Differences in physical activity and health-related fitness content knowledge of in-service elementary physical education teachers

Understanding the concepts and principles of health-related fitness is positively related to physical activity; and is vital to becoming physically fit and to promote positive attitudes toward fitness. Thus, physical education teachers should be knowledgeable and confident in their content knowledge of physical activity and health-related fitness in order to provide high quality and effective instruction to their students. This in turn makes it important to investigate the physical activity and health-related fitness content knowledge of in-service physical education teachers. The first purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid instrument to measure appropriate physical activity and health-related fitness content knowledge of elementary physical education teachers. The second purpose of this study was to examine differences in gender, years of teaching experience and highest degree attained as they relate to appropriate physical activity and health-related fitness content knowledge of in-service elementary physical education teachers. Sixty-four female and twenty-four male in-service elementary physical education teachers from an urban school district in southeast Texas completed the Appropriate Physical Activity and Health-Related Fitness (APAHRF) test.;Content validity was established through consultation with a group of experts and reliability through administration of a pilot study. The test was found to have a K-R 20 reliability coefficient of 0.67, which is commonly considered an acceptable level of internal consistency. One-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if significant differences existed in gender, years of teaching experience, and highest degree attained on appropriate physical activity and health-related fitness content knowledge. Descriptive statistics results indicated that the mean percentage score for the APAHRF test was 57.68%. Results from the ANOVA analysis indicated that gender and highest degree attained did not affect teacher content knowledge of appropriate physical activity and health-related fitness. However, years of teaching experience was found to significantly influence teacher content knowledge of appropriate physical activity and health-related fitness.;It is recommended that on-going and meaningful professional development activities be provided in order to improve the teaching of physical activity and health-related fitness in schools. It is also recommended that contextual factors such as work environment, principal support, class size, scheduling, and available resources be evaluated to determine if content knowledge of appropriate physical activity and health related fitness is affected.