Management — teachers' activities related to preparing the children for an activity, such as forming a line or moving from one location to another.
Knowledge — teachers' explanations pertaining to the activity about to take place, such as explaining the rules of a game.
Fitness — structured physical exercises, such as calisthenics.
Skill Practice — learning a skill essential to an activity, such as dribbling a basketball.
Game play — games or sports, such as softball or basketball.
Free play — allowing the children to engage in unstructured activity.
On average, children had 2.1 PE classes per week, totaling 68.7 minutes. Only 5.9 percent of the children had PE five times a week; 2.6 percent, four times a week; 16 percent, three times a week; 45.3 percent, twice a week; and 30.2 percent, once a week. Of the average time children spent in class, 10.4 minutes were spent in game play, 7 minutes on management, 5 minutes on skills practice, 4.8 minutes on fitness, 4.6 minutes on knowledge, and .7 minutes on other activities. For each class, students engaged in only about 4.8 minutes of vigorous physical activity, and 11.9 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity.
The authors noted that PE programs vary greatly at the state and local level, with allotted time for classes ranging from 30 minutes per week to 150 minutes per week. Fears that increasing physical activity might have a negative impact on academic performance are unfounded, according to the authors. Earlier studies, published by others, had shown that increasing the length of time in PE classes and the intensity of physical activity in the classes did not have a detrimental effect on academic achievement.
The study also reiterated findings by other researchers that boys spent a greater percentage of class time in moderate to vigorous physical activity (38.3 percent) than did girls (35.6 percent). In addition to calling for more vigorous PE for all children, the authors also called for improvements in the curriculum of PE classes to encourage girls to engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity.
