Physical Education and Academic Achievement - Research Proposal Example

Students shall be divided into two groups: A physical education class and an academic-oriented class. This division shall occur for both 7th and 8th classes which indicate that there shall be four groups. Each group shall be compared from each other thru instruments detailed in later sections. The groups shall be observed weekly and shall be made to undergo a Physical Fitness Test immediately followed by Academic tests. Expected time frame is 3 months. In effect, the data shall provide two results: 1) whether exposure or non-exposure to physical education affects academic performance and 2) how the intensity of physical activity itself affects academic performance Covariant data shall be constructed for fifth categories.

First is the family income where students shall be classified into families having $20000, $20001-60000, $60001-75000 and >$75000. These categories are based on National Statistical Socio Demographic profile which attaches corresponding ability to provide for educational materials with the amount of annual income. Second is the child's ethnicity where the participants shall be classified as: a) White, non-Hispanic, b) Black, non-Hispanic, c) Hispanic and d) other. Third is the previous academic background and performance.

Fourth is the any additional educational support system specifically the amount of time a mother devotes to educate their children. The last is the amount of physical activity that the student experiences outside of the school. All data for these categories shall be obtained from parents, guardians and the students themselves. Classroom teachers shall be enlisted to produce reports regarding the number of times that students participated in physical education. The reporting process shall be from 0 (never) to the number of times like 3 times per day.

Correspondingly, the teachers shall also indicate the total minutes per day that the sample population were engaged in physical education activities. It shall start from 0 with increments of 15 minutes (1-15, 16-30 with the last choice being >60). The data shall be categorized and labelled as low (0-30 minutes per week), medium (30-60 minutes per week) and high (70-300 minutes per week).At the end of every week, the students shall be made to undergo a Physical Fitness Test (PFT) in the morning and an Academics test in the afternoon.

The PFT seeks to identify six aspects of fitness namely: 1) body composition, 2) aerobic capacity, 3) trunk strength, 4) abdominal strength, 5) flexibility and 6) upper body strength. These were chosen because it represents the intensity of physical development that the student has experienced. These data shall be compared with previous physical fitness examinations to fully determine the intensity of physical activity in consonance with the data generated from teacher-provided reports.For the academic tests, consultations shall be made with education authorities and other established education researchers regarding the appropriate content to be administered to the students.

It shall also be determined whether test content that has been previously applied in other published studies such as that of Carlson et al (2008) can be adapted. In general, the subjects shall include science, mathematics, linguistics and world studies. In summary, we have four sets of data per group: 1) Physical education exposure, 2) Physical activity intensity and condition, 3) Covariates and 4) Academic