An expansive learning approach to transforming traditional fitness testing in health and physical education: student voice, feelings and hopes

ABSTRACT

Whilst the fitness testing debate has become more nuanced over time, the voice that is often absent from discussions is that of students. Located within the ‘big tent’ of critical pedagogy, and using an expansive learning approach that is grounded in cultural historical activity theory, this paper responds to the following research questions: (i) what are Australian Secondary students’ feelings and thoughts toward current fitness testing practices? and (ii) how would they change those fitness testing practices, and why? Data were collected via focus group interviews (n = 48) that utilised participatory arts-based methods. Students from one Secondary College were invited to consider the purpose, outcomes of, and alternatives for fitness testing within HPE. The findings suggest that fitness testing can be a source of anxiety, fear and overwhelm for some students. Findings also suggest that students have the capacity to discover new approaches to fitness testing that are responsive to the students and teachers in their school.

KEYWORDS:

• Fitness testing
• health and physical education
• student voice
• feelings
• expansive learning
• critical pedagogy

Fitness testing in health and physical education

Fitness testing is a ubiquitous cultural practice within Health and Physical Education (HPE) internationally, and whilst some students experience them positively (O’Keeffe et al., 2021), their educative purpose has long been questioned (Cale & Harris, 2009, Hopple & Graham, 1995; Phillips et al., 2021). Fitness testing is both lauded and demonised, with some viewing it as a panacea for declines in youth fitness (Cohen et al., 2015; Phillips et al., 2017) and physical activity participation (Miller et al., 2016; Wiersma & Sherman, 2008). Others acknowledge potential dangers associated with measuring and comparing bodies to norms in the name of education (Cale et al., 2014; Wrench & Garrett, 2008; Saffron & Landi, 2021; Sykes & McPhail, 2008). Indeed, O’Reilly and colleagues (2022) have recently warned us that ‘vulnerable’ students, such as those who are self-conscious, require more considered approaches to HPE (O’Reilly et al., 2022).

Whilst the fitness testing debate has arguably become more nuanced over time, the voice that is most often absent from discussions is that of students. Indeed, research by Simonton et al. (2019) argue that contemporary scholarship lacks empirical evidence regarding students’ feelings toward fitness testing.

Student experiences of fitness testing

The few empirical studies that explore students’ experiences of fitness testing in HPE suggest that positive attitudes toward testing are usually linked to high performance (Simonton et al., 2019), boys tend to be more positive than girls (Mercier & Silverman, 2014; O’Keeffe et al., 2021), and attitudes of all genders toward fitness testing become more negative over time (Yager et al., 2022). Indeed, even when students have positive fitness testing ‘instruction’ and understanding the importance of fitness testing, some still report not enjoying it (Mercier & Silverman, 2014). With a focus on female students, Lodewyk and Muir (2017) compared their experiences of fitness testing with their experiences of a soccer/football unit. They found that the majority of students (67%) expressed negative feelings towards fitness testing while the majority (79%) experienced the soccer/football unit positively. Similarly, Davis et al. (2018) highlighted that fitness testing was a key reason why female students in their study chose not to participate in HPE classes as they found the experience repetitive and unenjoyable.

Various studies have highlighted student behavioural responses to testing, including hiding in the bathroom, swearing (Martin et al., 2010) and crying (Corbin, 2010). Ladwig et al. (2018) in particular have also highlighted the persisting and negative impact that fitness testing can have on students into adulthood. Participants in their study reported negative affect and emotional memories were due to body composition and weight evaluation in front of peers, and embarrassment in front of peers due to below-norm performances. Negative experiences, such as these, are long remembered and are found to reduce motivation to participate in life-long physical activity (Corbin, 2010).

