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Purpose:A primary goal of physical education is to develop physically literate individuals with the knowledge, skills, and confidence necessary for a physically active lifestyle. Guided by the expectancy-value and interest motivation theories, the purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between students' motivation and health-related fitness knowledge developed in physical education and their after-school physical activity participation.Method:Third-, 4th-, and 5th-grade students (N = 293) from 6 elementary schools in a large metropolitan school district in the United States provided data on expectancy beliefs and perceived task values, situational interest, health-related fitness knowledge, and after-school physical activity. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a simultaneous multiple regression model.Results:It was found that expectancy beliefs (β = .20,t = 2.16,p = .03) and perceived exploration demand (β = .25,t = 2.58,p = .01), a source for situational interest, were positively related to after-school physical activity. The 2 variables, however, accounted for only 11.2% of the variances for children's after-school physical activity participation.Conclusion:This study demonstrates that students' active exploration and expectancy beliefs for success in physical education have limited influence on leisure-time physical activity participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivation to learn is a disposition developed through exposure to learning opportunities. Guided by the expectancy-value theory of Eccles and Wigfield (1995), this study examined the extent to which expectancy belief and task value influenced elementary school students’ physical activity and knowledge learning in physical education (PE). Students (N = 753) from 15 US public schools contributed student-level and class-level data. With a 2-level design, the data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Physical activity (t = 3.18; p < .01) positively predicted fitness knowledge. Attainment value (i.e. perception of importance) as the only expectancy-value construct, significantly predicted fitness knowledge (t = 3.07; p < .01), when physical activity was held constant. As the physical activity intensity increased, the positive prediction of attainment value to knowledge attenuated and then turned negative (t = –3.10; p < .01). The study indicated that although a physically-active context helps students to make sense of fitness knowledge, a vigorous context shifts their motivation away from cognitive learning, toward physical participation. To resolve the difficulty of attaining learning objectives both physically and cognitively, PE teachers may want to maintain an active learning context with moderate physical intensity. Future research should address the effect of learner motivation on dual or multiple learning outcomes in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The County Health Rankings (CHR) system provides health rankings for U.S. counties. These factors may have utility for evaluating and predicting health outcomes. This study examined the association between CHR factors and the prevalence of child overweight/obesity (OWOB) in the state of Pennsylvania over 3 years.Methods: The prevalence of childhood OWOB was obtained for all Pennsylvania school districts for the 2009-10 through 2011-12 school years. Correlational and inferential statistical analyses were used to examine the associations between the prevalence of OWOB in grades K-6 (OWOB1) and 7-12 (OWOB2) and z-score for the overall CHR Health Factors rank, as well as for individual predictive factors (Health Behaviors, Clinical Care, Social and Economic Factors and Physical Environment).Results: Low to moderate correlations (0.29-0.43) were found between OWOB1 and CHR factors. Weaker and less consistent correlations were found for adolescents. There was a significantly higher prevalence of OWOB in counties with poorer CHR scores.Conclusions: County-level adult indicators of health are significantly associated with levels of child obesity. Future studies should examine the relationship between CHR and other health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]