Winona State University Action Research in Physical Education

The paper presented in this document entitled, Will the Ongoing Practice of Physical Activity and Exercise Help Students to Improve Their Fitness Testing Scores from Fall to Spring? written by Tracy Erlandson, was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree in Education at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. Children are born motivated to be physically active. However, society has interfered with this inborn trait, and therefore all children may not enjoy physical activity. Students are not motivated to increase their fitness level. Four fourth grade classrooms were selected for this project. The classes were divided in half according to ability. One was the experimental group--this was the group the tester felt had less natural ability. The other half the control group, the tester selected because of their natural ability. In the fall, all students were given a pre-test on the four areas of the fitness test. The experimental group did circuit training activities, activity homework, and journaling at the end of each week. The control group did no added training to improve their fitness testing scores. In the spring, all students were given a post-test to see if there were improvements in their fitness testing scores. When comparing the scores between the groups, the control group's scores were better in three of the four areas. When the scores were looked at from an individual improvement, there were 65 out of 66 students who had improved in one or more areas of the fitness test. The test was conducted to compare the group's scores from fall to spring, not by individual improvement. The test shows that students with natural ability on average will tend to improve without added training. (Contains 9 appendixes.) [Abstract modified to meet ERIC guidelines.]