Project SPARK: Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids

OVERVIEW

Project SPARK (Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids) is a physical education program designed to be implemented by physical education specialists for elementary students in the 4^th and 5^th grades. The goal is to engage students in more moderate to vigorous physical activity during the week to maintain their health and promote a lifetime of fitness.

Seven schools were randomly assigned. Two were led by specialists, two by classroom teachers, and three served as control schools. It was hypothesized the program would reduce obesity and improve academic achievement.

Engagement in moderate to vigorous physical activity was found to be significantly different depending on the condition. When taught by specialists the students engaged in the most number of minutes per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity, followed by the program taught by teachers, and then the control condition of regular physical education.

Project SPARK was not found to significantly impact skinfold measurements (body fat). Spending greater amounts of time in physical education was not found to undermine achievement. Indeed, student performance was often better in the trained teacher condition, though not in the specialist condition.

 DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Upper elementary students, 4^th and 5^th grades.

In the following studies, the specialist condition and teacher trained condition implement Project SPARK. The specialist condition is implemented with three physical education specialists who have state credentials through a 5-year program. One specialist trains volunteer teachers in the teacher trained condition schools to implement Project SPARK. The control condition schools are asked to continue with their usual physical education programs.

The specialist condition was the Project SPARK intervention led by trained fitness specialists. The teacher trained condition is the same curriculum, but led by teachers trained by one of the certified education specialists from the specialist condition.

Project SPARK consists mainly of a self-management curriculum. Students learn to self-monitor, self-evaluate, and self-reinforce. They keep records of their activities, evaluate whether they have meet a weekly goal as well as meeting to discuss goals and why the child failed to meet them, if that is the case, and then they reinforce their active lifestyle by praising themselves or making more time for physical activity or making physical activity more enjoyable. This program encourages family involvement and physical activity as part of one's lifestyle and not only done during school hours.

Project SPARK is implemented three times a week for 30 minutes each time. Class is separated in half with the first 15 minutes consisting of health-fitness activities, and the second half consisting of 15 minutes of skill-fitness activities. There is a fourth day per week (30 minutes) where students learn how to incorporate activities and skills into their lives to remain active. Units lasted about four weeks and students progressed to more advanced skill within each unit.

Project SPARK consists of a physical education curriculum and a self-management curriculum. The two curricula were separated into three parts during a class. First, children warmed up and performed exercises targeted toward maintaining strength and endurance. Second, children participated in a fitness activity for cardiovascular strength. Third, children learned a sports skill, followed by cool-down with stretching.

The teachers who volunteered to implement the teacher-trained condition were about 20 fourth and fifth grade classroom teachers. They participated in an in-service program that lasted about 23 hours over 11 sessions. In the second year of the program, there were five sessions for a total of 15 hours of training. The teacher-trained condition lasts for about 11 classes during the school year, for a total of about 32 hours of activity for students. In the following studies, Project SPARK time decreases to nine hours in the second year of the study and six hours in the third year.

The control condition was the regular physical education curriculum, but schools were also provided with the same equipment that the Project SPARK groups received.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Sallis, J. F., T. L. McKenzie, et al. (1993). Project SPARK: Effects of Physical Education on Adiposity in Children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 699, 127-136.

Evaluated Population: Fourth grade children (N=745 at baseline) in seven suburban elementary schools in Southern California. Mean age of the students at year 1 was 9.25 years. The children were 85% non-Hispanic white, 6% Asian and Pacific Islander, 7% Latino, 1% African American, and 1% other race.

Approach: Schools were stratified by race and size, then two were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, specialist, teacher trained, and control. The authors added a third school to the control condition.

This study includes two measures, body mass index (BMI) and a skinfold score. BMI is a combination of height and weight reported as kg/m². The skinfold score was a sum of mid-calf and mid-upper arm skinfolds measured with calipers. Measurements were taken three times and the mean was recorded.

Assessment staff attended three four-hour workshops where they learned the proper technique for measures, practiced measuring each other while receiving feedback and guidance, practiced on elementary-age children who were not in the study, and passed 90% of items on a checklist for each procedure.

Results: There were no significant differences among treatment or control groups for boys or girls (genders analyzed separately in this study) on skinfold measurements after two school years.

The authors did not account for clustering in their analyses. They used children as the unit of analysis without accounting for the fact that they are nested within schools.

McKenzie, T. L., J. F. Sallis, et al. (1997). Long-Term Effects of a Physical Education Curriculum and Staff Development Program: SPARK. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 68, 4, 280-291.

