Action Research Draft Project
How to get the students’ parents support on engaging their middle school children to understand the importance of quality in physical education.
Sergio Lopez
6th- 8th Grade
P. Revere Middle School
Houston Independent School District
Statement of Problem
The purpose of this action research is to find the solution on how to get the students’ parents support on engaging their middle school children to understand the importance of quality in physical education.
Literature Review
1) (2000). Public Attitude Toward Physical Education. Retrieved May 7, 2012, from http://www.aahperd.org/NASPE/pdf_files/whatsnew-survey.PDF
This website discusses the importance of regular, quality physical education and daily activity programs for all students, kindergarten through 12th grade. (“Public Attitude”) It also mentions how most school districts do not care about their physical education courses for their schools. A very interesting fact was that every school has an average of 25% of the students attending physical education class daily. Also the percentage of the children who are obese has doubled in the last 30 years. In addition, this website contains a survey that is believed to help adults and teens to better understand their beliefs about physical education, physical activity, and nutrition. (“Public Attitude”)
2) ACCESS ERIC. (1991). Parent Involvement at the Middle School Level. National Committee for Citizens in Education, Retrieved May 8, 2012, from http://www.middleweb.com/ParntInvl.html
The author of this article deals more with trying to get parents involved with physical education at the middle school level. It mentions that parents are usually more involved at the elementary level, but they lose interest when their child reaches middle school. However, it should not be this way because physical education is important all throughout the students’ public school career. This article explains the reasons why it is important for parents to be involved at the middle school level and also the benefits why the children should be part of physical education.
3) Cheung, L. (1999). Eat Well and Keep Moving. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Retrieved June 6, 2012, from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/EWKM.html
Cheung’s article states that trying to help students embrace and act on the important nutrition and physical activity messages that will help them enjoy healthier lives. Eat Well & Keep Moving is a program that is trying to reach every child to teach them the knowledge and skills they need to understand that a good diet is part of physical activity. An interesting fact given within this article that poor diet and physical exercise accounts for at least 300,000 deaths each year in the United States. Overall, the author is trying to say that physical education is very important and every kind of information on fitness can be presented in the schools.
4) Gavin, M. L. (2005). Kids and Exercise. Kids Health, Retrieved June 07, 2012, from http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/fitness/exercise.html
Gavin’s article tries to make the readers understand the differences between the exercises that an adult would do to those of children would perform. It mentions adult exercise would be going to workout in a gym with weights while children would go out to their physical education class and play or just being physically active. Also the article elaborates on the benefits of exercise a child who is active will be receiving. All this benefits are ways a coach can clarify to the students’ parents so they can understand the importance of physical education.
5) McArdle, W., Katch, F., & Katch, V. (2001). Exercise Physiology. 5th ed. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
This book is one of my college textbooks I used in my physical education courses. This book mentions everything a person interested in the human body would need. It states how a human body needs much nutrition to produce energy to make the body perform at the highest possible level. All this information is something that a middle school coach would need to know to help those parents who think that a physical education should not be in public school because it is a waist of time.
6) Young, J. (2000). Seven Ways to Motivate your Kids to Exercise. National Safety Council, Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.nsc.org/pubs/fsh/archive/spr99/Exer.htm
According to this article, Judy Young, executive director of NASPE states, "Physical education is only part of the solution." Just as parents reinforce good reading habits, they also should encourage their children to incorporate physical activity into their daily lives. (Young) She talks about seven ways to make this possible, which are explained on this site to help children achieve their marks. The following are some of the ways: 1) Make exercise fun: this is where the students find things to do and they enjoy them. 2) Set a good example: let the students have a healthy role model or parents. 3) Exercise with your kids: it helps when the parents try to exercise with them. So this article deals not only with the students/children, but with their parents as well.
Data Collection
I decided to obtain my data in three different styles, which consisted of an interview, personal logs, and a questionnaire. On May 20, 2012, I had the opportunity to interview two middle school coaches. Both Coach Davis and Coach Beckom work at P. Revere Middle School in Houston, Texas and have been Physical Education (PE) coaches for more than a decade. This interview dealt with why PE is important to the students.