It would be remiss of me to talk in universal terms about fitness testing. Indeed, the work of Larsson and Quennerstedt (2016) and others remind us that the contexts within which HPE teachers work are so diverse, and they influence fitness testing pedagogies in myriad ways. I acknowledge that in North American states, for example, teachers are mandated to fitness test their students and publish the results. I, however, am a teacher and researcher who has worked in the UK (where I taught through fitness testing) and Australia, and I am specifically challenging ‘traditional’ whole-class fitness testing (e.g. multi-stage fitness test) that lacks educative purpose and relevance for students whilst at the same time creating a context for surveillance and judgment of bodies (e.g. Saffron & Landi, 2021). What traditional fitness testing also ignores is that the likelihood of a student ‘performing well’ in any fitness test is largely a result of opportunities and privileges that are present beyond the school context (e.g. participation in club sport). Whilst there are pockets of progress in relation to fitness education and teaching through fitness testing, ongoing research suggests that there is still space to progress in terms of creating educative, equitable and student-centred fitness education and HPE more broadly.

Acknowledging that the fitness testing debate has persisted for decades with little impact on teaching practice, this paper shares findings from an ongoing (2021–), longitudinal, exemplary case study in one Australian secondary school (n = 48) on the outskirts of metropolitan Melbourne. The data shared in this paper were produced from the initial stage of a multi-stage study that is examining the process and impact of co-produced fitness testing practices. This paper, in particular, illuminates student experiences of fitness testing prior to the co-production of new approaches. Forthcoming papers will examine the teachers’ responses to the data shared here, and the impacts of their co-produced approaches on the participating students. In this paper, however, student voice related to fitness testing is centred.

Student voice

Over the past two decades, student voice and agency have increasingly featured in policy across multiple layers of education systems internationally. A key moment, in this regard, was the ratification of Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989) which states that all children should have ‘the right to express’ their ‘views freely in all matters affecting’ them. Compliance with Article 12, Lundy (2007, p. 939) argues, ‘will not only foster a positive school ethos and produce better citizens, it is a legal and moral imperative’. In a Victorian (Australian) context, the Department of Education and Training (DET, 2019) defines student voice as ‘not simply about giving students the opportunity to communicate ideas and opinions; it’s about students having the power to influence change’ related to their learning and assessment. As such, the Victorian Framework for Improving Student Outcomes, calls for teachers and schools to ‘amplify’ student voice, agency and leadership when possible and appropriate (DET, 2019).

Existing scholarship on centreing student voice suggests that the process can offer opportunities for young people to be actively involved in their learning and, where support is available, challenge the status quo (Iannucci & Parker, 2022). There are multiple ways that student voice can be centred. We can, for example, design learning activities that incorporate student interests and extend learning beyond the school or use student feedback to inform teaching and learning (e.g. Enright & O’Sullivan, 2010; Oliver & Oesterreich, 2013; O’Reilly et al., 2022). The research shared here centres student voice as part of an expansive learning approach, informed by the ‘big tent’ of critical pedagogy (Lather, 1998), that sought to co-produce new pedagogical practices that support educative, equitable and student-centred fitness testing.

Expansive learning

Rooted in third-generation cultural-historical activity theory, the key focus of expansive learning is the creation of new pedagogical practices in schools by providing opportunities for those involved in schooling to ‘design and implement their own futures as their prevalent practices show symptoms of crisis’ (Engeström, 1991, p. 256). Within the context of this study, the ‘prevalent practice’ showing ‘symptoms of crisis’ was traditional fitness testing. The expansive learning approach views crisis or conflicts as an invitation to transform an element of current practice. In doing so there is a focus on ‘participants’ critical and creative agency for school reform as collaborative self-organisation from below, creating learning networks transcending the institutional boundaries of the school’ (Yamamuzi, 2009, p. 217). In the words of Engeström (1991, p. 254),

Since school is a historically formed practice, perhaps the initial step toward breaking its encapsulation is that students are invited to look at its contents and procedures critically, in the light of their history … Such a search will lead to questions like ‘Why is this being taught and studied in the first place?

For Engeström (1991), expansive learning involves connecting three contexts of learning: (i) the context of criticism (i.e. questioning, critiquing and debating); (ii) the context of discovery (i.e. experimenting and modelling); and (iii) the context of practical social application (i.e community involvement, guided practice, and social relevance). The research connected voices (students, teachers, school leadership, teacher educators) and contexts of/for learning by firstly critiquing, questioning, and debating fitness testing with students and teachers (context of criticism). We then collectively created, explored, and experimented with alternatives to the current and traditional approach to fitness testing in HPE (context of discovery). Whilst connecting the contexts of criticism and discovery, we were simultaneously connecting to the context of practical social application. We did so by, for example, providing relevant professional learning for other teachers/schools, and guiding and supporting practice in our case study school. This paper in particular focuses primarily on the ‘context of criticism’ and the ‘context of discovery’, and responds to the questions: (i) In the ‘context of criticism’, what are Australian Secondary students’ feelings and thoughts toward current fitness testing practices?; and( ii) In the ‘context of discovery’, how would they change those fitness testing practices, and why? Once COVID-related research restrictions are lifted, a forthcoming paper will examine the impact of the ‘context of practical social application’.

