The benefits of physical activity (PA) are well established, but youth are still not obtaining the recommended amounts of PA. Physical education (PE) has been recognized as an important source in increasing PA for youth. However, research has struggled to establish clear understanding about PE’s contribution to the overall activity pattern of its students as there has been a number of methodological problems with prior research. The purpose of this study was to examine PE’s contribution to overall PA behavior of third and fourth grade elementary students while addressing the limitations of prior studies through employing an accelerometer-based, multi-site research design. In accomplishing this purpose, Aim 1 examined PE’s overall percent contribution to overall PA while Aim 2 investigated whether students compensate for missed PA opportunities on days in which they do not have PE.
Method:
PA levels of 41 third and fourth graders from four schools in three school districts were measured by accelerometers. Data were collected on three separate occasions, lasting five days each. Accelerometers captured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and total counts on PE days, non-PE days and weekend days.
Analysis/Results:
The results revealed that the average time spent daily in MVPA was 46.95 minutes (SD= 16.70), while PE accounted for 23.25% (SD= 9.26) of overall MVPA. PE also accounted for 15.48% (SD= 4.86) of total PA. In answering Aim 2, a one-way repeated measures MANCOVA revealed significant differences between types of day on PA levels (Wilks’ λ=.68, p<.05; partial η2 =.32), with gender and class set as covariates. Follow-up univariate tests only indicated significant differences between MVPA and types of days, F(2, 76) = 4.49, p<.05, partial η2 =.11. On average, the participants received 12.15 and 21.68 more minutes of MVPA on PE days than on non-PE days and weekend days, respectively (p<.01).
Conclusions:
The present study suggests that PE was a major contributor of overall MVPA and PA. In addition, children did not make up MVPA on non-PE days or weekends, further bolstering PE’s importance in contributing to overall MVPA behavior. Cumulatively, these findings suggest that more PE classes should be added in order to increase overall PA levels instead of being systematically reduced. However, even with PE, students still did not obtain the recommended amounts of MVPA, indicating that PE teachers need to do more to promote out-of-class PA.