Overeating and Underachieving:

1. Overeating and Underachieving: The Effects of Physical Fitness on the Academic Achievement on Urban Students An Action Research Project Chevonne Byas EDUC 7021 T Fall 2010

2. Method Participants • The participants in this Action Research Project are six second grade students from an urban public school. • Participants are both male and female and range in age from7 to 8 years of age. • There were four females and two males • classroom populations is racially diverse. • The are 5 African American/Black students • 1 Latino

3. Experimental Design • Pre-experimental design • Symbolic design • OXO • One-Group Pre-test Post-test Design. • pre-test (o) • Variable (x) • Post-test (o)

4. Threats to Validity: • Internal threats • History may be a threat to validity. A student may have test anxiety, they may be distracted by a noise in the hall or they may be ill or otherwise affected. • Maturation may be threat to validity, as student may not understand the importance of the assessment or my action research project and they may not care to put effort into doing their best effort.   • Testing may be a threat to validity because • Instrumentation, the results may be affected by the person proctoring the Yopp Singer. This lends itself to being subjective. • regression serves as a threat to validity.   • External threats • Mortality, may be a threat if a student is absent when I am experimenting or if they drop out during the length of the experiment. Statistical regression should not be threat because my sample size is comparatively small.

5. Instruments • Consent forms • Principal • Teacher • Parental • Survey • Pedometer • Assessment

6. Instruments Initial Survey (sample) Student Name Student Number Part 1: Demographic Please circle the answer. What are you? Boy girl How old are you? 4 5 6 7  Part 2: Self Attitude Please write 1, 2, 3 or 4. I like it a lot I like it I don’t like it I really don’t like it. Do you like vegetables and fruit? Do you like gym? Part 3: Frequency Please write the number of days, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. How many days a week do you go to gym? How many days a week to you have recess? How many days a week do you play outside?

7. Data Score Comparison graph Comparison of pre and post test scores. Two students increased scores. Two students scores remained the same Two students scores decreased. Student number

8. Data Measures of central tendency

9. Data Bell Curve This bell curve shows the mean of the post test data. -3 -2 -1 93 1 2 3

10. Data The time in which it took the students to complete the test was recorded in minutes. • Time Comparison Chart T I me Student

11. Data There was a strong positive correlation of 1 between the time spent taking the test and the score.