Method

After receiving ethical approval from both the university (Monash University – Project Approval number 11030) and State Department of Education, the principal of a partner school was contacted to ask if they would be willing to participate in the research. After consulting with their head of HPE, they agreed to participate. The research shared here was collected in the first stage of an ongoing exemplary case study (Bryman, 2015) that began in 2021.

Participants

Participants included 48 year of 8 students (54% identified as female, 46% identified as male) at a secondary college on the boundary of Metropolitan Melbourne and rural Victoria, Australia. The college is located in an area of economic disadvantage.

Data collection

Data were collected via semi-structured focus group interviews that utilised participatory arts-based methods. The data consisted of interview transcripts and art(efacts) produced before and during the focus groups. At the start of a scheduled fitness testing lesson, students who had provided informed consent were presented with a ‘feelings wheel’ (accessed via https://feelingswheel.com/) and a piece of paper that stated ‘Draw a picture of how you feel when your teacher tells you that you are doing fitness testing in your next HPE lesson’. The participants were told by the researcher/author that anything they drew or said would be anonymised, and that there was no right or wrong way to respond. They were also told that it is quite ‘normal’ to experience more than one feeling at any one time. Students were then given as long as they needed to complete their drawing.

Once the drawing was completed the HPE teacher taught their usual fitness testing lesson which began with the multi-stage fitness (beep) test and then moved into a circuit of standing jump test, Illinois agility test, and the sit and reach test. As students completed the multi-stage fitness test they were invited to participate in a focus group, semi-structured interview. Participants were asked questions about their thoughts on the purpose of fitness testing, what they learned through fitness testing, how they felt about being tested, and how they would like them to be taught about fitness differently. Half way through the focus group, participants were asked to draw a second picture. This time they were asked to ‘Draw a picture of how you feel when you have just participated in fitness testing at school (now)’. Each focus group included between three and five participants, with them lasting between 35 and 45 minutes. All interviews were anonymised and transcribed verbatim by a third-party transcription service.

Analysis

Interview data were transcribed verbatim and coded using Dedoose software. Braun and Clarke’s (2021) approach to reflexive thematic analysis was used to guide the analysis, and this involved: (i) familiarisation with the data; (ii) coding; (iii) generating initial themes; (iv) reviewing themes or ‘patterns of shared meaning’ with a critical friend; (iv) defining and naming themes and determining the ‘story’ of each; and (v) writing up. The images that the students created as part of the focus group interviews were analysed based on the frequency at that particular feelings were mentioned.

Findings and discussion

Throughout this research, we – the author/researcher, teachers and students – are enacting Engeström’s (1991) aforementioned proposition that students should be invited to engage critically with particular ‘contents and procedures’ of their school life. More specifically, this research created an opportunity for students to consider the purpose, outcomes of, and alternatives for fitness testing within HPE. Guided by the notion of expansive learning, the broader research project connected three contexts of learning that Engeström (1991) refers to: (i) the context of criticism (i.e. questioning, critiquing and debating fitness testing with students, teachers, researchers, and the wider HPE community); (ii) the context of discovery (i.e. experimenting and modelling new ways of teaching and learning about fitness testing); and (iii) the context of practical social application (i.e working with the HPE community to learn and support other teachers/students/schools in a similar process of critique, discovery and change). As suggested earlier, this paper in particular focuses primarily on the contexts of criticism and discovery. It is worth noting that the ‘context of criticism’ refers to critiquing, questioning and debating and not criticism per se. The findings are discussed in relation to the research questions that are answered here, namely: (i) In the context of criticism, what are Australian Secondary students’ feelings and thoughts toward current fitness testing practices?; (ii) In the context of discovery, how would students change traditional fitness testing practices, and why?

