It is important that when you decide to start a physical fitness program that you find a way that you can balance everything that is important to a great fitness routine. The goal of the proposed study outlined in this protocol is to address this gap in the literature by testing the effectiveness of a theory-based intervention delivered in PE to promote lower secondary school students’ physical activity outside of school.
We will work to reverse the slide in curriculum time, maximise the impact of additional primary funding and refresh PE for the 21st century, positioning it as a subject which develops children’s wellbeing and achievement, not just their sporting ability.
Teachers’ self-report of their provision of autonomy support to students in PE lessons will be measured on an adapted six-item version of PASSES (e.g. I feel that I provide choices and options to my physical education studentsâ€) 44 We also developed an additional item for autonomy support scale to assess teachers’ self-reported provision of autonomy support for student’s participation in leisure time physical activity (I encourage my PE students to think about how physical activity during PE class can be useful to them during their free time physical activityâ€) and provision of a rationale for students’ participation in PE (I feel that I provide choices and options to my physical education studentsâ€).
Invitation letters, study information, and opt-out consent forms, with the exception of opt-in consent form for participation in the accelorometry component of the study measures, will be sent to eligible students’ parents or legal guardians via the schools’ online administration and communication software or via email or post.
Teachers allocated to the waitlist control condition receive a 4-h training program in which they will be instructed on how to apply a monitoring system for physical functional capacity in children with special needs 33 Secondary school teachers (N = 29) from 11 secondary schools and their students (N = 502) in the city of Jyväskylä in central Finland will be invited to participate in the study.