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Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urqe20

Reliability of a Modification of the Health-Related Physical Fitness Test for Use with Physical Education Majors a

b

Jim Dinucci , Donice McCune & David Shows a

b

Division of Kinesiology Professional Studies , Stephen F. Austin State University , USA

b

Division of Fitness and Lifetime Sports , Stephen F. Austin State University , USA Published online: 08 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Jim Dinucci , Donice McCune & David Shows (1990) Reliability of a Modification of the Health-Related Physical Fitness Test for Use with Physical Education Majors, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 61:1, 20-25, DOI: 10.1080/02701367.1990.10607474 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02701367.1990.10607474

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DINucx:r, McCuNB. AND SHOWS

RESEARCH QUARTBRLY

FOR EXERCISE AND SPORT 1990, VOL. 61, No. I, pp. 20-25

Reliability of a Modification of the Health-Related Physical Fitness Test for Use With Physical Education Majors

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nM DINUCCI, DONICE MCCUNE, AND DAVID SHOWS Stephen F. Austin State University

A modifiedform ofthe AAHPERD Health-Related Physical Fitness Test was administered to a sample of200 college physical education majors. The skinfold measures were changed from the original test, and the flexed-arm hang was added to the test battery. The validity and reliability ofthe test battery has been establishedfor middle school boys and girls. This study determined the multivariate reliability ofthe modified test battery using a canonical correlation model. The univariate intraclass reliabilities ofthe test items ranged from 91 to 99. The total redundancy for the modified test battery was .87.

fatigue. All testing was completed in the fall of 1987, and institutional guidelines for the protection of human subjects were observed. Description ofTests

The Stephen F. Austin State University Health Related Physical Fitness Test battery (SFAHRPFT) consists of 7 test items-standing height, total body weight, sit-and-reach, 1min sit-ups, flexed-arm hang, l-mile run, and percent body fat. Only 5 of thesetest itemswere used in this study (standing height and total body weight were omitted). The skinfold measuresthat make up the percent body fat variable are those describedby BaumgartnerandJackson (1982)and includethe thigh, abdominal (males), suprailiac (females), pectoral (males), and triceps (females) sites. The skinfolds recommended in the HRPFT were abandoned after the first year of testing to allow for computerized calculation of estimated percent body fat and ideal weight as described by Baumgartner and Jackson (1982). Additionally, the subscapular skinfold assessment for females posed significant problems in a mass testing situation. A Lange skinfold caliper was used to assess the skinfold thickness to the nearest 0.5 mm. The flexed-arm hang was added to the test battery on recommendation of department faculty because inclusion of a measure of upper body muscularstrength and endurance was believed to be essential for physical education majors. The l-mile run was selected as the distance run because selection of this distance facilitated the administration of the test in one class period. The inclusion of the l-mile run as the measureof cardiorespiratory function was justified from previous research indicating that distance runs over 1 mile adequately assess cardiorespiratorycapacity (Burke, 1976;Disch,Frankiewicz, & Jackson, 1975;Jackson & Coleman, 1976). The sit-and-reachtest was administeredusinga specially constructed testing box marked off in centimeters. After approximately one minute of warm-up, including various passive stretching exercises, the student sat with feet against

Key words: Health-RelatedPhysical Fitness Test, fitnesstest, reliability, test battery reliability The proliferation of test batteries in physical education and their frequent alteration and/or modification pose significant problems for individuals charged with the responsibility of testselection.In many instances,the validityand reliabilityof each subtest of the original test battery and overall validity of thebatteryare reported, but, frequently,validationorreliability information is not reported for revised versions of the test battery.Furthermore, it has been common practice for overall test reliability information to be omitted. Wood and Safrit (1984)proposeda canonical correlation modelto estimatethe reliability of a battery of tests in physical education that has been validated using middle school students (Safrit & Wood, 1987).The purpose of this study was to investigatefurther the utilityand limitationsof theWood and Safrit (1984)model by determining thereliabilityofa modifiedformoftheAAHPERD Health-RelatedPhysicalFitness Test (HRPFT)usingcollegeage students.

