 Introduction: One of the risk factors for Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is poor physical fitness. Socioeconomic status (SES) is often a controlled for variable in physical fitness studies involving adolescence. Other studies that investigate the impact of SES have used only females or analyzed their samples based on racial and ethnic groups. Our study investigated the impact of SES on both males and females with an economic based construct of SES.  Methods: The sample consisted of th, 7 th, and 8 th graders from a public Illinois urban middle school. The students participated in the FITNESSGRAM battery of fitness assessments as part of their physical education class. Descriptive statistics were obtained for height, weight, age, and sex. In addition, students were grouped as high or low SES depending on whether or not they qualified for the Federal Free Lunch Program.  Statistics: A multivariate analysis of variance controlled for age and separated by sex was conducted comparing the raw scores from the fitness test for low and high SES students. Odds ratios separated by sex were calculated for the likelihood of not achieving the FITNESSGRAM Healthy Fitness Zone standards for the low SES group.  Results: Females of the low SES group had significantly lower scores on the FITNESSGRAM assessments and were significantly less likely to achieve healthy fitness zone status than the females from the high SES groups. For males, SES was a significant main effect for body composition but not for the other fitness tests conducted.  Conclusion: SES is related to physical fitness in females but not in males. A potential explanation for this is that males are more likely to engage in vigorous leisure time activity regardless of SES than females..

 a) study variables  SES (independent)  Fitness (dependent)  b) Is fitness dependent on SES (for males and females separately)  c) fitness was related to SES (high SES fitter than low), but only for females  d) the study design using design notation NO

 From the rubric questions:  What is the relationship being studied? ▪ Does fitness increase with SES, for males or females  What are the study findings, if any? ▪ It did for females, not for males

 What is the sampling strategy?  One school in Illinois  SO: 1.It is non-probabilistic 2.It is a sample of convenience 3.It is a volunteer study (not all will have volunteered) 4.But a healthy number, so may have got the vast majority of the students available – meaning volunteerism may not be that much of a factor.

 To what population/time/setting is the study being generalized/targeted (either implied or actual)? (Look for author wording confirming the attempted generalization)  Population seems to be adolescent males and females (only restrictions mentioned)  No time/setting restrictions – mentioned rural school but only as identifier of sample, not population

 What does the sampling strategy and the actual time and settings of the study imply about the merits of any generalization found above? (Is there a good match, or do you see some mismatches?)  One urban school in IL  One time only – don’t know whether it was start of fall, spring, or anything.  Lots of factors to mess with here – location in terms or urban/rural, geographical (part of country), time of study in terms of time of year, and so on.  Need to think of potential to alter relationship of SES with fitness (remembering null result for males, positive for females)

 To what extent do you think there is a problem of generalization? In other words, do you think the relationship under investigation, or the results of the study would have potential to change given any of the issues raised?  To answer this question, we have to consider: ▪ What moderator variables might have been unwittingly introduced by the sampling strategy ▪ Whether these moderators could interact with the study variables  So what moderators do we have? ▪ Urban vs rural location? ▪ Time of year? ▪ State – east/west, north south? Could any of these for instance compromise the range of SES found in the study, thereby lessening the likelihood of finding positive results?

 What are the constructs in the study intended to measure?  State the idea(s) behind the dependent measures  State the idea(s) behind the independent measures  Fitness:  Aerobic, anaerobic etc.  SES:  Combined measure ▪ Financial well-being ▪ Social standing ▪ Employment type

 How is each construct in the study operationalized?  State how dependent measures are operationalized  State how independent measures are operationalized  Dependent measure:  Fitnessgram battery  Does include many aspects of physical fitness  Independent measure:  “Qualification for Federal free lunch program”.  Financially driven factor. But clearly associated with job status and probably therefore social standing too

 What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of the observed operationalizations?  Consider the types of validity: face, content, etc.  Consider the laundry list of threats.  Do so for both constructs!  Fitness gram score  Face and content validity...it’s a test developed as an overall assessment of physical fitness, comprising a battery of tests.  Free lunch program  Face and content validity… ▪ Directly related to one aspect of SES (financial), indirectly to others (social status, employment status).  A dichotomous variable though – misses some of the variability of an SES “score” for every participant ▪ Basically makes everyone either a 1 or a zero for SES – not great, but not awful either

 Is the construct validity issue as described in previous slide likely to alter the results of the study?  Fitnessgram:  No real problems identified.  Free lunch:  A dichotomous variable though – misses variability ▪ Could in part explain null result for males. ▪ Not relevant for the positive result for females

 What is the study’s design? NO

 Does the study’s design establish temporal precedence?  No  Fitness and SES are assessed at the same time. There is no manipulation of the “treatment”

 Does the study’s design establish covariation of cause and effect?  Yes ▪ There is variation in SES, and variation in fitness score, so covariation would be found if it existed. Though variation in SES is not as strong as it could be.

 To what extent does the study’s design control for alternate interpretations of the causal relationship? Does it control for:  Single group threats? ▪ Well, there are two groups…  Multiple group threats? ▪ No.  Social interaction threats? ▪ No

 To what extent is the assertion that the relationship under investigation is causal a reasonable one?  This is a very weak design with which to assert causality.  Any number of extraneous variables could be causing the relationship between SES and fitness for females to pop out. ▪ But thinking of particular candidates would seem to be a little trickier...

