Effects of joint-use after school physical activity programs

The present study was carried out with the intention to evaluate two different after school joint-use running programs located in the Southern part of the United States. The Champion Running Program (CRP), a nonprofit organization that was present in middle and high schools in 2015-2016, and Speed Zone Running Program (SZRP), a nonprofit organization that took over the CRP and changed the name and the curriculum, were implemented into six middle schools in the consecutive academic school year. A multiphase mixed methods research design was conducted to evaluate CRP and SZRP. Phase 1 is a descriptive study, designed to inform the next phase of study by examining the structures, purpose, mission, and goals of the two running programs. Through inductive coding of websites, curricula, student log notebooks, and a coach’s interview transcript, all data were interpreted by the data sources collectively. Phase 2, guided by the findings of Phase 1, used valid, reliable surveys to measure the program effects of psychosocial factors of enjoyment (i.e. Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale; PACES; Kendzierski & DeCarlo, 1991), school connectedness (i.e. School Connectedness Survey; McNeely, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002), grit as a measure of pererverance (i.e. Short Grit Scale; Duckworth & Quinn, 2009), and self-efficacy (i.e. Self-efficacy Survey; Motl et al., 2002) towards physical activity. In total, 119 middle school students (101 CRP and 18 SZRP) and one running club coach,volunteered to participate in this study. Phase 1 revealed the structures of CRP and SZRP varied considerably. Three overarching themes emerged from all the data sources: Accessibility, supporting goals for participants and coaches, and format of the program. Phase 2, a quantitative analysis using ANOVAs, found that members of SZRP reported significantly higher scores on physical activity enjoyment t(84)= -2.45, p= .016 and school connectedness t(99)=-8.42, p=.00. Both nonprofit after school running programs supported the mission of getting students to be physically active, but each enacted varying approaches to achieve this goal. Members of SZRP had higher levels of physical activity enjoyment and school connectedness compared to participants of CRP. Future research should compare other types of after school programs and use larger sample sizes