Method Toestimate the testbattery reliability,the testbatterywas administered to the subjects twice. The test items were administered three days apart to avoid excessive residual REsEARCH QuARTERLY FOR

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D!NUCCI, McCUNB, AND SHOWS

der. We reiterate, however, that because sample sizes were below Thorndike's recommended level, the separategender analysis shouldbe viewed with caution,

the end of the box and reachedas far down the top of the box as possible.During the test, one hand was placeddirectlyon top of the other and remained in place and the knees were stabilized by the tester to keep them straight. The sit-andreach test was used to evaluate lower back musculoskeletal function. The sit-up test measuresabdominal strengthand endurance. The subjectsexecutedas many sit-upsas possiblein a minutewith knees bent and arms foldedacross the chest For standing height and total body weight, a calibrated physician's balance scale was used. Heightwas measuredto the nearest 0.5 cm and weight was recorded to the nearest 0.1 kg. The HRPFTTest manual(AAHPERD, 1980)and Technical manual(AAHPERD, 1984)wereused as references for those test itemscommonto both the HRPFTand the SFASU modification of the HRPFT.

Testing Protocol The testerswere graduateteachingassistants and twoof theprincipal investigators. Eachtesterwasthoroughly trained in theprocedurefortheparticulartestitemand theretest;each tester administered the same test to the same subjects. The skinfoldmeasures were administered by the principalinvestigators, and the subjects were instructed to return to the individual who had initially taken their skinfold measures. Duringthe severalyearsof the testingprogram,the sametwo testers have taken all skinfold measures to ensure accuracy and consistency over time. Prior to the first day of testing,eachinstructorwasasked to have studentscompletea scorecard. Data provided by the student included name, age, gender, and course and section number. All testing was completedin the large five-basketball-courtfacility of the Health and PhysicalEducation Department The subjectsreportedto the testingarea at the start of their regularly scheduled class period and received their partially completed scorecards from the classroom teacher. Shoeswereremovedat thispointandnotput backon untilthe start of the mile run. The subjects then moved individually from test to test until the l-min sit-ups were administered to the group. Theflexed-arm hangwasthefirsttestadministered. Male and female subjectswere tested on differentbars so the bars couldremainat a set height.The testingpositionusedwasthe overhand (pull-up) grip with palms facing away from the subject. The time was started when the subjects placed the chinabovethebar and wasstoppedif the chincameto reston the bar or dropped below the level of the bar. From the horizontal bar the subjects moved to the balance scales for measurement of standingheightand total body weight Subjects then reported to a test area to have their three skinfold thicknesses measured. The sit-and-reach test followed the skinfoldassessment and was administered according to published instructions (AAHPERD, 1980). To expedite the administration of the l-min sit-up test, approximately 40 ft of gymnastic matswerespreadendtoend across the floor. The subjects were told to pair up, and one subject performed the test while the other subject held the one's feet down and countedsit-ups.At the end of 1 min,the subjects changed places. Emphasis was placed on accurate counting of correctly performed sit-ups according to the AAHPERD instructions (1980).Particular care was givento the position of the hands across the chest and the beginning and endingphase of the sit-up. The last testitem was the l-mile run, whichwasrun on a 22Q-yd courseon a synthetic-surface gymnasium floor. Students worked with partners on this test. The subjects were instructed to recordnumbersfromone to eight on the reverse side of the scorecard. This was done to record lap times for

Subjects The subjectsfor this investigation weremaleand female physicaleducation majorsat StephenF. AustinStateUniversity (SFASU). All physicaleducationmajorsenrolledin five required theory classes within the department are routinely tested with a modified form of the HRPFT at mid-semester each term. Theoretically, each major student could take the test battery five timesduring a 4-year period,but, in fact, the majority of students take the test only on three occasions becausetheymaybe enrolledin morethanoneof therequired classesduringa semester.Thetotalnumberof studentstesting in this investigation was 224, but becauseof incomplete data only 200 subjectswere used in the analysis. The 24 students not used wereexcusedfor medicalreasonsfromsome part of the testor wereabsenton oneof the test days.The 200 setsof completedata included 143 males and 57 females. The total number of subjects exceeded the number recommended by Thorndike(1978),N =(x + y) 10 + 50, wherex is the number of variables in the first variable set and y is the number of variables in the second data set Thorndike's rule gives the minimum sample size that is necessary to ensure stabilityof results.In the present study, because x equals 5 and y equals 5, the minimum sample size to ensure stability of results wouldbe 150subjects.Thedecisionwasmadetocombinethe maleand femalesubjectstoachievetheminimum samplesize recommended by Thorndike (1978). The data for the combinedsubjectswere analyzedto obtaintestbatteryreliability. The data were also analyzed separately by gender to obtainthetestbatteryreliability forbothgenders. Thestability of these reliability estimates is questionable because the sample sizes were below ISO, the level recommended by Thorndike (1978). The number of male subjects (n = 143) approached therecommended level,butthenumberof female subjects (n =57) wasconsiderably below thenumberneeded. Subsequentanalysisof the data by gender indicatedthat the test item reliabilities and test battery reliabilities remained relatively unchanged whenthe samplewas separated by genRilsBAROi

