Predictors of physical activity levels in university physical education implementing Sport Education

Purpose: By adopting Sport Education into the university context, this study examined how lesson content and teacher interaction contribute to university students’ physical activity levels during physical education lessons. Methods: After a continuing professional development workshop, the 10-week Sport Education was designed collaboratively and implemented according to the environment in a university. This study used the momentary time sampling tool of System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time, eight teachers and 202 students (72% of male) were videotaped in 156 lessons. The data on physical activity levels, lesson content, and teacher behavior were collected and analyzed.Results: The student-participants could not meet the moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) recommendation of 50% lesson time. Findings of hierarchical linear regression indicated that knowledge (β = .29) and general content (β = .29) contributed to the sitting physical activity while skill practices (β = .25) and gameplay (β = .38) predicted the MVPA. Discussion: Practical implications of utilizing the features of Sport Education in boosting activities intensity were discussed, especially the team affiliation, formal competition, and record keeping. Further investigations were proposed on the interaction of gameplay content and teacher behavior with a larger sample size.