Clarke, Holly (2019) Youth physical activity towards health (Y-PATH) meeting the needs of Irish teachers and students. Master of Science thesis, Dublin City University.
Abstract
Introduction: Physical activity (PA) levels in children are below recommended guidelines
and are declining throughout adolescence, threatening negative consequences such as obesity,
heart disease, stroke and type II diabetes to the current and future health of Irish young
people. Physical Education (PE) is provided to promote PA to school-going students and to
enable them to pursue healthy and active lives. The World Health Organization (WHO)
recommends school-based interventions to assist the promotion of PA among young people.
Purpose: The purpose of this research was to trial, refine and extend the PE element of the
Y-PATH programme in line with national curricular developments, based on the thoughts
and opinions of students and specialist PE teachers in Irish post-primary schools.
Methods: Following the completion of a 12-week intervention of the Y-PATH PE
programme in Irish post-primary schools (N=9), cross-sectional data were collected from
participating students (N=317) using questionnaires, in order to investigate students’ PA
levels, physical self-worth, enjoyment and experiences of PE. Additionally, all students were
afforded the opportunity to express their thoughts and opinions using open-ended questions.
Focus group and semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data on the thoughts
and opinions of participating PE teachers (N=15) on the programme and were analysed
qualitatively using thematic analysis.
Results: Following the intervention, repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests
revealed that students with higher levels of PA had higher self-worth, greater enjoyment of
PE and more positive experiences in PE class in comparison to those students with lower
levels of PA, all of which are central components of the Y-PATH PE programme. Findings
from the teacher feedback revealed four main themes. These themes explored the usability of
materials and resources, Y-PATH content suitability, implementation considerations and the
current PE curricular context.
Conclusion: Data collected indicated the majority of students who were involved in data
collection had positive experiences participating in Y-PATH PE. Teacher feedback revealed
the Y-PATH programme is suitable for students across single-gender and mixed gender
schools, and across schools located both in urban and rural areas. Both student and teacher
feedback provided valuable insight to the research team in relation to the use of the programme
in the classroom, to guide the refinement and extension of the Y-PATH PE programme.
Metadata
Item Type: | Thesis (Master of Science) |
---|---|
Date of Award: | March 2019 |
Refereed: | No |
Supervisor(s): | Belton, Sarahjane, Issartel, Johann and O'Brien, Wesley |
Subjects: | Physical Sciences > Physics education Social Sciences > Education |
DCU Faculties and Centres: | UNSPECIFIED |
Use License: | This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. View License |
Funders: | Sport Ireland, Dormant Accounts Fund |
ID Code: | 22911 |
Deposited On: | 03 Apr 2019 11:05 by Sarah Jane Belton . Last Modified 03 Apr 2019 11:05 |
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