Fitnessgram to Rid Obesity - Research Paper Example

Methodology Section Georgia’s officials have implemented a plan that allows for the testing of all who are registered in s touching on physical education. This was a move to curb the obesity epidemic that is being experienced in many Georgian schools. In regards to this study, the researcher will be careful to comply with the procedures that are recommended by the Piedmont College, the local school system, and the Piedmont Institutional Review Board (IRB). The researcher will also pre-test both the intervention group as well as the control groups before carrying out a survey and post-test. This research will have 399 participants- all of whom are high school students from the Alcove County High School in Covington, Georgia. The aim of the study is to establish whether Fitnessgram, the physical fitness assessment, enhances the students’ BMI. In Georgia, state officials are endeavoring to curb obesity among students by authorizing fitness testing for all the students k-12 who have registered for physical education courses. The researcher will also seek to ensure that he complies with college and board policy by seeking the approval of Alcovy high school’s board as well as the institutional review board (IRB) before embarking on the research. Pre-tests will be administered to both the control group and intervention group prior to the intervention, to be followed, after the intervention, by a post-test. Alcovy, the school from which the research participants come, is situated on HWY 36, in the southeastern part of the Newton county, in an old historic town district known as Covington. Alcovy County High School is one of the new high schools in Newton County and has 108 full time teachers, and 1,675 students. The student to teacher ratio at Alcovy is approximately 16 to 1. The school endeavors to lead in both sports and academic pursuits on a national as well as local scale. More than 30% of Alcovy’s teaching instructors have a Master’s degree, with 5% also having a doctorate degree (Public School Review, 2013). In the recent past, the physical education (PE) division at Alcovy’s has put into practice the state authorized system, known as the Fitnessgram assessment, to improve its students’ physical well being. This means that Alcovy’s students are more accustomed to the test. It could be said that the physical health of students in schools that have implemented this program has also improved. The use of the Fitnessgram assessment test has also stimulated the interest of students who were formerly reluctant to engage in physical education activities. Two years ago, Alcovy High school was officially awarded the PEP (Physical Education Courses) grant. At that time, Alcovy was the only school in Georgia to be awarded the grant. Generally, all the physical education programs such as the Physical Education Courses. Usually receive financial support from the state government. Participant Selection and Description The research participants will consist of a convenience sample of persons who are registered with personal fitness and health programs. The intervention group, Group A, will be comprised of a personal fitness class that has 27 students who are regularly instructed by the researcher. This group will be made up of six female students, and 21 male students. Of this number, there will be 9 white students, 17 black students, and one Hispanic student. According to the researcher, twenty of research participants in Group A will be students who are registered with Alcovy’s free and reduced lunch program. The research participants that make up group A will benefit from the Fitnessgram assessment along with interventions for developing their scores in the course of the three week instructional period. The control group, Group B, will be a health class that contains 18 students who are also instructed by the researcher. In this group, there will be 10 female students, and 8 male students. This group will also have diverse ethnicities; with 11 of the research participants being Black and seven being White. In Group B, ten students will be registered with Alcovy High school’s free and reduced lunch program. Group B’s participants will undertake the same pretests as well as posttests that are given to Group A participants, but they will not benefit from the Fitnesgram assessment. According to the researcher, the process of convenience sampling which he intends to use will not support the notion of both groups being identical in matters of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. Sources of Data In this study, the researcher will be compelled to make use of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The researcher can use the quantitative method in calculating the BMI. According to the researcher, the weight and height of each research participant will be taken during the study. These measurements will then be fed into a BMI calculator to establish each student’s BMI. The results of these calculations will then be used by the researcher for conducting a t test that will be used to statistically contrast both groups. The researcher plans to use the qualitative study to assess the beliefs of the research participants as concerns the fitness programs in use. The researcher feels that the student’s attitudes about physical fitness are usually more critical than straight numbers. In this study, the researcher will generate a survey to address the study participants’ personal perceptions of the Fitnessgram test as concerns the ability to control BMI. In the survey, the research participants will be asked to grade each of their statement in the structure of a Likert scale. According to the researcher, one of the questions will be “Has the Fitnessgram test and report assisted me to be aware of my current fitness level?” This shows that the main concern of the survey is to establish how the students rate the fitnessgram test in terms of helping them achieve their physical fitness goals. The qualitative study will also seek to discover and understand the attitudes of Alcovy’s teachers towards Fitnessgram and their perception of its effectiveness in terms of improving the students’ BMI. The findings of this particular survey are critical because the teachers play a crucial part in stimulating the interest of the students in partaking in Fitnessgram. If teachers are doubtful about the abilities of the Fitnessgram test, it highly unlikely that it will successfully be used to improve the student’s BMI. The researcher will use a Likert scale to gauge the interest of the teachers in the Fitnessgram program before indicating all the findings in a bar graph. According to the researcher, one of the questions that will be directed towards the teachers is “Does Fitnessgram testing give me the chance to put into practice additional strategies that will eventually develop the general health of my students?” Such open ended questions allow teachers to be able to speak openly about the Fitnessgram test while pointing out any concerns that they may have about the ability of the test to achieve its objectives. Design Procedure and Research Timeline This research study will take three weeks before which participating students will take a pretest and after the survey, a post-test. The intervention period will last for three weeks and will be followed by a qualitative survey. The research’s time span is from October 25, 2013 to November 15, 2013. In the beginning of the research, Group A will first start the personal fitness unit which is fashioned to instruct the students on different elements of fitness and determine how each are calculated by the Fitnessgram test. Students at Alcovy are usually first introduced to Fitnessgram through this unit. In the first week of the research, the research participants will be tested in all the five factors of fitness, through the Fitnessgram test. Body composition, which is calculated by calculating the students’ weight and height to establish BMI, is one of the factors that will be tested. In the course of the unit, the researcher informs the students on how they will take measurements at the end of the unit to record personal progress. In this research, the students’ BMI will serve as the post-test as well as pre-test. At this time, Group B will be taking part in the Health program of personal fitness. The overall set of courses is identical to the fitness course being used by group A, however, its application is different since Alcovy’s students are not usually engaged in classroom physical activity in the classroom. In the second week of research, students will be given Fitnessgram suggestions to develop different fitness areas. Students will also be expected to keep charts showing their daily physical activity as this could be extremely important in helping the students to stay excited about engaging in physical fitness activities. In the third week of the research, the BMI measurements of the students will be calculated again. In this research, electronic surveys using Google drive will be used for both teachers and students; with teachers having different survey questions from their students. The surveys will each have ten statements and each participant will be expected to rate their attitudes about the effectiveness of physical education programs on a Likert scale where 1 is indicative of (not at all) while 5 means (very much). The findings of the surveys will be tallied to settle on an overall score for teachers’ as well as students’ attitudes in regards to using Fitnessgram testing to improve BMI. Reference Public School Review. (2013). Alcovy High School. Retrieved from http://www.publicschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/132042 Read More