Also, I observed the students for a period of a one-week while writing notes on my log journal. During this week, I observed Coach Davis and Coach Beckom’s 2nd period 8th grade PE class. Throughout these days, I collected information on the number of students who did not dress out and what did the non-dressers do while in class.
My last collection was the questionnaire where I had the opportunity to talk to and question some students and also their parents. Here, I found out that the students are not responsible for their actions, because the problem is at home.
The actual interview, logs, and questionnaire can be found in the appendix.
Data Analysis and Discussion
After finishing the research for my data collection, I found that parents do not understand the importance of physical education. For this reason, students do not want to participate during class activities. Through literature reviews, interviews, personal logs, and questionnaire, it is clear that not only should parents obtain the proper preparation to solve this problem, but also the physical education coaches should provide more of their time in trying to engage the parents to be more involved in their own child’s school issues.
In reading articles based on the subject of how to make physical education important for parents and their growing adolescents, I found this is not a problem only in the Houston but all over the nation. Fewer and fewer students nowadays do not feel physical education is an important process in their young lives. This situation is an issue, which can be worked out if only the physical education coaches can obtain the support of the students’ parents.
The first step of the research was to interview a pair of educators who coach at P. Revere Middle School from Houston ISD. Both of the coaches have Bachelors in Kinesiology (physical education) and have a combined total of 34 years of coaching at the middle school level. Also, they share the same coaching philosophy, which is that every student will be in better health if they engage in physical activities. Overall, both coaches believe that one of the problems they experience year after year is that some students do not dress out which leads them not to participate in physical education. They agree that the problem is not really the students’ fault; they pointed out that the problem starts at home with the parents. It all comes down to the parents not supporting physical education.
While observing the PE class and taking notes in the log for a whole week, I could see what the coaches from P. Revere Middle School were talking about. In a week, it was obvious that some students did not appreciate physical education. An average of 20% of the students did not dress out daily (girls had a much higher percentage of not dressing out than the boys). Also, another problem that rose from students not dressing out was that too much messing around was happening during the class. It was tougher for the coaches to be supervising two groups of students. One group of students was on the field playing a sport and the other were the non-dressers, which were messing around on the bleachers.
In response to the questionnaire, I decided to choose a couple of students that I noticed did not dress out. The first student was a young man by the name of Juan and the second student was a young lady by the name of Erica. In both situations, I noticed both of the students had plenty in common. I asked them a number of questions and both of them answered almost the same way. They thought negative of the class and had no interest in participating. Also, they agreed PE did not help them in the real world. I did have the opportunity to speak to Juan’s mother and the coaches are right when they said the problem starts at home with the parents. When I called Juan’s mother (Maria), she was not interested to hear the problem. She stated PE was not a real class and we (coaches) should not make a big deal if her child dresses out or not. She also mentioned something that caught my attention. She said that even if her son does not dress out for PE, Juan still passes the class. It is sad to hear that at times the coaches do not even fail the students who do not dress out; they do not help themselves by doing this.
Conclusion/Recommendations
In conducting this research, I learned many factors that should be corrected. I have learned it is not the student’s fault for not seeing the importance of physical education courses, but it is the parent’s fault. The students see their parents do not pay much attention to that particular course and the students comprehend it is a worthless course. But the problem does not stop there; by putting the pieces of the puzzle together, it is visible the coaches are also part of the problem. Both parents and students need to understand physical education is important to everyone and if the coaches are not doing anything about that, they are just contributing to the problem as well.
One recommendation that can help the coaches from P. Revere Middle School as well as coaches around the nation is taking PE more seriously. It would really be helpful that the coaches would stop giving passing grades to all the students in the class and give them the grade they deserve. By doing that, the students would know PE is important to participate during class time. Also, this will help communicate to parents the importance of PE.
The biggest recommendation that might encourage parents’ support is having a conference with all the students’ parents. Therefore, the coaches can explain to them the value of PE and what better way to have people understand something than doing it in person and face-to-face. At this time, the coaches can talk about their expertise and talk to them about all the knowledge found within the Literature Review. If for a reason, some parents can not make it to the meeting, the coaches need to send letters that inform the parents about the importance of physical education and also explaining their grading scale. Consequently, the coaches have a much greater opportunity to educate the parents, which is where the problem begins.