Evaluated Population: Fourth grade students in seven elementary schools in one Southern California school district.

Approach: These analyses focused on observing the quantity and quality of physical education class time through direct observation. Quantity and quality were measured using the SOFIT (System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time). SOFIT captures energy expenditure associated with physical activity, frequency and duration of physical education, time spent in various lesson contexts, and time spent in teacher behavior categories.

Trained assessors spent entire school days observing at schools in the three different conditions for one week during the fall and spring semesters of each school year. They began collecting data in the class when 51% of the students reached the instructional area and ended when 51% had left. Instructors were paced by an audio tape to make assessments at certain times.

Assessor training included classroom lectures, video assessment, and field practice. Certification was tested by the assessor reaching 85% agreement criterion for variables on precoded videotaped lessons. Assessors were retested on precoded videotapes of lessons before each measurement period.

Results: Engagement in Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA) and Very Active categories varied significantly by condition; students in the specialist condition engaged in 40.2 minutes of MVPA per week, compared with 32.7 and 17.8 minutes in the teacher-trained condition and control condition schools, respectively. Lesson context varied significantly by condition as well. Students in the schools assigned to the specialist condition spent significantly more minutes in fitness activities and skill drills than students in schools assigned to the teacher-trained condition. Students in schools assigned to the teacher-trained condition spend significantly more minutes than students in schools assigned to the control condition. Children in the control condition spend significantly more minutes a week in free play than children in the specialist and teacher-trained conditions. For teacher behavior, teachers in schools assigned to the Specialty condition provided students significantly more minutes per week of attention to physical fitness promotion and general instruction than the teachers assigned to the control condition, while instructors in the teacher-trained condition fell in between the two.

Sallis, J. F., T. L. McKenzie, et al. (1999). Effects of Health-Related Physical Education on Academic Achievement: Project SPARK. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 70, 2, 127-134.

Evaluated population: Students (N=759) were from a single school district drawing from an affluent suburb in Southern California. In the schools, the percentage of ethnic minorities ranged from 10 to 19. The students were fourth graders recruited at the beginning of two consecutive school years (2 cohorts).

Approach: Before random assignment, schools were stratified by percentage ethnic minority and size of student population. The authors randomly assigned schools to one of two treatment conditions or to the control condition. Cohort 1 took the Metropolitan Achievement Test 6 and Cohort 2 took the Metropolitan Achievement Test 7.

The main outcome was academic achievement measured by the Metropolitan Achievement Tests (MAT6 and MAT7). This test has four parts, a basic battery, a language section, a mathematics section, and a reading section. The basic battery tests overall achievement. Scores are reported as national percentile rankings.

Results: Initial scores on the MAT tests were high for both Cohort 1 and Cohort 2, and scores tended to decline in posttest.

For Cohort 1, there were no significant impacts of the Project SPARK intervention on the basic battery or mathematics scores on the MAT. For the language scores, the decline in percentile ranking was significantly less in the Trained Teacher condition than the control condition. For reading scores, the specialist condition increased in percentile ranking while the control students declined (p < 0.05).

For Cohort 2, basic battery and reading scores of students in the trained teacher condition declined significantly less in percentile ranking than students in the other two conditions. Declines in language scores were significantly greater in the specialist condition compared with the other two conditions.

An important note is that the authors did not account for clustering in the data. The individual students were the units of analysis, and because measurements were different for the two cohorts, they were analyzed separately. In addition, achievement data were only available for about half of the students.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

Curriculum materials:

SPARK: http://www.sparkpe.org/

SOFIT (System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time) manual: http://www.drjamessallis.sdsu.edu/sofitprotocol.pdf

References:

McKenzie, T. L., J. F. Sallis, et al. (1997). Long-Term Effects of a Physical Education Curriculum and Staff Development Program: SPARK. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 68, 4, 280-291.

Sallis, J. F., T. L. McKenzie, et al. (1999). Effects of Health-Related Physical Education on Academic Achievement: Project SPARK. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 70, 2, 127-134.

Sallis, J. F., T. L. McKenzie, et al. (1993). Project SPARK: Effects of Physical Education on Adiposity in Children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 699, 127-136.

Program categorized in this guide according to the following:

Evaluated participant ages: Middle Childhood (6-11).

Program components: School-Based.

Measured outcomes: Education and Cognitive Development, Physical Health.

KEYWORDS: School-Based, Education, Physical Health, Overweight, Middle Childhood (6-11), Children (3-11).

Program information last updated on 5/27/09.