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D1NUCCI. McCUNE. AND SHOWS

eachof theeight lapsof the220-ydcourse.Timewasgivenfor individualwarm-upby jogging and/or stretching.Half of the subjects ran while their partners recorded lap times. At the completionof the first heat, the partners changedplaces. The lap times were called out by the timer as each subject passed the startfinish line, and the final mile time was recorded in minutesand secondsto the nearest secondand laterconverted to total seconds for each computation. On theretest day, the subjectsreportedback to thetesting facilityand repeated the testing protocol in the exact order as the first day. A new scorecard was used to ensure that testers did not have access to the scores of the previous testing session.

for the male subjects exceeded (i.e., better performance) that of the females. The exception was the sit-and-reach test. The significancelevel for the data analysis was set at an alpha level of .05. Using a r-test, the statisticsin Table 1 were comparedtothenormativedata for collegestudentspublished by AAHPERD(1985). For the I-min sit-ups, no statistically significant difference was found between the means of AAHPERDmales(M=47,SD=8,n=215)andSFASUmales (p> .35); however,the mean of SFASU females was significantlygreater than the mean ofAAHPERDfemales (M = 41, SD = 9, n = 252), (p < .025). In contrast, for the mile run, no statistically significant difference was found between the meansof AAHPERDfemales (M = 515 s, SD = 90 s, n = 158) and SFASU females (p > .25); however,the mean of SFASU males was significantlygreater than the mean of AAHPERD males (M = 405 s, SD = 71 s, n = 173, P < .(05). Finally, for the sit-and-reach variable no statistically significant difference was found between the means of AAHPERD females (M = 38cm, SD =7 cm. n = 256)and SFASUfemales(p> .25); however, the mean of SFASU males was significantly less than the mean of AAHPERDmales (M = 35 cm, SD = 8 ern, n = 215; p < .01). To examine differences between SFASU males and SFASU femalesa series of t-tests for independentgroupswas used. A Dunn-Bonferroni planned comparisonapproachwas employedby dividingtheexperimentwisealphalevel(.05)by two (the number of gender comparisons for each subtest), which yields a comparisonwisealpha of .025. These results are summarized in Table 2. Gender differences between the SFASUmalesand femaleswerestatisticallysignificantforall variables (see Table 2) except for sit-ups on Day 2. The p-value SU, Day 2 was .0305, which was slightly above the .025 significancelevel. The calculations were computed using BMDP3D (Dixon, 1985). The reliabilitiesof the subtestsof the HRPFT have been reported in the Technical manual (AAHPERD, 1984), and updated estimates were reported for middle school boys and girls (Safrit & Wood, 1987). No reliability estimates have been reported for college-aged students, although a compre-

Data Analysis Separate analyses were computed by gender and for the combinedsampleeven thoughthe individualsamplesizesdid not reach the level recommended by Thorndike (1978). Descriptivestatisticswerecomputedand the testbatteryreliabilitywasestimatedusinga canonicalcorrelationanalysis(CCA) as describedby Wood and Safrit (1984, 1987).The canonical correlationsand redundancyestimateswerecalculatedfor the male,female,andcombinedsamples.Structurecoefficientsto interpretthe estimatewerecomputedforthecombinedsample only, becauseThorndike's rulefor minimumsamplesize was not met when the data were stratified by gender. Univariate interclassand intraclass subtest reliability coefficients were calculated for the test-retest data to allow for comparison of subtest reliabilities from sample to sample providing a comparison with previous research.