Hopefully, in the future, this dilemma will be solved. However, meanwhile it seems that it will be a tough struggle for the coaching staff to adjust to it and to make the right decisions. As a future physical education coach, I know how to deal with this kind of issues and in time, my recommendations will be positively utilized.
Appendix
Interview
(05/20/12)
The following data is paraphrased:
Both Coach Davis and Coach Beckom believe every student should participate in PE. PE is the way to keep their bodies in shape while being in school for eight hours a day. Every child needs his/her 45 minutes to 1 hour of exercise a day (minimum). They try their best to make fitness fun by including different sports.
The biggest problem the coaches have with their students is making sure they are dressing out. If the students do not dress out, they do not participate in the activities. They know sometimes the students forget their clothes at home. But there are students that in a six-week period (30 school days) will not dress out for at least ten straight days. When this happen, now two more problems occur. 1) The students not dressing out will not be getting in their exercises because all they do is sit on the bleachers and watch everyone else have fun. The reason they sit on the bleachers is because they do not want to mess up their school clothes or even sweat them. 2) As for a PE course, students do not need pencils nor paper (class material) to bring to class. All the coaches ask from them is to dress out because they are graded on participation. If they dress out for the day that is an easy 100%. What happens when a student dresses out only 15 times of those 30 days, should the student receive a 50% for a grade average?
The coaches try to call the students’ parents to inform them that their children are not dressing out and if that continues they will fail the course. At least 30% of the parents say, “Who cares, PE is not a real class anyways”. Others say, “That’s ok my child can run at the park after school”. There is not much the coaches can do. But when the six-week period ends, and the grades are sent home, that is when the parents care and want to know why their children failed. –COACH DAVIS & COACH BECKOM
Logs
(5/21/12-5/25/12)
Monday 3/21, 10 girls and 7 boys did not dress out (class of 52 students).
Tuesday 3/22, 8 girls and 3 boys
Wednesday 3/23, 3 girls and 6 boys
Thursday 3/24, 5 girls and 1 boy
Friday 3/25, 12 girls and 3 boys
After one week I can see why coaches get mad when the students do not dress out. The coaches are supervising the dressed out students, which are playing and having fun, but then what about the non-dressers? It is harder for the coaches to keep track of the students who are sitting on the bleachers. The coaches have to be taking care of them too. I noticed that the non-dressers would goof around a lot. Also I noticed that throughout the week there were three girls who never dressed out (best friends) and for the boys it was only one.
Questionnaire
(05/28/12)
I got the chance to speak with some of the students who did not dress out and also a parent.
- Juan is the only boy that did not dress out all week
Why don’t you dress out?
I just don’t want to.
Don’t you like PE?
Yes, I just don’t like the coaches.
Don’t you care if you fail?
No, how is PE going to help me in high school. I don’t need it.
What do your parents think of this?
They agree with me.
- Erica is one of the girls that did not dress out all week
Why don’t you dress out?
Because I want to talk to my friends and I don’t want to sweat and go to class like that.
Don’t you like PE?
No, its stupid. I’m not in any sports, so why I run.
Don’t you care if you fail?
Not PE, but my other class, yes.
What do your parents think of this?
I think both my parents wouldn’t mind, because I have good grades in the rest of my class.
I was able to get of hold Juan’s mother, but not Erica’s parents.
- I called up Juan’s mother (Maria) around 12pm on Friday. I told her about her son’s situation and she said that she knew about it. A while back, the coaches called her to inform her about the same thing.
So why doesn’t Juan dress out for PE?
Its not my job to make Juan dress out. It’s the teacher’s job. He never listens to me here at home.
What do you think about PE?
I don’t care about PE. It’s not a real class.
Don’t you care if he fails?
Of course I do, but every semester he passes with low 70’s, even when he does dress out.
By asking both the students and a parent questions, I can see that the parent think like the students or vise-versa. This problem of not dressing out for PE is a misunderstanding of the parents (problem starts at home). That is why I believe we need find the solution on how to get the students’ parents support on getting their middle school children to understand the importance of quality on physical education.
