is: The point of this project is not to disprove that the arts can improve cognitive development. I am also not presenting this topic as an “end-all” solution to cognitive development in children. I am simply providing information on how movement through sport, game, and creative dance can improve cognitive development in children. The reason that I chose to approach these movement experiences in terms of game, sport, and creative dance is so that the children will have experiences to improve problem-solving, critical thinking, and reasoning skills by experiencing multiple variables (other players, different “Basic Six” skills being developed, conditions of the game/sport/environment) Learning to develop these problem solving skills is just one way that movement experiences can be used to develop cognitive skills.
-Project Breakdown: I decided to write a paper about the information that I collected about movement and cognition. After my paper is finished I planned to make pamphlets and distribute them to schools in the surrounding area. The reason that I was going to use pamphlets is because I saw them as a compact way to give basic information about why using developed movement patterns can improve cognitive functioning. I thought that seeing who responds to the pamphlets will help me to see how much perspective interest I have. By evaluating the level of interest, I will be able to see if putting together a website with videos of activities, links to articles, and suggestions about how to get the most “well-rounded” movement in the least about of time will be enough, or if I should put on a “master class” for parents and teachers. If anyone has ideas about how to better promote this project while providing information (other than pamphlets) I would love to hear them!
Goals For Next Week
-Collect more articles (positive and negative)
-Start to decide the specific topics that I will be focusing on for my paper.
-Brainstorm ideas about how to better promote my project.
-My Research Thus Far: So far I have mostly worked on “Pros” to see if it was a legitimate project idea. I will begin this week to research “Cons” in order to develop a more “well-rounded” project.
-What This Project is: The point of this project is not to disprove that the arts can improve cognitive development. I am also not presenting this topic as an “end-all” solution to cognitive development in children. I am simply providing information on how movement through sport, game, and creative dance can improve cognitive development in children. The reason that I chose to approach these movement experiences in terms of game, sport, and creative dance is so that the children will have experiences to improve problem-solving, critical thinking, and reasoning skills by experiencing multiple variables (other players, different “Basic Six” skills being developed, conditions of the game/sport/environment) Learning to develop these problem solving skills is just one way that movement experiences can be used to develop cognitive skills.
-Project Breakdown: I decided to write a paper about the information that I collected about movement and cognition. After my paper is finished I planned to make pamphlets and distribute them to schools in the surrounding area. The reason that I was going to use pamphlets is because I saw them as a compact way to give basic information about why using developed movement patterns can improve cognitive functioning. I thought that seeing who responds to the pamphlets will help me to see how much perspective interest I have. By evaluating the level of interest, I will be able to see if putting together a website with videos of activities, links to articles, and suggestions about how to get the most “well-rounded” movement in the least about of time will be enough, or if I should put on a “master class” for parents and teachers. If anyone has ideas about how to better promote this project while providing information (other than pamphlets) I would love to hear them!
Goals For Next Week
-Collect more articles (positive and negative)
-Start to decide the specific topics that I will be focusing on for my paper.
-Brainstorm ideas about how to better promote my project.
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