The Role of Content Knowledge in Influencing Student Physical Activity, On-Task Behavior, and Skill Performance.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the impact of interventions aimed at improving teacher's content knowledge on students' MVPA, on-task behavior, and skill performance. Differences between treatment and comparison groups were further examined by skill level and gender. Method: We conducted a retroactive analysis of teacher and student data from two randomly controlled trials and one well-controlled quasi-experimental trial measuring MVPA, student performance in badminton, and on-task behavior in lessons. We used descriptive and ANOVA analyses to determine our results. Results: The data show statistically significant effects for student performance and MVPA, and statistically significant effects for on-task performance between groups. Effect sizes for student performance exceed 1SD. MVPA for two of the three studies exceeded the 50% of the lesson criterion. Data are reported for high, average and low skilled students for each variable. Conclusions: This is the first study to examine three important outcomes of physical education, namely skill performance, MVPA, and on-task behavior in one investigation. Our results show that multiple objectives in physical education can be achieved. A strength of the study is that we did not sample any of our variables. The data represent a complete picture of every trial, and continuous interval recording for MVPA and on-task variables occurring in each lesson.

Effects of improving teachers' content knowledge on teaching and student learning in physical education.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a content knowledge (CK) workshop on the enacted pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers and in turn the effects on student learning. METHOD: A quasiexperimental design was used to examine 4 questions: (a) How does student learning differ as a function of PCK? (b) How does teachers' selection of tasks differ in teaching as a function of CK? (c) How does teachers' representation of tasks differ in teaching as a function of CK? (d) How does teachers' adaptation of tasks differ in teaching as a function of CK? In examining student learning, 2 statistical analyses were employed using correct trials and incorrect trials as dependent measures, respectively. Analyses of variance were conducted examining the effects of the intervention on students' percentage of correct or incorrect trials. The analyses consisted of independent variables, including teachers as a block, treatment, class nested within conditions, gender, skill levels, and 2-way interactions among treatment conditions, gender, and skill levels. RESULTS: A statistically significant effect was reported for both analyses. Effect sizes were .63 and .67, indicating a moderate-to-high practical difference between groups in favor of the experimental condition. Large effect size differences (>2.0) were found for teacher PCK behaviors. There were no interaction effects. CONCLUSION: Our findings show that the enacted PCK of a teacher can be changed from immature to mature as a function of learning CK and that this change has a significant and meaningful impact on student learning.

Feelings of energy, exercise-related self-efficacy, and voluntary exercise participation.

This study used a path analysis approach to examine the relationship between feelings of energy, exercise-related self-efficacy beliefs, and exercise participation. A cross-sectional mailing survey design was used to measure feelings of physical and mental energy, task and scheduling self-efficacy beliefs, and voluntary moderate and vigorous exercise participation in 368 healthy, full-time undergraduate students (mean age = 21.43 ± 2.32 years). The path analysis revealed that the hypothesized path model had a strong fit to the study data. The path model showed that feelings of physical energy had significant direct effects on task and scheduling self-efficacy beliefs as well as exercise behaviors. In addition, scheduling self-efficacy had direct effects on moderate and vigorous exercise participation. However, there was no significant direct relationship between task self-efficacy and exercise participation. The path model also revealed that scheduling self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between feelings of physical energy and exercise participation.