Dissemination of a Physical Activity Policy on School Websites in Alberta and British Columbia

Authors

  • Katie Weatherson University of British Columbia Okanagan
  • Brent Bradford Concordia University of Edmonton
  • Stephen Berg University of British Columbia Okanagan
  • Stefanie Sloboda Concordia University of Edmonton

Keywords:

Daily Physical Activity, Implementation, Policy

Abstract

Most children in Canada are not physically active enough to achieve health benefits. The Daily Physical Activity (DPA) policy was mandated in Alberta and British Columbia (BC) to help children accumulate more physical activity during the school day. Dissemination of DPA policy requirements is necessary to ensure that policy adoption at a provincial level is implemented at the school- and classroom-level. The purpose of this study was to examine if school boards and individual schools in Alberta and BC recognize the DPA initiative and to explore how DPA information is presented on their websites. After reviewing the policy statements for each province, provincial school websites were scanned for DPA content and it was found that the majority of school boards and individual schools are not using websites as a means to disseminate DPA initiative information. Future research should examine whether or not school boards use other systems to disseminate and monitor the implementation of such policies. This is critical to ensure implementation fidelity and effective evaluation in the future.

Keywords: physical activity policy, school, children

Downloads

Published

2016-10-24

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 2 (2016): Revue phénEPS-PHEnex Journal

Section

Feature Articles / Articles de fond

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

    1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after publication, while providing bibliographic details that credit PHENex (See The Effect of Open Access).