Context of ‘criticism’: students’ feelings and thoughts toward fitness testing

The findings related to the context of criticism (Engeström, 1991) have been divided into two themes. The first pertaining to students’ feelings and thoughts toward current fitness testing practices, and the second examines students’ thoughts on the purpose of fitness testing.

Students’ feelings and thoughts toward current fitness testing practices

Focus group data and field notes suggest that, in the case-study school, a typical fitness testing lesson occurred twice a year. Whilst not all students were aware of the tests they participated in, one student shared that all students were expected to participate in the ‘sit up, vertical jump, 20 m sprint, base jump, arm strength, flexibility, agility tests’ (Student 1, Male). The images that the students created as part of the focus group interviews suggest that the ways they felt about fitness testing differed before the class as opposed to after. The top ten feelings felt by the students before their fitness testing lesson were: Nervous, Happy, Overwhelmed, Anxious, Energetic, Excited, Fearful, Hopeful, Insecure and Surprised (see Figures 1 and 2 for examples).

Figure 1. How Student 2 (female) felt when they were told that they would be participating in fitness tests in their next HPE lesson.

Figure 2. How Student 3 (female) felt when they were told that they would be participating in fitness tests in their next HPE lesson.

As you can see from the images above, students tended to experience a range of sometimes contradictory feelings simultaneously. Some students responded to news of the forthcoming fitness testing positively, claiming to feel ‘happy’ and ‘excited’ to hear that they were going to be participating in fitness tests. Others, however, were ‘fearful’, ‘angry’, and ‘disgusted’ at the prospect.

The top ten feelings felt by the students after their fitness testing lesson were: Tired, Happy, Proud, Stressed, Embarrassed, Excited, Scared, Weak, Anxious, and Confused (see Figures 3 and 4 for examples).

Figure 3. How Student 4 (male) felt after participating in fitness tests in their next HPE lesson.

Figure 4. How Student 5 (female) felt after participating in fitness tests in their next HPE lesson.

Extending the point raised above, the images and the verbal responses that followed, highlighted the complexity of some students’ feelings toward participating in fitness tests. Across both sets of images (pre and post fitness testing) there was a relatively large range of feelings experienced by the students (43). As you can see from the lists of most popular feelings pre and post fitness testing, the students mainly reported positive feelings beforehand (e.g. energetic, excited), along with a few ambiguous (e.g. nervous and surprised) and negative (e.g. fearful, overwhelmed) feelings. After the fitness testing however, the majority of feelings experiences were negative (e.g. embarrassed, confused, weak), with the exception of ‘happy’, ‘proud’, and ‘excited’. That said, interviews revealed that some students claimed to be ‘excited the fitness testing is over’ (Student 6, female). These findings align with data shared by Huhtiniemi and colleagues (2021) who surveyed 645 Finnish Grade 8 students and found that during fitness testing they felt lower levels of cognitive anxiety and higher levels of somatic anxiety in comparison to HPE classes generally. The findings shared in this paper also support those of Saffron and Landi (2021) who explored the affective experiences of Black, Latinx (United States) and LGBTQ + (Aotearoa New Zealand) youth who had participated in fitness testing, and the FitnessGram® assessment in particular. They represented their data via a poem entitled ‘I hate the Beep test’. An excerpt of this poem reads: ‘I hate the BEEP test, I hate it (all). The report cards, Showing what percentile you are in. It felt kind of bad. Comparing yourself to others. I really did not like that. We do NOT learn anything’ (Saffron & Landi, 2021, p. 1029).

