School Adoption and Utilization of NFL PLAY 60 Programming

Background/Purpose: The NFL Play 60 FITNESSGRAM Partnership Project is designed to develop and evaluate programming strategies to facilitate the effective use of FITNESSGRAM (FG) and NFL PLAY 60 resources. The project is set up using an innovative participatory approach that is designed to build capacity and allow schools to have freedom with respect to the programming options and strategies that work best in their environment. Schools receive training and support to conduct fitness testing and to distribute scores to parents. Schools are also encouraged to participate in NFL PLAY 60 programming although participation is voluntary. This presentation will summarize the perceptions of teachers to the programming and their specific adoption and use of the NFL PLAY 60 Programming.

Method: Data for the presentation are obtained from annual surveys distributed to all participating sites. The baseline survey is administered upon adoption into the program to provide information about the experience and training of the teachers, teaching loads and the school policies and practices of the individual schools. The annual survey (conducted every spring) provides information about the extent to which they carried out the recommended practices and components in the project (most notably the specific involvement in PLAY 60 Challenge and Fuel Up to Play 60).

Analysis/Results: The percentage of teachers completing FG testing and entering software increased from 2011 (55.8%) to 2012 (70.2%). With various training and resource provided by the project, nearly all teachers (> 97) were “somewhat confident” or “very confident” with the quality of FG scores collected (with values similar both years). With respect to NFL PLAY 60 programming, approximately 20% and 19% of teachers reported participating in the NFL PLAY 60 Challenge in 2011 and 2012 (respectively) while 26.7% and 22.2% reported using Fuel Up to Play 60. There was a large increase in satisfaction with the NFL Play 60 Challenge between 2011 (65.7%) and 2012 (97.3%). The satisfaction rates for Fuel Up to Play 60 also increased from 2011 (91.3%) to 2012 (98.8%).

Conclusions: The number of teachers adopting and using the FG software have increased by year. The usage of the NFL Play 60 programs is low (about 20-25%) but users report high satisfaction with the FG 9 application and the two NFL PLAY 60 programs.