Administration practices of physical education teachers for the California physical fitness test

The State of California uses the California Physical Fitness Test (CaPFT) to test all public-school students in grades five, seven, and nine. The CaPFT is based on the FITNESSGRAMRTM with the primary purpose of the test being to promote students to be physically active. If this goal is to be accomplished, it is important for teachers to educate students about health-related fitness because when students understand the value of physical activity they are more likely to adopt the behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' physical-fitness-test administration practices, specifically, how physical-education teachers help the students to develop a cognitive understanding of the health-related physical-fitness components before and after test administration.;The results of the study indicated that the participants chose similar tests to administer but varied the methods they used to conduct the tests. Only three of the teachers described giving specific health-related-fitness instruction. Middle-school teachers and teachers with access to a classroom were more likely to conduct in-depth health-related-fitness instruction. Before test administration, the teachers described various instructions given to the students about the test purposes, but none of the teachers reported discussing with their students that the purpose of the CaPFT was to promote a physically-active lifestyle. After test administration, only half of the teachers reported providing the students with their test results. If an explanation of the test results was given to the students, the explanation typically was brief.;In order for students to make the connection between the CaPFT results and health-related fitness, it is important for teachers to provide specific health-related-fitness instruction. When effective test administration, instruction of health-related fitness, and interpretation of test results to the students occurs, physical-fitness testing may be a valuable assessment leading students to be more likely to adopt a physically-active lifestyle.;Middle-school and high-school physical-education teachers (n = 10) from Central California were interviewed about their physical-fitness-test-administration practices. The teachers were asked to describe how they conduct the tests and how the students are educated about the health-related-fitness components before and after test administration.