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Little research has attended to the possibility that competencies and efficacy for physical activity acquired in childhood may last a lifetime. This study examined self-report and recall data on 327 Vancouver women born between 1896 and 1921 with a view to understanding current sources of self-efficacy for adult fitness activity. Current self-efficacy (SE) for late life fitness activity was assessed alongside age, education, perceived well-being, and movement confidence in childhood (MCC) for six challenging physical skills. Perceived well-being was the best predictor of late life SE for fitness exercise, explaining 26% of the variance. However, MCC was also an equally important and independent predictor of late life SE. even when age. education, and perceived well-being were controlled for. This study provides preliminary evidence that personal estimates of ability to exercise in late life are based on self-evaluations of Wellness, current age, and former competencies that have origins in girlhood mastery experiences over six decades earlier.

Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, the purpose of this study was to analyze how motivational processes within Physical Education classes can predict intention to participate in sport or physical activity outside of the school curriculum. Participants included 1,692 Spanish students aged 12–16 years (M = 13.34; SD = .76) who participated in Physical Education lessons at 32 secondary schools. Structural equation modeling was used for analysis, and showed that perception of basic psychological need (BPN) support from teachers predicted autonomous and controlled motivation through BPN satisfaction. Furthermore, autonomous motivation positively predicted enjoyment, perceived importance of Physical Education, and intention to participate in sport or physical activity outside of school. Controlled motivation negatively predicted enjoyment, and amotivation positively predicted boredom. Finally, enjoyment and perceived importance of Physical Education positively predicted intention to participate in sport or physical activity outside of what was required in school. Results emphasize the importance of school based Physical Education to promote sport and physical activity participation among adolescents.

In the 1990s, New Zealand and Australia rolled out new school physical education curriculums (Ministry of Education, 1999, 2007; Queensland School Curriculum Council, 1999) signaling a significant change in the purpose of physical education in both countries. These uniquely Antipodean¹ curriculum documents were underpinned by a socially critical perspective and physical education teacher education (PETE) programs in both countries needed to adapt to prepare teachers who are capable of engaging PE from a socially critical perspective. One way they attempted to do this was to adopt what has variously been labeled critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogies as a label is something of ‘big tent’ (Lather, 1998) and this paper reports on the published attempts to operationalize critical pedagogy and its reported success or otherwise in preparing teachers for the expectations of the socially critical oriented HPE curriculum in both Australian and New Zealand.

The traditional sport-based multiactivity approach that continues to dominate secondary physical education curricula is problematic on a number of levels. It is often not perceived as making a valuable contribution to the educational process by school administrators or as culturally relevant and interesting to many students. This paper highlights Catherine Ennis’s work related to the shortcomings of this model and the need to move toward a more educational focus. Initially, Ennis described the curricular strife that developed as teachers clung to this approach in the face of a changing educational landscape. Her work evolved to include students’ perspectives, and her writings gave voice to their disengagement and discontent. She continued her extensive writings related to this topic across her career, exploring alternatives and offering solutions to reconceptualize physical education programs to maximize their contribution to the school curriculum and to meet the needs of all students.

This study employed the Academic Learning Time model to describe the behavior of moderately mentally handicapped students in their physical education classes. The concept of academic learning time (ALT) is defined as the proportion of time a student is engaged in a task related to the learning objectives and is experiencing an appropriate success rate. Subjects were 29 students randomly selected from five adapted-P.E. groups (three elementary and two secondary) in three Quebec City region schools. A French version of the ALT observation system developed by Siedentop, Tousignant, and Parker (1982) was used to code the students’ behavior in P.E. classes. The results reveal that, on the average, only 63% of the time officially allocated to P.E. within the school curriculum was actually used for teacher/student interaction. Moreover, 21% of this 63% was spent organizing the learning activities, 4% in explaining the tasks, and the remaining 75% in motor activities. However, although the number of students in a group varied from five to nine, on the average individuals were successfully motor engaged only 16% of the time and spent 50% of the time waiting.