Important Health-Related Fitness Knowledge Domains for University Students

Purpose: For many students, higher education may be the last chance to engage in learning Health-related fitness (HRF) knowledge aimed at improving physical activity (PA) levels. However, little is known about the quantity nor quality of HRF knowledge university students possess at the completion their professional preparation. Moreover, there is a dearth of valid and reliable HRF knowledge tests to accurately measure university student HRF knowledge. This situation hinders our endeavor to understanding university students' HRF knowledge. As a first step in developing such a test, the purpose of this study was to investigate what HRF knowledge is deemed important for university students.

Methods: Two stages were involved in the study. First, the content of the current fitness and wellness textbooks and the literature on this topic were carefully examined and compared. A list of HRF knowledge domains was then generated. Subsequently, 55 students in three undergraduate classes were asked to complete a survey with an open-ended question (i.e., in your opinion, what HRF knowledge is needed to encourage you to participate in physical activity on a regular basis). The content of answers was compared and themes were created. These themes were used to further revise the aforementioned list of content domains. Specifically, 10 knowledge domains emerged: (a) basic health-related fitness/PA concepts; (b) basic physiological responses to PA; (c) basic nutrition concepts; (d) fitness/PA assessment; (e) individualized PA prescription; (f) nutrition assessment; (g) safety issues; (h) stress management; (i) weight management; and (j) self-management skills to PA adherence. The second stage of the study focused on weighing the importance of the identified knowledge domains using a panel of experts in the fields of fitness and physical education. In total, 14 experts weighed the importance of the knowledge domains using a 7-point Likert-scale.

Analysis/Results: The mean and the standard deviation of the experts' score for each domain were computed and all the weights were converted into a scale with a total of 1. The means for all the domains were very close to each other, ranged from .9 to .11.

Conclusions: The data from the study suggests that the 10 identified content domains of HRF knowledge were rated similarly in terms of importance and should be assessed based on their important level.