Research Impact: The aim of the current study was to examine the prevalence of and approaches to monitoring health-related physical fitness (HRPF) among a nationally representative sample of physical education teachers in the Republic of Ireland. HRPF testing was a highly prevalent component of physical education programs, used by over 95% of teachers. Fitness tests were mostly administered in isolation from the broader physical education curriculum, and over half (51.7%) of teachers discarded test results after a single use, while less than 12% indicated that they tracked their students’ results from year to year. Encouragingly, teachers most frequently cited the opportunity for student learning, enhancing students’ awareness of the importance of HRPF, and promoting self-evaluation through the creation of personal fitness profiles as the reasons for using fitness tests. However, actions are needed from key stakeholders involved in the delivery of preservice and in-service physical education, to promote consistency in the use of best practice approaches to HRPF monitoring in secondary schools.
O’Keeffe, B.T., MacDonncha, C., Ng, K. and Donnelly, A.E., 2020. Health-related fitness monitoring practices in secondary school-based physical education programs. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 39(1), pp.59-68. https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jtpe/39/1/article-p59.xml
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