The verbal responses from the focus groups in the present study suggested that the main sources of negative feelings were: (i) participating in the multi-stage fitness (beep) test as a whole class and; (ii) listing their results on a class spreadsheet. Both of these approaches left many of the students feeling exposed and ‘judged’ with some commenting in the focus group interview that ‘I don't like fitness testing’ (Student 7, male), ‘It’s a lot of pressure’ (Student 8, female), and ‘I feel compared to the other students and stuff’ (Student 9, male). Another student expanded that, ‘You’ve got all these people watching you which pumps our anxiety, which makes us freak out, and we don’t perform well, because we’re overthinking it’ (Student 10, female). These findings support existing scholarship that suggests the social environment is the most prominent contributor to feelings of discomfort in HPE for females (O’Reilly et al., 2022). O’Reilly et al. (2022) add that feelings of discomfort that stem from the social environment (e.g. social risks of embarrassing oneself) can be exacerbated by feelings of discomfort stemming from practical (e.g. school/curriculum requirement to be fitness tested) and material (e.g. HPE uniform or the temperature) sources. Indeed, such exacerbation was highlighted in the data gleaned from this study. Many students felt discomfort in having their test results shared on the ‘class result sheet’ on the wall of the class-space (material environment) which then prompted feelings of ‘judgment’ and, in some cases, ‘anxiety’ (social environment).

Students’ thoughts on the purpose of fitness testing

Five of the 48 students (four males and one female), who were committed to club sport outside of school, could see how the process of fitness testing in HPE could link to their physically active lives beyond school. For example, when asked about the purpose of fitness testing, two of those five students commented that,

I know the agility run thing that we were shown would help towards netball, with the pivoting and everything. (Student 11, female)

I do sport, like footy and basketball. Knowing that I can run for longer helps with footy, knowing that I can be in the midfield or whatever I need to do. (Student 12, male)

The majority of students who were interviewed, however, did not see the fitness testing practices in their school as personally meaningful and/or significant for them. We know from scholarship related to meaningful physical education (Fletcher & Ní Chróinín, 2022) that personally relevant learning – together with social interaction, fun, challenge, motor competence, and delight – are key components of HPE that can promote engagement, learning, and physically active lives (Kretchmar, 2006). Based on the data presented in this paper and elsewhere (e.g. Saffron & Landi, 2021), it seems that common traditional fitness testing practices (e.g. publicly sharing results, being compared to norms, whole-class ‘beep tests’) are not fulfilling the criteria of meaningful HPE.

The findings generally suggested that the purpose of the fitness testing was unclear for most students. When asked ‘What did you learn through fitness testing?’ one student, for example, stated that ‘I feel like I should learn something, but no’ (Student 13, male). Another commented that ‘There’s not much to it (fitness testing)’ (Student 14, male). Five of the 48 students shared their thoughts on the educative purpose of their fitness testing lessons, with two stating that:

It’s about our teachers trying to look and see, pinpoint where our ability is, and all the goals we can make and achieve for later on in the year. (Student 15, female)

If we're at the level we need to be for our age. (Student 16, male)

In the above quotes, and the interviews more broadly, there is an absence of commentary related to learning or education, instead the purpose of fitness testing for the students who responded tended to revolve around assessing ‘ability’ or ‘level’ of fitness, and/or setting ‘goals’. One student also felt that fitness testing was a response to ‘it’s always on the news that like 45% of kids are obese’ (Student 17, male). The ways that students from this study viewed the purpose of fitness testing aligned strongly with the biomedical and individualised views of Australian Secondary HPE teachers that were uncovered by Alfrey and Gard (2014). These findings also reaffirm earlier claims of Cale et al. (2014) in England, and Hopple and Graham (1995) and Phillips et al. (2021) in the United States who argued that the educative purpose of traditional fitness testing was questionable.

The findings suggest that not only was the educative purpose of the fitness testing unclear for many students, but also the images in particular suggest that their affective experiences of testing could prove mis-educative. That is to say, the feelings of pressure, anxiety, and judgment, for example, could potentially serve to limit, arrest, or distort further experiences (Dewey, 1938) related to fitness/testing, HPE, school, physical activity, and beyond. On this basis, it is clear that new approaches to fitness testing in HPE need to be discovered and enacted. Tinning (2014, p. 209) reminded us that while many critical pedagogues have been successful in terms of critique, they have been less able to offer alternative practices and thus help ‘young people escape from the tyranny of the cult of the body’. This project goes some way to redressing the limitation of critical pedagogues outlined by Tinning (2014) by firstly providing a context of discovery (for new approaches to fitness testing) before examining the context of practical social application, and the impact of new approaches on student learning and experiences of fitness testing and education.

