Despite consensus that physical fitness (PF) plays an important role in promoting mental health and academic achievement, little is known regarding the mechanisms by which this effect works. Blair, Cheng, and Holder (2001) proposed a conceptual model to identify the behavioral mechanism of health outcomes, in which both health-related PF and skill-related PF were identified as the direct determinants of health outcomes. Guided by Blair and colleagues' model, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the association between health-related PF, skill-related PF, depression and academic achievement among adolescents. The second purpose was to investigate whether depression would mediate the association between physical fitness and academic achievement among this population. A total of 144 adolescents (M age ¼ 14.55, SD ¼ 0.62)

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Purpose: Teacher knowledge of rules, techniques, and tactics is called common content knowledge. Such knowledge is essential for effective teaching of physical education. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of a test of soccer common content knowledge. Method: Rasch modeling was used to evaluate the validity and reliability of a test of soccer to a sample of 530 Chinese teacher education students. Results: Twenty-seven of 30 questions demonstrated good item-model fit. Moderately high internal consistency for personability and high internal consistency for item difficulty are reported. There were gaps between personability estimates and item-difficulty levels at the lower and higher ends of the map, indicating a lack of more easy and difficult questions. Conclusion: The analysis provides evidence to support the validity and reliability of this instrument as a test of soccer common content knowledge for Chinese preservice physical education teachers.

This study examined the status of principals' physical education (PE) perceptions, the differences between gender and school-levels of these principals' PE perceptions; and what they have to say about the opportunities, challenges and solutions on their school PE. Participants were 92 principals (37 Males, 55 Females) from 12 different school districts of Shanghai. The Adapt Principal Perception on PE Questionnaire Chinese Version (APPPEQ C.V.) was employed for data collection; this questionnaire consists of sixteen items with a 5-points Likert like scale. Key data analyses technich  technique was a 2 x 2 (Gender x School-levels) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Findings included: The principals' PE perceptions appear to be very positive evident by scored high on the APPPEQ C.V. E.g. Item 5, "Without PE in our school curricula, our students will not be fully developed"; Item 11, "Once PE and daily PA are valued and supported, children will gradually form their active and healthy lifestyle". The MANOVA discovered that: no significant difference in the 'Gender' factor; however, significant differences were found in the 'School-levels' factor: Elementary-school principals scored higher than middle-school principals in 5 items; e.g. Item 3, "PE is an academic discipline and just as important as English, Math and Sciences to our students". While principals at middle-school scored higher than those of the elementary-school in other 5 items; e.g. Items 14, "Safe environment, necessary facilities and equipment is the key for kids to. . ." The challenges, opportunities and solutions in their school PE do existed and were analyzed and discussed.

Background: Promotion of psychological well-being (PWB) is an emerging social, educational, and health objective, especially for school-aged children. Few studies have examined key correlates and determinants of PWB in school-aged children. This study aimed to examine associations of cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function with psychological well-being in school-aged children. Methods: The study participants were 752 fourth-grade students (mean age = 9.61 years, SD = 0.608) recruited from six elementary schools. Students took the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run® test to assess their cardiorespiratory fitness, and the d2 Test of Attention to assess concentration performance, attention span, and attention accuracy. They also completed the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale to assess their psychological well-being (PWB). After removing missing values and outliers from the original data set, the final data set, consisting of 689 cases (370 boys vs. 319 girls), was used for data analysis. Data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, multiple linear regression models, and independent sample t-tests. Results: The results indicated that cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function are significant correlates of PWB (r = −0.069, r = 0.161). Further, the results found that cardiorespiratory fitness, concentration performance, attention span, and attention accuracy were significantly collective predictors of psychological well-being (F = 13.299, p = 0.000), accounting for 12% of the total variance. Cardiorespiratory fitness was the most significantly individual predictor of PWB (β = 0.174, p = 0.000), followed by the attention accuracy (β = −0.090, p = 0.031). The Welch’s tests revealed that the high-PWB group scored significantly higher than the low-PWB group in cardiorespiratory fitness, concentration performance, and attention accuracy (t = 4.093, p = 0.000, Cohen’s d = 0.310; t = 3.340, p = 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.256; t = −2.958, p = 0.003, Cohen’s d = 0.130). Conclusions: Cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function are significant correlates and predictors of PWB among school-aged children. The students with a higher level of psychological well-being showed a higher cardiorespiratory fitness, concentration performance, and attention accuracy compared to the lower level of PWB group.