This review covers articles published during the recent two decades on attitudes toward the participation of individuals with disabilities in physical activity. Research literature has been retrieved and analyzed by content and quality, across research type categories (cross sectional vs. intervention) and members of the participation context…

Progress toward the goals of preparing competent physical education teachers will be realized only as deliberate steps are taken toward implementing an authentic pedagogical kinesiology, i.e., a kinesiological curriculum in which teaching, rather than the goals of the discipline, is the controlling factor. (DS)

The increasing popularity of health promotion and lifestyle management techniques call for a careful look at the misuse and costs of suasion, imposition of values as science, social inequities and individual consequences, and biases in communication of health risk information. The application of more systematic cost-benefit analysis is…

Physical education is in danger of being overwhelmed with specialized, technically-oriented career programs. The humanities may be abandoned as a curricular center of influence. An argument for keeping philosophy in the curriculum is made because it stimulates self-examination, helps resolve professional issues, and provides a means for better…

Students, faculty, and administrators often hold assumptions about graduate study in physical education that may not accurately reflect the facts. Values and maxims surrounding graduate programs must be clarified. These assumptions should be explicit and should be shared to produce a scholarly atmosphere. (Author/PP)

Alternate approaches to traditional research techniques available for the physical educator are: (1) field research, using structured and unstructured observation in actual settings; (2) survey analysis to ascertain current conditions or practice; (3) field experiments conducted in actual settings with experimenter controls; (4) time series…

The task of the sports sociologist is to be able, through disciplined inquiry, to test available evidence against personal assumption. Sociological analysis in its classical form is necessarily critical and action-oriented. (Author/LH)

Five articles on service-based scholarship present broad issues confronting higher education, with a focus on physical education, and explore problems associated with current models. The articles note the need to move toward a more service-based model with significant connections to the community and society and present various barriers to the…

Developments in the biomedical sciences affect how people think about health and fitness, as do social and cultural factors. This paper examines two topics of interest to educators, physicians, and researchers in the physiological sciences from 1867-1950 (the phenomenon referred to as the athlete's heart and anthropometrical/growth and development…

Presents two specific approaches to understanding multiculturalism--valuing diversity and taking proactive stances in regard to educating about diversity in society and in physical education and sport settings in particular. An adaptation of Chesler and Crowfoot's organizational stages of multiculturalism and Bennett's model of ethnocentric and…

Describes how kinesiology employs different methods for gaining knowledge and explains how epistemology can be used to organize introductory kinesiology courses or textbooks. The epistemologies used to organize subdisciplines are rationalism, empiricism, science, and subjectivism. An epistemic approach to a foundations course or textbook helps…

The paper describes various epistemological assumptions underpinning three accounts of action research (technical, practical, and emancipatory) found in the physical education literature. It examines the problematic nature of language and meaning-making and recognizes that what stands for action research has been interpreted differently by many…

Four conference papers on ethics in physical activity research are presented: (1) "Ethical Issues in Human Research" (W. Kroll); (2) "Ethical Issues in Animal Research" (K. Matt); (3) "Oh What a Tangled Web We Have" (M. Safrit); and (4) "Ethical Issues in Conducting and Reporting Research: A Reaction to Kroll,…

Examines the context of contemporary sport-based physical education (PE) that contributes to student disengagement, arguing that thematic interventions using a social constructivist perspective on curriculum development can enhance PE experiences for disengaged students and summarizing characteristics of a social constructivist approach to…

The scientific analysis of the teaching act is the subject of this article, with special emphasis given to measurement techniques (both inductive and deductive) and their problems, validity, and reliability. (DS)