Context of discovery: students hopes for fitness testing

In the context of discovery (Engeström, 1991), this research sought to explore how students would change traditional fitness testing practices, and why. The focus group interviews presented an opportunity for students to collaboratively discover ways to change or modify traditional fitness testing practices so that they could feel more comfortable participating, and feel less ‘overwhelmed’, ‘anxious’ and ‘scared’ by the process. The student ‘discoveries’ spanned pre-testing, testing, and post-testing. In terms of pre-testing, students said they would appreciate ‘more notice before it happens’ (Student 18, male) so that they could mentally and physically prepare. As one student commented, ‘Sometimes it (fitness testing) just gets sprung on us and we aren’t ready. I’d like to get ready for it ‘ (Student 19, female).

In terms of the tests themselves, some students commented that they would prefer that not all tests were carried out in the same class in a temporal sense. One student, for example, suggested that teachers ‘Spread out the tests and stuff … because if you do the beep test, and then you do that 20-meter shuttle, you’ll be out of breath, and you’d probably hurt yourself’ (Student 20, female). Both suggestions were positioned as solutions for students who did not feel adequately prepared to participate in the testing or thought that their performance in tests would be compromised due to fatigue.

Other discoveries or suggestions were presented as a response to feelings of judgment that many of the students experienced. As an alternative to the aforementioned ‘class result sheet’, one student suggested that each student could ‘have our own record sheet instead of the class one on the wall’ (Student 21, male). Also, in response to feelings of judgment, most of the focus groups discovered that they would prefer to ‘go somewhere away from the class to do the tests’ (Student 22, female), ideally with a small group of chosen friends. Generally, the data suggest that the students would value the opportunity to make decisions about which tests they participated in, where they carried out the test and with whom. This echoes the findings of Mercier and Silverman (2014), O’Keeffe et al. (2021) and Phillips et al. (2017). Moreover, the suggestions raised by the students could go some way to responding to the concerns raised by Røset et al. (2020) that HPE can often be a context of ‘othering’ and being judged based on, for example, physical appearance and/or competence.

Worthy of note is that throughout the focus group interviews, empathy was frequently exhibited by the five students who were excited to participate in fitness testing, and who described themselves as ‘elite kids’ in this context. They could quickly articulate why some students might not enjoy the process, identify possible causes of discomfort, and develop solutions to overcome the issue. For example, one student suggested that other students who are less comfortable with some fitness testing practices could ‘do fitness testing with their mates … so they (teachers) don't have to compare them to the elite kids’ (Student 23, male).

As mentioned above, most students did not feel that they learnt anything through the fitness testing process. This was problematic for many, and it was suggested by one student that ‘I’d like to know more about why I’m being tested and what I should be learning’ (Student 24, female). This finding supported those of others who have found that students are often unclear of the educative purpose of fitness testing for them (e.g. Cale & Harris, 2009; Phillips et al., 2021). In summary, the students who are participating in this study discovered in collaboration the following changes they would like to make to current fitness testing practices.

Students would value the opportunity to choose:

• where they are tested, ideally in an area of the school away from the rest of the class;

• who they are tested with, with most preferring to self-test with a few chosen friends;

• which tests they participate in.

Students were also very clear that they wanted:

• to know the purpose of fitness testing generally, and each test in particular;

• to be clear on the learning that should be taking place;

• for the results not to be published or shared.

These suggestions lend weight to calls from Prusak and Vincent (2005), and more recently O’Keeffe et al. (2021), for fitness testing be carried out in an environment that supports student agency. The suggestions also support and extend recommendations that have been provided by scholars in the past. Please engage with Cale et al. (2014, p. 392), for example, who provide a rich list of recommendations for teachers, including: ‘Adopt a critical attitude towards “performativity” and health “surveillance” … ’; ‘Do not allow monitoring to dominate or be conducted in isolation but ensure it is fully and appropriately integrated into the physical education curriculum … ’; and ‘Minimise the potential public and comparative nature of monitoring and focus on personal improvement over time, not comparisons with others’. Such recommendations have been supported more recently by scholars such as Phillips et al. (2017) and O’Keeffe et al. (2021).

