FITNESSGRAM
FITNESSGRAM is an activity and fitness assessment and reporting tool. It was developed by The Cooper Institute in an effort to provide physical educators with a tool that would facilitate communicating fitness testing results to students and to parents. The assessment measures three components of health-related physical fitness and have been identified as important to overall health and function: aerobic capacity, body composition, and muscular strength, endurance and flexibility.
FITNESSGRAM helps you achieve your goals by applying easy-to-use technology to:
- conduct fair and accurate fitness assessments and easily record the results, set individualized goals for students
- give students responsibility for managing and recording their own activities
- create detailed reports of progress and results for students, parents, and administrators
- help students and parents understand the value of physical activity
ACTIVITYGRAM, introduced in 1999, is a behaviorally based physical activity assessment tool. It provides a three-day record of activities performed during each 30-minute period. The report provides information in the following areas:
- total number of minutes of activity each day as compared to a goal of 60 minutes
- periods of time each day spent in activity
- types of activity
FITNESSGRAM/ACTIVITYGRAM enables you to promote awareness about the importance of physical activity and fitness, assess the fitness and activity levels of children in grades K-12, and help them develop patterns of lifelong, health-promoting physical activity. (The Program is also appropriate to use with young adults up to age 30).
Assessments
- FITNESSGRAM assesses three areas of health-related fitness listed previously. Many test items offer multiple options, so you can choose the method you prefer. Each score is evaluated against criterion-referenced standards that have been established to indicate levels of fitness corresponding with health. Standards have been set for boys and for girls based on age. The use of health-related criteria helps to minimize comparisons between children and to emphasize personal fitness for health rather than goals based solely on performance. Since only modest amounts of exercise are needed for obtaining health benefits, most students who participate in physical activity almost every day will be able to achieve a score that will place them in the Healthy Fitness Zone.
- The ACTIVITYGRAM assessment is conducted over two school days and one non-school day. Students record their activity for each 30 minutes between 7:00 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. Each entry includes the time of day, the number of minutes in the activity, the intensity level of the activity, and the type of activity from the Activity Pyramid. Information is entered in the computer software and a summer analysis is provided.
Reports
- A FITNESSGRAM Report can be printed out for each student and a special version for parents, that recommends physical activity program options to help students make it into the Healthy Fitness Zones for those areas where they need improvement. Plus, it explains in nontechnical terms why physical activity leads to improved health and fitness. The FITNESSGRAM report is a tangible reminder of what students learn in class and a great way to enlist parents’ support in their children’s physical activity programs.
- An ACTIVITYGRAM Report summarizes a student’s activity data for the three-day period. Personalized messages provide suggestions of ways to increase or maintain physical activity. Recommendations are based on national guidelines developed by the Council for Physical Education for Children (COPEC), a division of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE).
The NEW Web-based FITNESSGRAM 9 offers new benefits for school systems of all sizes.
- No client installations required
- Teachers can access data from anywhere that has internet connection (when the district has set permissions to allow this)
- Teachers can save time and paper and ensure students’ privacy by e-mailing FITNESSGRAM reports to students and parents
- Expanded options for generating statistical reports, including reader-friendly graphics
- District can mandate test items, eliminating confusion and standardizing test items district wide
- Teachers can quickly and easily import test scores from other sources
- Teachers can identify and record students who are exempt from taking one or more test items due to disability or injury
- School systems can host data at the school, district, metro, or state level, or utilize The Cooper Institute’s Web hosting alternatives for districts unable to host their own data.
