Education Commons^™

Group-Based Physical Activity Trajectories In Children Transitioning From Elementary To High School, Russell R. Pate

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Background: Physical activity has been observed repeatedly to decline as children transition into adolescence; however, few studies have explored the possibility that sub-groups of children experience unique patterns of change during this transition. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the physical activity trajectories in clusters of youth transitioning from 5th to 11th grade.

Methods: Participants (n = 652) were recruited as 5th graders (ages 10–12 years) from elementary schools (n = 21) in two school districts. Demographic, anthropometric, and physical activity data were collected once per year when children were in 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, …

Examination Of Different Accelerometer Cut-Points For Assessing Sedentary Behaviors In Children, Youngwon Kim, Jung-Min Lee, Bradley P. Peters, Glenn A. Gaesser, Gregory J. Welk

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Background: Public health research on sedentary behavior (SB) in youth has heavily relied on accelerometers. However, ithas been limited by the lack of consensus on the most accurate accelerometer cut-points as well as by unknown effectscaused by accelerometer position (wrist vs. hip) and output (single axis vs. multiple axes). The present study systematicallyevaluates classification accuracy of different Actigraph cut-points for classifying SB using hip and wrist-worn monitors andestablishes new cut-points to enable use of the 3-dimensional vector magnitude data (for both hip and wrist placement).
Methods: A total of 125 children ages 7–13 yrs performed 12 randomly selected …

Children's Attitudes Toward Play: An Investigation Of Their Context Specificity And Relationship To Organized Sport Experiences, Donald L. Greer, Michael J. Stewart

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Beginning with the work of Webb (1969), a line of research has developed attempting to explain how the socialization experiences of children and adolescents help transform their attitudes toward play. In Webb's view, the transformation to a state of being "professionalized" has occurred when an emphasis on equity and fairness, which are pronounced at earlier stages of development, has been replaced by a focus on winning. The body of research that hasdeveloped from this original formulation has consistently identified age and gender differences (Loy , Birrell, & Rose, 1976; Maloney & Petrie, 1972; Mantel & VanderVelden, 1971) in play attitudes, …