304 Research Consortium 30th Annual C. H. McCloy Research Lecture and Breakfast: Seeing is Believing - Observing Physical Activity and Its Contexts Systematically

2009 C. H. McCloy Research Lecturer and Emeritus Professor (San Diego State University) Dr. Thom McKenzie has been using systematic, direct observation methodology to generate data on diverse populations and their social and physical environments for over 35 years. Early in his career he used the method primarily to study behaviors in physical education and youth sports. With the global concern for sedentary living, he more recently focused on investigating health-related physical activity in diverse locations, including homes, schools (physical education, recess, and before and after school programs), and park and recreation settings. Dr. McKenzie contends that direct observation has historically been overlooked by physical activity researchers. He believes the methodology exceeds other measures of physical activity in providing contextually-rich data on the environment and that it is particularly useful to researchers using ecological and cognitive-behavioral approaches in their attempt to understand how physical activity is influenced by its contexts. In his lecture, he asserts that recent technological advances that permit observational codes to be entered and analyzed by hand-held computers make this methodology more useful and appealing and will use data generated by some of his published observation systems to punctuate his remarks.