Dysfunctional movement, a suggested contributing factor for musculoskeletal pain and injury, appears to increase as adolescents experience puberty. This study investigated dysfunctional movement among a group of ninth-grade physical education students to determine if a standardized functional movement warm-up (FMWU) would improve movement quality…

A developing line of Sport Education (SE) inquiry has been the motivational responses of students. While initial evidence supports that SE can positively influence the motivation of physical education students, there is a continued need for further research in this area. Specifically, there has been call for a deeper examination into the influence…

Given the concern of presenting physical education environments that promote equity, it is appropriate to study innovations that can achieve that goal. In this study, that innovation took the form of student-designed games (SDG). SDG is the process in which students create, practice, and refine their own games and in which the teacher acts more as…

Confidence, character, competence, and connection (i.e., the 4 Cs) have been acknowledged as desired characteristics of positive youth development (PYD)-based programs. Based on the 4 Cs framework, an online tool called Project SCORE! has been designed to help coaches, parents, or other stakeholders facilitate PYD through a specific set of…

The primary aim of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate differences in enjoyment and need for cognition between regular physical education and a Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) unit by level (higher or lower) of intention to enroll in physical education. A sample of 71 ninth-grade physical education students completed a survey…

This study explored the effectiveness of a stretching program on hamstring extensibility among Latino high school students in a physical education (PE) setting. Students, aged 13 to 15, in five required PE classes were assigned to either an experimental group (n = 60) or a control group (n = 42). Experimental students performed a 3-min stretching…

In comparison to children, adolescents achieve significantly less physical activity (PA). Additionally, activity differences exist among genders and race/ethnicities. One means of influencing the PA habits of adolescents is high school physical education. Although PE class reaches students of all ages, genders, and races, motivation and…

Music is an everyday occurrence in a person's life. Music is heard in the workplace, in homes, and in the mall. Music can also be heard as a person exercises. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of music on junior high students (n = 305) step counts and time in activity in junior high school physical education classes.…

The purpose of this study was to explore grade-level differences (7th, 8th, and 9th) among junior high school students' perceptions of the effects of participation in physical education (PE) class on individual environmental stress. The role of physical activity as a stress reduction tool has been well documented. However, physical activity as a…

Female enthusiasm toward engaging in physical education decreases significantly with age. This has been linked to, among other things, the negative emotional experiences that sometimes occur when learning and participating in a variety of curricular content such as games or fitness activities. Little is yet known about how females' enjoyment,…

Fitness for Life classes, in which a primary goal is for students to acquire health-related fitness knowledge, consist of a lecture session and an activity session. Unfortunately, devoting class time to a lecture reduces the time students are engaged in physical activity (PA). A potential solution to helping students develop cognitive skills…

Many adolescent girls are not participating in the recommended levels of physical activity (PA) and are at risk for unhealthy lifestyles (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008). Helping girls understand the importance of PA and giving them positive experiences in physical education classes, including fitness testing, may help to…

The purpose of this case study was to examine the relationship between sports participation and health-related physical fitness in middle school and high school students. Health-related physical fitness was measured using the Fitnessgram test battery to assess healthy fitness zone (HFZ) achievement in five areas: body composition, muscular…

While the critical role of knowledge in physical education performance is well-documented, there is little research into the role that students' beliefs about what knowing is and how they come to know relate to their achievement in physical education. The purpose of this study was to discover relations between beliefs about epistemology, ability…

This study was designed to determine if a female physical educator's appearance of body fatness affects 1) the cognitive performance of junior high school students on a test of health-related fitness knowledge, and 2) student attitudes toward the instructor. Ninety-three seventh through ninth grade students from two schools, participated in a…