Search

Research has shown that interest in knowledge facilitates students' academic achievement in learning. Because individual interest is often based on how much one knows, in other words existing or prior knowledge, studying adolescents' interest in health-enhancing physical activity and its benefits should address the relation between the interest and their existing or prior physical activity knowledge. Understanding this relationship may help us facilitate students to not only develop interest in knowing more about but also actual adopt a healthy, active lifestyle. This study used a large-sample structural equation design to identify the relationship between middle school students' interest in physical activity knowledge and their prior physical activity knowledge, and to assess the change of this relationship over time. Guided by the declarative-procedural knowledge framework, latent growth models were developed and tested on data collected from a random sample of 3882 students from ten middle schools. The latent growth curve model indicated that, 1) on average, students experienced a significant interest decline in both procedural and declarative knowledge; 2) prior knowledge helped slow the decline and facilitated interest growth in knowledgeable students. The results suggest that existing knowledge determined the interest change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptual 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 (R c = 0.54; Wilks' λ = 0.69, F (9, 1728.1) = 30.99, p <.01, η 2 =.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, η 2 =.04; relational: Wilks' λ = 0.98, F (3, 710) = 4.44, p <.01, η 2 =.02; reasoning: Wilks' λ = 0.90, F (3, 710) = 26.13, p <.01, η 2 =.10) to their further learning with the knowledge development from the reasoning assignments to be the strongest facilitator. Students' overall learning in the first year significantly contributed to their descriptive (R 2 = 0.12), relational (R 2 = 0.26), and reasoning (R 2 = 0.21) knowledge learning in the second year. • The nature of the learning task influences students' further learning • Knowledge learning from the high-level cognitive tasks was a stronger facilitator for further knowledge learning • Cognitive learning tasks can be integrated in physical education to further knowledge learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]