Purpose: Physical education (PE) is an important context for promoting health-related cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in youth. Within PE, the lesson context and teacher behavior may be relevant for the promotion CRF; however, evidence is scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess whether students' CRF improvement in a school year…

Purpose: To validate the English version of the L'Echelle de Perception du Climat Motivational within a Portuguese context and analyze students' perceptions of the motivational climate in physical education and its relationship to demographic variables, participation in extracurricular sports, and students' grades. Methods: A total of 476…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the potential racial disparities in education for active living (i.e., regular participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity with mitigated and interrupted levels of sedentary behavior) between Black/African American and White students. Methods: The study took place in one public middle…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the 3-year trajectory of students' interest in learning physical activity (PA) knowledge during middle school and the effects of gender and prior knowledge on the trajectory. Methods: Using a repeated-measures design, a cohort of 447 sixth-grade students' interest in learning PA knowledge was…

Purpose: Physical literacy (PL) has been proposed as a key construct for understanding participation in physical activity. However, the lack of an agreed-upon definition and measure has hindered research on the topic. The current study proposed and analyzed the construct validity of a PL model comprised of motor competence, perceived competence,…

Purpose: This study examined California middle school physical education teachers' (grades 6-8) use of assessments based on state standards to grade their students. Methods: An electronic survey was used to collect data. Results: Of the 309 teachers surveyed, 74% based their assessments on the state physical education standards. Teachers who used…

The purpose of this study was to investigate instruction and assessment of fundamental movement skills (FMSs) by Physical Education (PE) teachers of Year 7 girls. Of 168 secondary school PE teachers, many had received little FMSs professional development, and although most assessed student FMSs proficiency, the quality of assessment was variable.…

The current study presents the development process and initial validation of a measure designed for assessing psychological needs thwarting (frustration) in a secondary school physical education context (Psychological Needs Thwarting Scale in Physical Education, PNTSPE). Secondary school students (grades 7-9) from Hong Kong (N = 1258) were invited…

Purpose: This study evaluated the effects of a goal setting intervention on aerobic fitness (AF) in 6 to 8 grade students. Method: Students at the intervention school received a lesson on SMART goal setting. Students in the comparison school served as a measurement-only group. AF was assessed via the PACER multi-stage shuttle run test pre and post…

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of student-activated teaching styles through a specific intervention program on students' self-regulation, lesson satisfaction, and motivation. Six hundred and one 7th grade students (318 boys and 283 girls), aged 13 years were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a comparison group.…

The study examined the role of motivation in students' performance and engagement in elementary and middle school physical education. Cross-lagged relationships between performance and engagement were investigated across Grades 6-9. A total of 763 (365 girls, 398 boys) Finnish school students (11- to 12-year old) were followed across three years.…

Using self-determination theory as a framework, the purpose of this study was to test a structural model of hypothesized relationships among perceived need support from physical education teachers (autonomy support, competence support, and relatedness support), psychological need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), intrinsic…

The attitudes and perceptions of middle school students toward competitive activities in physical education were examined. Ten boys and 14 girls volunteered (11-high-skilled, 11 moderate-skilled, and 2 low skilled students) in 6th and 7th grade from a total of 6 schools, all offering competitive activities. Data collection was conducted over…

The present study reported on the modification of the Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale (Vlachopoulos & Michailidou, 2006) to assess students' psychological need fulfillment in elementary school, middle school, and high school compulsory physical education classes. Data were collected from 817 5th and 6th grade students, 862 middle…

A debate over the quality of teacher education programs has been ongoing for nearly 100 years. The most current round in this debate started with "A Nation at Risk" (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) and has escalated in recent years to involve an increasing number of participant-constituents, each of whom has voiced…