Dearborn SHINES For Healthy Kids: Understanding Physical Activity Among Arab American Students in Physical Education and the Impact of SPARK

Abstract

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Arab Americans account for almost 3.7 million people in the United States (Arab American Institute, 2014). However, limited health data is available on youth populations. Additionally, very few interventions have been designed to increase the physical activity levels of Arab American youth. Therefore, the purpose of this study is twofold: evaluate Arab American children’s physical activity (PA) levels during physical education (PE) class and understand how the implementation of SPARK can influence the PA of Arab American youth in the PE context. METHODS: System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time (SOFIT) was used to assess activity levels, lesson context, and teacher involvement during PE class. A total of 66 PE classes in one urban, primarily Arab American, district, were observed in grades 3-8, involving 18 PE teachers. Data collection took place over two time points, with one professional development of the SPARK PE curriculum occurring in-between. Data were downloaded from the iSOFIT app and analyzed using SPSS (v25). RESULTS: MANCOVA’s were run to better understand the effect grade level has on physical activity minutes, lesson context, and teacher involvement while controlling for teacher, total lesson minutes, and type of activity. In general results showed that students were not meeting suggested PA guidelines during PE class MMVPA3rdgrade=18.6 min, MMVPA4thgrade= 14.1min, MMVPA5thgrade=13.4min, MMVPA6thgrade=12.3min, MMVPA7thgrade=18.7min, MMVPA8thgrade=15.3min). Overall, grade did not have a significant effect on level of PA (p=.08). MVPA did not increase between T1 and T2 (p>.05), but there were significant changes across timepoints in lesson context (p<.01) and teacher involvement (p<.01). CONCLUSIONS: The results show that youth were not meeting recommended amounts of daily PA during PE class at either timepoint. A one-time SPARK professional development did not significantly change student behavior as measured by MVPA, but did show improvements in teacher knowledge as measured by lesson context and teacher involvement. Implications for using SOFIT data gathered to inform the ongoing SPARK and Dearborn SHINES intervention and importance of prolonged professional development to transition from increases in knowledge to behavior change will be discussed.