Peer-reviewed researchWeekly research brief
Outdoor Activity-Based Physical Education to Enhance Physical Literacy, Physical Fitness, and Environmental Awareness among Elementary School Students
An eight-week outdoor activity-based PE programme was linked to large gains in physical literacy, fitness and environmental awareness for fifth-grade pupils.
What's new
This quasi-experimental study involved 60 fifth-grade students at one public primary school in Purwakarta Regency, West Java, Indonesia. The experimental group (n = 30) completed 16 outdoor activity-based PE sessions over eight weeks, while the control group (n = 30) had regular PE. Physical literacy (CAPL-2), physical fitness (Indonesian Physical Fitness Test) and environmental awareness (20-item questionnaire) were measured, and ANCOVA showed significant effects with large effect sizes on all three.
Why it matters in Aotearoa
It suggests outdoor PE can serve physical and environmental learning together, which is relevant to schools weaving EOTC into Health and Physical Education.
Putting it into practice
PE teachers could shift some regular lessons to outdoor activity-based sessions over a term and pair them with discussion about the local environment.
How strong is the evidence
A single-school quasi-experiment with a small sample; the effect sizes are unusually large, so the results need confirming in other settings.
What to read
The description of the outdoor PE programme and the results.