Overeating and Underachieving:
The Effects of Physical Fitness on the Academic Achievement
on Urban Students
An Action Research Project
Chevonne Byas
EDUC 7021 T
Fall 2010
Method
Participants
• The participants in this Action Research Project are six second
grade students from an urban public school.
• Participants are both male and female and range in age from7
to 8 years of age.
• There were four females and two males
• classroom populations is racially diverse.
• The are 5 African American/Black students
• 1 Latino
Experimental Design
 Pre-experimental design
 Symbolic design
 OXO
 One-Group Pre-test Post-test Design.
 pre-test (o)
 Variable (x)
 Post-test (o)
Threats to Validity:
 Internal threats
 History may be a threat to validity. A student may have test anxiety, they
may be distracted by a noise in the hall or they may be ill or otherwise
affected.
 Maturation may be threat to validity, as student may not understand the
importance of the assessment or my action research project and they may not
care to put effort into doing their best effort.
 Testing may be a threat to validity because
 Instrumentation, the results may be affected by the person proctoring the
Yopp Singer. This lends itself to being subjective.
 regression serves as a threat to validity.
 External threats
 Mortality, may be a threat if a student is absent when I am experimenting
or if they drop out during the length of the experiment. Statistical regression
should not be threat because my sample size is comparatively small.
Instruments
 Consent forms
 Principal
 Teacher
 Parental
 Survey
 Pedometer
 Assessment
Instruments
Initial Survey (sample)
Student Name
Part 1: Demographic
Please circle the answer.
What are you?
Student Number
Boy
How old are you?
4
5
Part 2: Self Attitude
Please write 1, 2, 3 or 4.
I like it a lot
I like it
I don’t like it
I really don’t like it.
Do you like vegetables and fruit?
Do you like gym?
Part 3: Frequency
Please write the number of days, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7.
How many days a week do you go to gym?
How many days a week to you have recess?
How many days a week do you play outside?
girl
6
7
Data
Score Comparison graph
Comparison of pre and
post test scores.
120
100
Two students increased
scores.
S
c
o80
r
e
pre test
60
Two students scores
remained the same
Two students scores
decreased.
post test
40
20
0
1
2
3
4
Student
Student number
5
6
Data
Measures of central
tendency
Pre-Test
Post-Test
Mean
94.3
93
Range
6
18
Median
95
94
Mode
96
94
Standard Deviation
30.33
5.5
Variance
12.82
3.58
Data
Bell Curve
This bell
curve shows
the mean of
the post test
data.
-3
-2
-1
93
1
2
3
Data
The time in which it
took the students to
complete the test
was recorded in
minutes.
 Time Comparison Chart
Time comparison of Pre and Post Tests
T
I
m
e
25
20
15
Min pre
Min post
10
5
0
1
2
3
Student
4
5
6
Data
There was a strong
positive correlation
of 1 between the
time spent taking
the test and the
score.
Post Test
120
100
RXY=1
Poat test
80
60
post test
Linear ( post test)
40
20
y = -0.7551x + 102.94
R² = 0.5352
0
0
5
10
15
Minutes Spent
20
25