Results Descriptivestatisticsfor the male, female,and combined samplesare presented in Table 1. Generally, the mean values

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics (M± SO) SR

MR

SU

FAT

Gender

FAH

Males Day 1 Day 2

29.73 ± 14.74 30.76 ± 14.40

32.92 ± 7.65 33.34 ± 7.38

47.30 ± 8.77 47.41 ± 9.73

426.36 ± 63.19 425.06 ± 65.71

13.09 ± 6.82 12.93 ± 6.88

Females Day 1 Day 2

18.92 ± 11.12 18.93 ± 11.19

38.60 ± 5.51 38.53 ± 6.19

43.72 ± 8.36 44.07 ± 9.95

505.49 ± 74.22 501.30 ± 77.09

22.66 ± 4.61 22.55 ± 4.41

Combined Day 1 Day 2

26.65 ± 14.62 27.39 ± 14.56

34.52 ± 7.55 34.82 ± 7.42

46.28 ± 8.78 46.46 ± 9.88

448.92 ± 75.38 446.79 ± 77.10

15.82 ± 7.61 15.67 ± 7.63

Note. FAH .. flexed-arm hang (s);SR .. sit-and-reaeh (em); SU = sit-ups (no.); MR RBsIlARCH QuARlllRLY FOR

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= mile run (s); FAT -

61, No.1

% body fat

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DINuCCI. McCuNE. AND SHOWS

hensive normative study was completed for this age group (AAHPERD, 1985).The univariate interclass and intraclass test-retestcoefficientsforeach of thesubtests,withtheexception of standing height and total body weight, are shown in Table 3. The calculations were computed with SPSSx (SPSS Inc., 1986). None of the reliability estimates for this investigation used standing height or total body weight These measuresare used only for descriptivepurposes in the testing program, even though total body weight is necessary for the computation of ideal body weight. The univariate interclass and intraclasstest-retestcoefficientswere all high,except for the interclass reliability coefficient for the sit-ups (.84). A comparison with the results reported by Safrit and Wood (1987) for middle school children found the intraclass and interclass reliability coefficients of the SFASU sample to be generally higher. This was particularly true for the distance run. Generally, the coefficients observed for the SFASU sample were stable across gender.

reliability estimate (ORE) associated with this investigation revealedthat the theoreticalupper limit to the batteryreliability was a first canonicalcorrelation of .99 coupled with 93% of the total variance shared between test administrations. Because these estimates were statistically and practically significant,thebatterywasreadministeredto thesamesample of subjects and the actual battery reliability was calculated. Table 4 presents the actual test battery reliability estimates including the canonical correlations and total redundancy estimate. The calculations were computed using BMDP6M (Dixon, 1985). The reliability estimates for the males and females treated separately used sample sizes less than that recommendedby Thorndike (1978), and the results from this data are somewhat questionable. Of interest is the fact that the canonical correlations and total redundancy estimates differ little between gender or with the combined sample. According to Barlett's sequential procedure, all five of the canonical correlations were significantly different from zero (p < .0001 in each case). The shared variance (87% for females, 85% for males, 87% combined), as reflected in the total redundancyestimates, indicatesa substantialamountof shared variancefor the male, female,and combinedsamples. The total redundancy estimates were significant (p < .001) according to the test criteria outlined by Miller (1975). The actual reliabilityestimates,a first canonicalcorrelation of .99, and a total redundancy of 87% of total variance shared between test administrations were very close to the ORE estimates. This indicates that the SFAHRPFT administered under the conditions of this investigation provided measuresalmost as consistent as those expected in the population. The structurecoefficientsfor the combinedsamplewere computed to analyze the consistency of each subtest within the battery (Table 5). For the combined sample, all algebraic signs were the same except for the sit-and-reachon variate I, and the test-retest coefficients were of similar magnitude. With thepossibleexceptionof the sit-and-reach,thisindicates that each subtest is operating in a similar fashion within the total test battery under the test-retest conditions. Thus, the protocolassociatedwiththe sit-and-reachshouldbe reviewed for sources of error.

Multivariate Test Battery Re/iabi/ities Thedeterminationof themultivariatetestbatteryreliability for the SFAHRPFT was accomplished by employing the method outlined by Wood and Safrit (1984). The optimum Table 2 Analysis of Gender Differences for Each Subtest Administered

Subtest FAH SR SU MR FAT

Day 1 t-value p-value

5.63-

Reliability of a modification of the health-related physical fitness test for use with physical education majors.

A modified form of the AAHPERD Health-Related Physical Fitness Test was administered to a sample of 200 college physical education majors. The skinfol...
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