Evaluation of Students’ Physical Fitness Levels in Physical Education and Sports Classes Along With Their Academic Achievement and Predisposition to Physical Education Before and After The Pandemic

This research focuses on evaluating the changes in physical fitness levels, academic performance, and attitudes towards physical education among 8th-grade middle school students, comparing data collected before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The research encompasses two different groups of students studying in Ankara, totaling 80 students with 40 girls and 40 boys during the 2017-2018 and 2020-2021 academic years. The FITNESSGRAM test battery was utilized to assess physical fitness, including metrics such as shuttle runs, flexibility tests, push-ups, sit-ups, and body mass index (BMI). Academic performance was gauged using the students' 8th-grade grade point averages. The Physical Education Lesson Inclination Scale (PELI), originally created by Hilland et al. (2009) and translated into Turkish by Öncü et al. (2015), was employed to evaluate students' attitudes and self-efficacy regarding physical education. The results indicate significant changes in students' physical and academic performances during the pandemic period. In the post-pandemic period, significant increases were observed in students' shuttle run, flexibility, and push-up counts, while their GPA and PELI scores also increased. There was a minor reduction in BMI values. However, an analysis of the performance changes between female and male students before and after the pandemic revealed no statistically significant gender-based differences. These findings suggest that the pandemic period had varied effects on students' physical activities and academic achievements. Socioeconomic status, parental education level, and other confounding variables are thought to play a significant role in this relationship. The findings suggest that the influence of physical activity on academic performance can vary between genders, with aerobic fitness in particular showing a potential positive effect on academic success.