Over the last 30 years, there have been significant increases in the prevalence of overweight and obese children. Coupled with this increase has been a decrease in the amount of physical activity children and adolescents are engaging in, despite the known benefits of exercise. In 2003, only 52% of high school females and 74% of males report exercising vigorously at least three times per week. The purpose of this research was to assess the intrapersonal, institutional, environmental, and policy changes employed by a large urban school district in the southwest to build capacity for program improvements and competence in developing strategies to improve the emotional and physical health of students in the district. The Project ESCAPE 25-Alive pilot program is a secondary school level, health based initiative designed to create a systemic change in an urban school district in the southwest that would improve the physical activity program of the district through intrapersonal, institutional, environmental, and policy changes. One of the emphases of the Project ESCAPE 25-Alive pilot program was to optimize the health effects of the time spent in class by engaging students in at least 25 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity. Program designers and evaluators examined intrapersonal factors (teacher skills and self-efficacy), institutional factors (policy development, curricula, administration), and environmental factors (facilities and equipment) to enhance the competence and capacity of physical education teachers to conduct health promoting physical activity related class experiences. Competence is evident when teachers know how to plan, implement, and assess educational experiences that are in line with the state standards for professional practice for physical activity. Capacity is the institutional and environmental support necessary for success—the equipment, the space, the time, the support, and the determination. This presentation will outline the processes used to evaluate the ecological factors listed above to enhance the competence and capacity of the teachers and staff involved with Project ESCAPE 25-Alive.
Learner Objectives 1. At the end of the session, the participant will be able to identify the Social Ecological measures used to assess the competence and capacity of teachers involved in health education interventions that target the physical activity in secondary school students. 2. At the end of the session, the participant will be able to describe the processes used to collect and analyze data in relation to the competence and capacity measures.