 A large body of research has suggested that focusing on the effects of a movement (external focus) is more effective than focusing on the movement itself (internal focus) for learning and performing motor skills (for reviews see Wulf, 2007; Wulf and Prinz, 2001). Recent research has suggested that age and task complexity may moderate this attentional focus effect. The present study examined the effectiveness of internal and external attentional foci for learning two novel locomotor skills varying in complexity. 48 children (ages 8-10) and 48 adults (ages 19-26) learned to ride a Double Pedalo either with or without stability handles while adopting either an internal or external focus of attention. Participants were instructed to either push their feet (internal focus) or the boards of the Pedalo (external focus) forward to make the Pedalo move. The dependent measure used was time to travel 7 meters. For the simpler task, no attentional focus effects were elicited during either acquisition or retention. With the complex task, there were no significant attentional focus effects in acquisition, but in retention, an external focus of attention resulted in faster times than an internal focus, but only in males. These findings further support the findings of Wulf, Toellner, and Shea (2007), suggesting that a certain degree of instability or error is necessary to elicit external focus benefits. In addition, they corroborate the findings of Wulf, Wächter, & Wortmann (2003) which suggested females and males may be differentially affected by attentional focus instructions.

 a) study variables  Attentional focus, task complexity, age, gender (ind)  Performance (time to travel 7 meters - dependent)  b) Are attentional focus effects moderated by any of the IVs (esp age and task complexity)?  c) Focus effects were dependent on age and task complexity, but only for males.  d) the study design using design notation - See next slide!

 d) the study design using design notation 16 groups (2 focus x 2 complexity x 2 age x 2 gender). Of the 4 factors, two may be randomly assigned (focus, complexity), and two cannot be (age, gender). - hence control of causality could be better for relationships involving the two randomly assigned factors than the other 2. - measured over performance and learning.

 From the rubric questions:  What is the relationship being studied? ▪ Are attentional focus effects moderated by any of the IVs (esp age and task complexity)?  What are the study findings, if any? ▪ Focus effects were dependent on age and task complexity, but only for males, and only in learning (no effects in performance).

 What is the sampling strategy?  Looks like school kids from one school, and students  SO: 1.It is non-probabilistic 2.It is a sample of convenience 3.It is a volunteer study (not all will have volunteered)

 To what population/time/setting is the study being generalized/targeted (either implied or actual)? (Look for author wording confirming the attempted generalization)  Population seems to be children and adults  Seems to want to generalize to all motor skills  Seems to talk about all levels of performance and learning

 What does the sampling strategy and the actual time and settings of the study imply about the merits of any generalization found above? (Is there a good match, or do you see some mismatches?)  One set of school kids from one school, one set of students from one college (perhaps even one department) ▪ No real range of ages within each age group – but that’s a study variable so will be examined in CV  One dose of practice, one learning interval ▪ Would more or less practice make a difference? Would a longer or shorter learning interval make a difference? (Part of constructs though – so leave for then)  One locomotor task used to generalize to all “novel movements” ▪ Surely there could be some task differences?

 What are the constructs in the study intended to measure?  State the idea(s) behind the dependent measures  State the idea(s) behind the independent measures  Performance, learning  Time to complete the 7m trial  Intended to assess performance quality  Age – adult vs. non-adult  Attentional focus – movement vs. movement effect  Gender – male/female  Task complexity – “error-free” vs errorful

 How is each construct in the study operationalized?  State how dependent measures are operationalized  State how independent measures are operationalized  Dependent measure:  Performance – time to complete while practicing  Learning – time to complete after some time delay  Independent measure:  Attentional focus – asked to adopt a focus  Age – junior high vs college age  Task complexity – handles vs none  Gender – male vs female

 What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of the observed operationalizations?  Consider the types of validity: face, content, etc.  Consider the laundry list of threats.  Do so for all constructs!  Dependent measure:  time to complete while practicing – outcome only – process?  time to complete after some time delay – what delay? Again, outcome only  Independent measure:  asked to adopt a focus – did they? Manipulation check?  junior high vs college age – what aged children? Developmental differences?  handles vs none – were their the expected performance differences?  Gender – male vs female – why? Purpose of this?

 What is the study’s design?  Two potentially randomly assigned variables (focus, task complexity)  Two definitely non-assigned variables (age, gender)  Two measures – learning, performance.

 Does the study’s design establish temporal precedence?  Yes ▪ focus manipulation comes before learning test ▪ Absence of pretest might be a problem – especially if groups not randomly assigned

 Does the study’s design establish covariation of cause and effect?  Yes ▪ Variations in performance and learning with study variables can be assessed.

 To what extent does the study’s design control for alternate interpretations of the causal relationship? Does it control for:  Single group threats? ▪ Well, there are lots of groups…  Multiple group threats? ▪ Partially. Differences across focus conditions and task conditions could be controlled. Differences across age and gender not so.  Social interaction threats? ▪ No control of them – but might not be that much scope for the threat to operate – only one practice session and one test session.

 To what extent is the assertion that the relationship under investigation is causal a reasonable one?  This is a reasonable design with which to assert causality.  Need to point out the fact that age and gender are uncontrolled variables – other factors may be operating that are correlates of these.