A Comparison of Physical Fitness of Public School Students from Economically Deprived Areas with National Norms.

Abstract

This study compared the physical fitness of public school students from economically deprived areas with national norms. It also compared the physical fitness of public school students from high-poverty areas with those from low-poverty areas. Economic deprivation was defined as Title I-eligible school attendance areas. The national norms were developed from the 1975 National Survey of Youth Fitness. The measure of physical fitness was the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test. The sample design, a multi-staged, clustered, probability sample involved four stages of selection--central city school districts of the 12 largest St and ard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States, 90 Title I-eligible schools, 180 classrooms, and 1,080 students. Participating in the study were the 12 school districts from which schools, classrooms, and students were selected (100% of those sampled), 75 schools (83%), 146 classrooms (81%), and 779 students (72%). Statistical analysis involved: (1) comparison of mean scores of the economically deprived sample with the 1975 national norms for each test item, by age; (2) comparison of mean scores of the sample and national norms for each test item, st and ardized for age distribution; (3) a within-sample comparison of means scores of students from high-poverty (>(' )50%) and low-poverty (< 50%) areas; and (4) a within-sample one-way analysis of covariance to determine the effect of poverty-ratio on test item performance, by grade. Analysis of the data revealed that: (1) the great majority of differences between students from economically deprived areas and the 1975 national norms and between students from high-poverty and low-poverty areas were not statistically significant; (2) the differences which were statistically significant indicated no consistent pattern by test item or by age; (3) the comparisons which statistically favored one group over the other, tended to negate each other; and (4) poverty-level was not related to physical fitness. Within the limits of this study, the following conclusions appear to be justified: (1) there was no difference in the physical fitness of boys or girls from the economically deprived sample and boys and girls represented by the 1975 national norms, and (2) within the sample, there was no difference in physical fitness of boys or girls from high-poverty areas and boys and girls from low-poverty areas.