Relationship between Urban Middle School Physical Education Teachers’ Attitudes toward Fitness Testing and Student Performance on Fitness Tests

ABSTRACT

A good fitness testing program can promote physical activity and fitness. There is no published research, however, that has examined the relationships between teachers’ attitudes and students’ performance on fitness tests. This study investigated the attitudes of urban middle school physical education teachers (N = 74) toward physical fitness tests and their relationship with student performance on fitness tests. Teachers completed the Physical Education Teacher Attitudes toward Fitness Tests instrument. Student FITNESSGRAM scores were obtained for each teacher. Teachers’ overall attitudes toward fitness testing were positive, suggesting that teachers enjoy implementing fitness tests and using fitness tests results. The affective subdomain of teachers’ attitude on the enjoyment of using fitness tests results was found to have a positive relationship with the percentage of students in the HFZ for the push-up test. Additional positive relationships between teachers’ attitudes and student performance were also found for girls, but not for boys. The findings suggest that teachers’ affective attitude may have a relationship with students’ performance on fitness tests.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical education teachers
• attitudes
• student fitness performance
• urban middle school