Background/Purpose Students are encouraged not only to be physically active but also to learn cognitive knowledge in a physical education class. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which using workbooks in physical education lessons contributed to students' learning of muscular fitness concepts in elementary school physical education.
Method
Fifth grade students (n=566) from 11 randomly sampled elementary schools were taught in a 10-lesson muscular fitness unit designed using constructivist theory. In total, students were given 35 assignments in the 10 lessons through which they were expected to learn muscular fitness concepts through moderate to vigorous physical activities. In each lesson, students explored an essential question associated with muscular fitness, engaged in moderate to vigorous muscular exercises and answered three to four written questions associated with each exercise using a workbook. Standardized tests were given before and after the unit to measure knowledge growth. Criterion-referenced rubrics were used to evaluate students' answers to workbook questions. Content and discriminant validity of the rubric scoring system was established through building consensus among our experienced researcher using the Delphi approach until a 100% agreement was reached.
Analysis/Results Correlation analyses revealed that daily performance on workbook assignments correlated with their workbook total score (r= .48 to .66, p<.01). Multiple regressions showed that successful performance on workbook assignments positively predicted achievement on post knowledge test (Rē=.26, p<.01).
Conclusions The findings indicate that using science-based journals contributes to the students' cognitive knowledge of muscular fitness concepts.