Background/Purpose Youth can be motivated to exercise when they understand exercise-induced physiological changes (EIPC). The nature of the mental models tweens construct to reason about EIPC, and the academic-beliefs (ontological and epistemic) that shape them, have not yet been examined. Grounded upon Framework Theory (Vosniadou, 2007), this research examined sixth-grade students' mental models of EIPC and academic- beliefs.
Method Participants included 68 students from two schools. All completed questionnaires targeting their fitness knowledge (E.g., THRR). Eighteen students participated in follow-up individual interviews designed to elicit their explanations of EIPC. Data sources also included field notes, document collection, and teacher interviews. Constant comparison analysis procedures were used.
Analysis/Results Finding revealed similarities in the way students made inter-disciplinary connections between information gleaned during instruction and their perceptions/interpretations of physiological changes. All shared a “global-theory”: the body operated like a machine (ontological belief) and exercise had a causal effect on body functioning (epistemic belief). Yet, students held different “specific theories” patterned within five “synthetic models” (SM) representing ontological sophistication variations in human anatomy/physiology. For example, SM1 students described exercise effects on isolated organs: heart or lungs. Conversely, SM5 students articulated exercise effects on the synergistic function of body systems: cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal, and digestive.
Conclusions Tweens develop a range of EIPC synthetic models. Albeit naive, SM should be appreciated as students' attempts to understand the multi-level complexity of the human body in motion. They can scaffold future learning when instruction targets both knowledge and belief change and is designed to help youth make appropriate health-related-fitness decisions.