Effect of SPARK on Students' Academic Learning Time in Physical Education

Background/Purpose: Academic Learning Time-Physical Education (ALT-PE) has been utilized as a measure of teaching effectiveness and student achievement in physical education settings. However, the effect of health-related physical fitness intervention on middle school students’ ALT-PE is unknown. Specifically, how students spend time in the various context levels of academic learning during a health-related physical fitness program compared to the conventional multi-activity model is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the of Sports, Play and Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK) on middle school students’ ALT-PE as compared to conventional physical education program.

Method: A total of 12 target students were selected and observed from a pool of 6^th-8^th middle school students. Six students participated in SPARK and six students participated in the conventional program over the course of 9-weeks. Students attended three sport activities in the order of soccer, flag football and ultimate Frisbee. Two raters observed students’ behaviors with a 12-second interval observation/record protocol using the context level of the ALT-PE systematic measurement observation instrument (Siedentop, Tousignant, & Parker, 1982). A series of independent ANOVAs were conducted to determine if there were any differences in students’ ALT-PE context levels within each sport activity between the SPARK and conventional students.

Analysis/Results: Average inter-observer agreement for ALT-PE context level was 89.04 %, indicating acceptable inter-rater agreement reliability. The results suggested SPARK students had significantly higher percentage of time spent in subject matter motor (p < .05), especially in skill practice (p < .01) and fitness (p < .01), compared to the conventional students over time. However, the SPARK students spent significant less time in general content (p < .05) over the intervention period compared to the conventional students. The same effect was found for each sport activity.

Conclusions: This research supports that SPARK is an effective pedagogical strategy to increase middle school children’s academic learning time compared to the conventional multi-activity model. Physical educators may consider SPARK as an alternative instructional approach to sustain elevated levels of academic learning time in their physical education classes. Increases in academic learning time through the SPARK may increase the probability of students achieving optimal levels of physical activity and health-related fitness.