Fitness testing in physical education: helpful or harmful?
The beep test. Or the bleep test. That torturous activity you did in PE each year to ‘test your fitness’ is the one thing many people remember about physical education - and that many would rather forget!
Fitness testing is one of those things that became popular in physical education [PE] as it evolved from its military roots, and has stuck. Most Australian secondary schools still do fitness testing at least once or twice in their program, despite the fact that it is not actually a requirement in the Australian Curriculum: Health and PE. There are many PE practices that are outdated and (hopefully) no longer a part of school practice, like weighing students and taking skin-fold measurements to determine body fat... should fitness tests be removed from PE too?
What the research says
Many researchers and academics in the Physical Education space have questioned the pedagogical relevance of fitness testing. Some have argued that fitness testing is often not conducted in ways that teach, motivate and promote healthy lifestyles. Others maintain that fitness testing should motivate students to try to improve their own fitness, and insist that the experiential learning from that process is valuable.
While there has been a lot of debate and research into the contributions that fitness testing makes for learning, there hasn’t been a lot about the psychological impact. In studies where they have asked adults about the most traumatic experiences of PE, fitness testing - and the beep test in particular - is often the first thing they mention. Attitudes towards fitness testing tend to decrease as kids get older - they are OK with it when they are younger, but from Years 9-12 they gradually report that they don’t like, enjoy or feel motivated by these classes.
A statewide survey of teachers in Texas found that 38.8% of teachers reported negative experiences or outcomes in their fitness testing classes, like kids crying, getting upset, and feeling anxiety and embarrassment as well as refusing to participate. Another interview study with adolescents also reported that students saw fitness testing as a punishment, and tried to avoid it by hiding in the bathroom and/or crying during testing.
Surely crying is not a great outcome in PE class - for learning, or for mental health. This research, coupled with our our own lived experiences and anecdotal reports from parents that fitness testing has triggered eating disorders, has led us to work in this space. For some time we have advised schools to be careful and considerate in the way they teach fitness testing - or not do it at all. But we haven’t really had conclusive evidence that this practice does harm.
Finding out more about fitness testing
Our research group set out to do a small pilot study. We collected data from 51 students in Years 7-10 in Australian secondary schools, a week before and a week after they completed their usual fitness testing lessons. If you think back to your own high school days, these fitness testing lessons in 2021 were very similar. Most involved doing the beep test as a whole class group, and then doing a range of other fitness tests in a circuit, like the sit-and-reach test of flexibility, standing vertical jump to measure power, push-up and sit-up tests etc.
What we found was that completing these classes did not lead to a significant change in body image, self esteem or mood in general. However, when we split the sample, the Year 9 and 10 students seemed to have worse outcomes than those in Year 7 and 8. After completing the fitness testing, their self esteem was significantly lower than it had been before.
This was a small study. Of course we need more research with much bigger numbers of participants to confirm these findings. However, conducting research in schools over the past two years has been challenging (#thankscovid), and there is so little funding for this work. While we wait for these large studies to be done, we can look at how the evidence is building and starting to tell a pretty consistent story - that in Year 9 and 10, students don’t enjoy fitness testing as much, and they may experience higher anxiety and lower self esteem after fitness testing classes.
The different responses by age groups was unexpected. I thought that the younger kids would be more vulnerable, but that the Year 9-10 students would be more resilient to the impact of fitness testing. It turns out that there are several developmental factors that might make the fitness testing experience worse for adolescents in the 14-16 year age range.
Mid-adolescents are much more concerned about what their peers think of them, and therefore they may not want to perform publicly in front of their peers. Egocentrism (Enright et al., 1980), the perspective of adolescents that makes them feel like they are ‘on display’ and feel open to judgement, leaving them extremely self-conscious, also peaks during this time. Finally, given that bodies are more mature in Year 9 and 10, and that girls’ body weight and body fat stores increase significantly throughout this period, girls in particular may be more dissatisfied with and self-conscious of their bodies, particularly when they are moving.
4 ways to make the beep test more bearable
Our findings have several real-life implications for teachers and schools. First, in developing the PE program, schools should consider positioning fitness testing in Year 7 or early in Year 8, and avoid it in Year 9 and 10. There are a number of other ways to teach about fitness that can be done in small groups, and focus on optimising fitness rather than measuring it. If schools and teachers insist on doing fitness testing throughout Year 9 and 10, and into Year 11 and 12, there are a number of adjustments that can make it a more comfortable experience.
Pedagogical purpose: There needs to be a reason for the testing. Many schools do this as a one-off, which has very little benefit, or use fitness testing results to inform assessment and grades - this is not recommended. Conducting pre- and post-testing with some self-determined activity that might shift scores in between, and actually looking at their own individual data, means that there is a pedagogical purpose.
Choose your tests: You don’t need to do them all. Within the context of learning about what each test ‘measures’, students can determine which tests they would like to complete, and choose one that they want to make improvements on. Assessment can be based on their rationale, not their scores or the improvements made.
Smaller groups: Having students choose their own friend groups, with people they feel comfortable and safe completing activities in front of, is likely to reduce anxiety. The beep test doesn’t have to be done as a class group. Students could do it in small friend groups using their mobile device on the measured and marked-out track.
Avoid comparison: Do what you can to avoid students making comparisons to each other during the tests, and don’t make them use norm-referenced tables to compare their scores. Knowing that you are ‘below average’ or ‘in the bottom 20%’ or ‘the worst in the class’ for the number of sit-ups that can be done in a minute is not motivating. Shaming people doesn’t change their health behaviour. Have students reflect on how they feel about their result, make a plan to enhance aspects of their fitness that are relevant to their sport or occupational pursuits, and compare their past scores to their new scores - not any one else’s.
The mental health of young people has become a huge priority - particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. If we want young people to engage in PE and physical activity, we need to make sure that it doesn’t make them feel bad about themselves. We know there are things we can change in our schools and communities to listen to our young people, and change the systems and structures that are problematic.
Some things in PE are outdated. Now that we know better, we can do better.