COMPARISON OF METHODS TO MEASURE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN FINNISH SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Palabras claves: DEPORTE ESCOLAR/ ACTIVIDAD FÍSICA

Título: COMPARISON OF METHODS TO MEASURE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN FINNISH SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Auto: Arto Gråstén

País: Finlandia

Recent evidence from the World Health Organization reinforces the strong link between physical activity (PA) and continuing positive benefits to health, well-being and weight control. A number of measurement techniques are available for assessing PA in children and adolescents. Self-reported PA measures have been used widely in Finnish, and the international studies due to economical and practical issues. However, previous findings have shown that children and adolescents are less able than adults to recall their PA,consequently questionnaires provide a poor measure of PA in children and adolescents. To advance research on PA in children and youth, it is important to obtain valid and reliable measurements of typical behavior. The aim of this study is to compare different self-report and direct methods to measure PA in Finnish secondary school students. The sample comprised 142 students (girls = 86, boys = 56) aged between 13- to 16-years (M = 14.95, SD = .89) from secondary school located in Northeast Finland. According to the findings of particular and previous studies, both self-report and direct techniques are recommended to be used in combination to optimize and enrich the quality of the data collected from respondents in daily PA. This information could be utilized in various practical applications, such as promoting children’s and adolescents’ PA in school PE and leisure time, PE teacher training, and the professional progress of existing PE teachers by providing a clearer understanding development of students’
PA across theschool years.