Method: Participants in this two-year study were 3rd to 8th grade students from one of three rural schools (School 1, n=325, K-8; School 2, n=324, 7-8; School 3, n=473, K-8) in the Southern US with 90%, 73%, and 54% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, respectively. We used multiple components from the Elementary or Middle School Fitness for Life Curriculum (Corbin et al., 2010), including one conceptual physical education class per week, the integration of physical activity and nutrition knowledge in the curriculum, and the implementation of wellness weeks throughout the year. Data collection included a 37-item multiple-choice knowledge test that has been shown to produce valid and reliable data from youth (Teatro et al., 2013), that was administered two times during the second year of the project.
Analysis/Results: Descriptive statistics for the tests were computed for the average percent of items correctly answered by grade and gender. General linear models were used to estimate changes in the mean percent of items correctly answered between pre- and post-tests across schools. For example, on average students across all schools in Grade 3 (n=180) scored 28.3% (SD=15.9%) correct, in Grade 6 (n=175) scored 40.1% (SD=16.8%) correct, and in Grade 8 (n=305) scored 19.2% (SD=24.9%) correct. There were no differences between girls (n=687) and boys (n=694) in the average percent of correct answers. Each school had significant improvements in the average number of correctly answered items on the year-end assessment compared to the start of the year (14.6%, 5.7%, and 10.6%, all p<0.01, respectively).
Conclusions: This study is significant because it provides evidence that students can acquire healthy behavior knowledge using conceptual physical education lessons as part of a whole-school physical activity and health program in schools, particularly in rural areas. This study also highlights the critical need for students to learn more healthy behavior content knowledge.