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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to review and evaluate the quality of fidelity of implementation (FOI) reported in experimental research in physical education pedagogy published in the Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport and the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education using a five-component conceptual framework. Methods: Thirty-five intervention studies were coded using a five-item FOI checklist with indicators. For each of the five items, frequencies and percentages were calculated. Results: Authors of intervention studies reported components of FOI including (a) 35 studies assessing program adherence, (b) eight studies assessing dosage/program durations, (c) 30 studies assessing program delivery quality, (d) eight studies assessing participant responses to program interventions, and (e) 19 studies assessing program differentiation. The most frequently reported FOI components were program adherence, program delivery quality, and program differentiation. Conclusions: Researchers have begun to realize the critical importance of FOI in intervention research. Most researchers selected certain FOI components to assess and report at their own discretion. Researchers may need to pay more attention to FOI. The five-component conceptual framework is one method for doing this assessment.

The goal of physical education is to instill physical literacy within students. As an important motivation framework, achievement goal theory has been widely used to understand and explain students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. In this paper, we reviewed studies examining achievement goals and outcomes in K-12 physical education settings. First, we provide a brief review of the historical development of the achievement goal theoretical models (the dichotomous model, the trichotomous model, the 2 × 2 model, and the 3 × 2 model). Then, we synthesize consequences, antecedents, and interactive factors of each achievement goal construct as well as the influences of gender, age, and culture on students’ achievement goals. Finally, we discuss implications for practice and future research. We hope our review can inform physical educators and researchers and assist the application of achievement goal theory into practice.

Self-efficacy theory assumes that students’ efficacy beliefs affect their performance through process variables, including behavior, cognition, and affection. The purpose of this study was to utilize self-efficacy theory as a theoretical framework to propose a conceptual model of a mediating relationship among perceived motor skill competence, successful practice trials, and motor skill performance in physical education. In addition, the authors reviewed the literature to provide evidence to support the potential mediating relationship by following the steps recommended by Baron and Kenny. This paper is significant because the authors integrated the literature of motor development/learning and physical education pedagogy to propose a conceptual model where successful practice trials would act as a behavioral mediator through which perceived motor skill competence affects students’ motor skill performance. This conceptual model can guide future research to identify students’ behaviors affecting their skill development, thus helping teachers develop pedagogies to improve motor skill performance in physical education.

Although substantial inquiry has been made into fitness levels of students, there has been scant examination of knowledge in this domain. This article seeks to review and analyze research on student health-related fitness (HRF) knowledge mastery in K–16 programs by examining studies published in the literature. Two major results emerging from the work are misconceptions about fitness and the lack of an adequate amount of HRF knowledge among students at all educational levels (i.e., elementary, secondary, and college). These results were essentially the same as those found more than 20 years ago, indicating a persistent deficiency in fitness education. In addition, little is understood as to how HRF knowledge contributes to the establishment of lifetime physical activity patterns. Student HRF knowledge determinants as well as effective instructional strategies also need thorough study. Based on these findings, implications for improving student HRF knowledge through physical education are discussed, and recommendations for future research are included.

It is known that high-performance sprinters with unilateral and bilateral prosthetic lower limbs run at different speeds using different spatiotemporal strategies. Historically, these athletes still competed together in the same races, but 2018 classification rule revisions saw the separation of these two groups. This study sought to compare Paralympic sprint performance between all-comer (i.e., transfemoral and transtibial) unilateral and bilateral amputee sprinters using a large athlete sample. A retrospective analysis of race speed among Paralympic sprinters between 1996 and 2016 was conducted. In total, 584 published race results from 161 sprinters revealed that unilateral and bilateral lower-extremity amputee sprinters had significantly different race speeds in all three race finals (100 m, p value <.001; 200 m, <.001; 400 m, <.001). All-comer bilateral amputee runners ran faster than their unilateral counterparts; performance differences increased with race distance. These data support current classification criteria in amputee sprinting, which may create more equal competitive fields in the future.