Comparing the Use and Effectiveness of In-Person and Remote Physical Education Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Background

Physical education is a key component to improve youth health, but there is limited information on physical education delivery in different formats.

Purpose

We compared PE formats (in-person versus remote) across evaluation aspects: weekly minutes; perceived effectiveness; and student-to-teacher ratio.

Methods

We distributed questionnaires (2020–2021 school year) to school contacts who represented NFL Play 60 FitnessGram® Project (n = 216) schools in multiple US cities. Questionnaires entailed learning format, weekly PE minutes, perceived effectiveness, and student-to-teacher ratio. We used linear mixed models to compare PE formats across evaluation variables.

Results

Among 165 schools, 10% (n = 17) offered in-person instruction, 31% (n = 51) offered remote instruction, and 59% offered both (n = 97). Results revealed higher in-person PE minutes (77.2 ± 7.3) compared to remote minutes (67.1 ± 14.6), but results were not significantly different (p = .19). School contacts reported significantly more effective in-person PE (4.0) than remote PE (2.8, p < .001). In-person PE also had significantly smaller reported student-to-teacher ratio (16.7) compared to remote PE (23.7, p < .001).

Discussion

Findings indicate PE was offered during the pandemic, but remote learning appeared less effective than in-person PE.

Translation to Health Education Practice

Efforts are needed to improve remote PE to reinforce high-quality PE in the future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Football League Foundation National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [NHLBI Grant 1K01HL151817-01A1]; The Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture (IHA) at Texas A&M University [T32/CA057712].