Learn by Doing: A CURE approach to teaching exercise testing and prescription

The purpose of this paper is to outline a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) for exercise testing and prescription. The CURE is a non-human research study aimed to evaluate whether readily available fitness applications (apps) follow the Frequency-Intensity- Time-Type (FITT) principle for exercise prescription. The CURE is intended to be incorporated into an in-person introductory level course over the final month of the term. Through the project, students will develop a research question and hypothesis, conduct a literature review of related research, appraise fitness apps, and congregate the results. The overall structure of the CURE is a mini-lecture from the instructor, group work, submission of assignments, and peer review. This approach is relatively novel to testing and prescription but can be impactful. Students are exposed to research while gaining soft and hard skills that can be translated into their future work and the instructor is able to bring their research activity into the classroom. Participation in this CURE also provides students and instructors an opportunity to contribute to the Fitness App Assessment Repository (FAAR).