Most students in this study did not want their fitness test results to be shared with anyone. This contradicts the work of O’Keeffe et al. (2021) who found that students who shared their fitness test results with a parent/carer had ‘significantly’ more positive attitudes towards fitness testing in comparison to those who did not share their results. Arguably, those who score high or above the norm are more likely to share their results with others. Linking back to the importance of creating an environment that supports student agency, and the data from this study, it seems conducive to suggest that students have the choice to share their results or not.

The findings shared here highlight some of the pedagogical possibilities for fitness testing and affirm the work from Hovdal et al. (2023) that ‘It’s Not Just About the Activity, It’s Also About How the Activity is Facilitated’. That is to say, if we can discover alternative ways of ‘facilitating’ fitness testing then we can arguably support more positive student experiences of fitness testing and HPE more broadly. This, Corbin (2010) would suggest, is more likely to support lifelong physical activity – a frequently cited aim of HPE.

Before concluding, it is worth acknowledging that whilst this paper offers new insights into students’ experiences of, and hopes for, fitness testing in HPE, the data were collected in one school and with a relatively small sample. Generalisability is not the aim here, and teachers are advised to invite their own students to share their feelings about and hopes for fitness testing and HPE in their school.

Concluding thoughts

Traditional school-based fitness testing is a ‘critical project’ in more than one sense. Firstly, decades of research and debate tell us that transforming the enactment of fitness testing is of critical importance, at least for some students (e.g. Cale et al., 2014; Saffron & Landi, 2021). Secondly, reconfiguring fitness testing in schools constitutes a critical project in and of itself. That is, it is a project whereby the intention is to disrupt the status quo, and question, challenge, and problematise current power relations which serve to reinforce the privileging of particular people (i.e. fit, fast, flexible and strong) and practices within HPE (Tinning, 2002). Critical work ‘is always somewhat unpopular and uncomfortable’ (Fitzpatrick & Russell, 2013, p.1140) but in this instance it is also necessary if the intention is for HPE to, at the very least, do no harm. This research and the scholarship it builds on have highlighted that fitness testing can indeed do harm to some students, and that harm can have consequences into adulthood (e.g. Ladwig et al., 2018).

This paper has demonstrated how an expansive learning approach can catalyse this critical project, and the discovery of more educative, equitable, and student-centred approaches to fitness testing. That said, the complexity of the pedagogical encounter (Lusted, 1986) means that the path from ‘discovery’ to ‘practical social application’ will probably be uncomfortable (Fitzpatrick & Russell, 2013) and non-linear. The good news is that the findings shared here demonstrate that students, as important elements of the pedagogical encounter, are willing and able to support the profession – including teachers, teacher educators, curriculum writers, professional organisations – in expansive learning, and thus questioning (of the status quo), discovery (of new approaches) and experimentation (via practical social application). The findings from this project not only highlight the necessity to see students as social and affective beings (Tinning, 2014), but also as a source of support as the HPE profession collectively moves toward more educative, equitable, and student-centred approaches to fitness testing and HPE more broadly.

Acknowledgements

The findings shared in this paper were only possible because one teacher was willing to challenge the status quo if deemed necessary by their students. Thank you to the wonderful Head of Department I was lucky to work with – thank you for your willingness to be vulnerable, reflect, and collaborate to find new ways to approach the planning and enactment of fitness testing in their school. Thanks to the entire HPE department, too, for taking this project in with gusto. Thanks also go to the school leadership team, who graciously made this research possible. Huge thanks, of course, go to the students and their parents/carers for volunteering to participate in this research. It evoked some perhaps troubling feelings for some students, and that did not go unnoticed. Thank you so much for sharing your feelings and thoughts with me. Huge thanks to the critical (and fabulous) friend referred to in the methods section – Amanda Mooney. Finally, thank you to Zali Yager for introducing me to the ‘feelings wheel’ and her contributions to research and action related to fitness testing and body image more broadly.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Monash University Large Grant.

Notes on contributors

Laura Alfrey

Laura Alfrey is a teacher educator and researcher in the School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education, in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Laura's research leads to the transformation of policy and practice in primary, secondary, tertiary and community settings. Her work extends the sub-discipline of HPE by supporting those within it to understand and create theoretically-rich and evidence-based alternatives to historically-rooted, exclusive and mis-educative ideologies and practices.