Measuring teaching behaviors, lesson context, and physical activity in school physical education programs: Comparing the SOFIT and the C-SOFIT instruments

As the focus on health-related physical education increases, promoting physical activity leading to the development of physical fitness becomes an important component of school physical education programs. To determine the status and effect of teaching processes related to physical activity and fitness in physical education, it is necessary to have instrumentation that produces reliable, valid, and usable scores for the population in which they are used. The purpose of this study is to compare the data produced by the previously validated and often used System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time (SOFIT) instrument (McKenzie, Sallis, and Nader, 1991) with a computerized instrument, the Computer-SOFIT (C-SOFIT). The categories of the C-SOFIT instrument are exactly the same as those of the interval coding system, the SOFIT instrument. C-SOFIT is a duration coding instrument that was written in the C computer language and pilot tested in a number of classes with different coders to 'make it usable in physical education classes. Fifteen middle school physical education classes focusing on various content were coded from videotapes using the two instruments (SOFIT and C- SOFIT) on separate occasions. The results indicated that the C-SOFIT instrument is an acceptable substitute for the valid SOFIT instrument. The duration coding instrument (C-SOFIT) may provide the most precise measurements of time. The validity and reliability of scores produced using both instruments provide options for data collection related to teaching processes where physical activity and fitness instruction are part of the research focus.