Background/Purpose: Despite continuing debate regarding the amount and type of fitness activities that should be offered in elementary school, most states have adopted or adapted the NASPE content standards and offer some form of fitness education. Based upon the theory of change, this project utilized state physical and health education standards from grades K-5 as a basis for investigating fitness content.
Method: Kindergarten through 5th grade standards documents from all available states were reviewed and were coded into domains and subdomains related to knowledge, planning and participation. Frequency counts were calculated for domains and subdomains. Using peer debriefing and critical reflexivity, general themes were drawn from these data.
Analysis/Results: Resulting from inductive and deductive analysis three themes emerged: (a) wow, (b) where, and (c) let's get together. Wow refers to the amount of content required to be covered in some of the grade levels. The second theme emerged from the large amount of overlap across various grade levels, thus leading to, “where in the curriculum should these concepts be addressed?” Finally, there was no consensus among the states on the material in each grade level.
Conclusions: The analysis indicated that there was an overwhelming amount of content at each grade level with considerable overlap thus supporting the idea that a more specific scope and sequence would be beneficial for teachers and students, alike. Identifying the benchmarks of learning will help teachers and be better aid students in mastery of the material.
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