Does cardiorespiratory fitness knowledge carry over in middle school students?

Publication date: October 2019Source: Learning and Individual Differences, Volume 75Author(s): Yubing Wang, Tan Zhang, Ray Schweighardt, Ang ChenAbstractConceptual knowledge development in physical education is critical to helping learners become physically literate. Understanding physical education learners' long-term knowledge development is one of the first steps in designing effective curriculum. Guided by the constructivist learning theory, this study aimed to determining the extent to which the cardiorespiratory fitness knowledge learned in the first year contributed to further knowledge development in the second year. A two-year longitudinal design was adopted to track 716 students' learning documented in their physical education workbook from sixth grade to seventh grade. Canonical correlation and multivariate multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship of learning during the two years. The results showed that student knowledge development in the first year did facilitate their knowledge development in the second year (Rc = 0.54; Wilks' λ = 0.69, F (9, 1728.1) = 30.99, p < .01, η2 = .31). Specifically, students' three types of knowledge development (descriptive, relational, and reasoning) were all significant contributors (descriptive: Wilks' λ = 0.96, F (3, 710) = 9.34, p < .01, η2 = .04; relational: Wilks' λ = 0.98, F (3, 710) = 4.44, p < .01, η2 = .02; reasoning: Wil...
Source: Learning and Individual Differences - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research