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Acquiring scientific knowledge about physical activity is necessary for students to become physically literate for life, and cognitive engagement and cognitive levels of tasks are two components that often determine the effectiveness of knowledge acquisition. This study sought to determine the extent to which students' cognitive engagement in descriptive, relational and reasoning learning tasks contributed to their acquisition of knowledge and the extent to which cognitive engagement on lower-level tasks contributed to higher-level tasks (e.g. descriptive to relational to reasoning). The performance of students in descriptive, relational and reasoning tasks and knowledge acquisition was measured in 992 middle school students in active physical education lessons. The results revealed that students' performance in relational (regression coefficient = 0.09, p < 0.01) and reasoning (regression coefficient = 0.06, p < 0.01) tasks directly contributed to their acquisition of knowledge (R2 = 0.14). The performance of students in descriptive tasks indirectly contributed to knowledge acquisition through influencing their performance in relational and reasoning tasks (indirect effect = 0.09, p < 0.01). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Students'' different perceptions of task values influence their learning experience and achievement in physical education. Framed using the subjective task value construct, this study was conducted to determine the extent to which male and female Chinese middle schoolers with different body sizes differed in their perception of the task values. A second goal of the study was to identify the extent to which the task values along with gender and body size predicted students'' performance on knowledge and physical skill tests. Data from a random sample of students (N =860) from eight Chinese middle schools revealed that the boys appreciated intrinsic (p =.001) and utility values (p =02); both boys and girls, however, equally appreciated the attainment value (p =.73). The boys performed better in physical skill tests than the girls (p =.001), whereas the girls scored higher in knowledge tests than the boys (p =.04). Regression analyses revealed that gender is the only predictor for performance on both knowledge and skill tests. Utility value and body size were predictors for skill, not for knowledge. These findings indicate that Chinese middle school boys and girls differed in valuing and achieving in physical education. The findings imply that Chinese boys need to strengthen cognitive learning and girls need to strengthen psychomotor skill development in physical education. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]