Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Eye-hand coordination--Iowa; Exercise for children--Iowa; Aerobic exercises; Exercise for children; Eye-hand coordination; Iowa; Academic theses;

Abstract

One of the most influential places a young person learns exercise patterns is through the physical education program at school. Schools have the potential to improve the health of youth by providing instruction, programs, and services that promote enjoyable lifetime physical activity (Centers for Disease Control, 1997). During physical activity time in physical education class, a student should remain within the target heart rate zone, as to gain cardiovascular benefits. Students also develop motor skills during physical education class, and to help students become proficient and comfortable with these motor skills, hand-eye coordination needs to be developed. Development of hand-eye coordination requires a variety of activities to be incorporated into the physical education classroom. One activity that has become very popular to improve hand-eye coordination is cup stacking. Cup stacking has been proven to positively influence test scores that measured hand-eye coordination and reaction time in second grade students (Udermann, Murray, Mayer & Sagendorf, 2004).

The purpose of this study was to examine the amount of time spent in a target heart rate zone during a cup-stacking unit in 4th grade students. Thirty-eight 4th- grade students in Grundy Center, Iowa participated in the study. Students wore heart rate monitors during an eight-day cup-stacking unit to monitor the heart rate during the cup stacking lessons.

The United States Department of Health & Human Services (1996) recommends that fifty percent of physical education class time should be devoted to moderate-to-vigorous activities. Results of this study indicated the participants were in the target heart rate zone for an average of 17.34 minutes, less than half of the class time. The results also revealed female participants spent more time in the target heart rate zone than did male participants. The results indicated that cup stacking is aerobic when lesson plans are designed with aerobic benefits in mind.

Year of Submission

2005

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services

First Advisor

Jennifer Waldron

Second Advisor

Ripley Marston

Third Advisor

Melanie Hart

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2005

Object Description

1 PDF file (44 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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