Assessment Of Physical Fitness Variables Among Rural And Urban Area School Boys Of Kashmir Region

Abstract

Physical fitness has been proposed as a metric for adolescent health. Physical fitness has a
multidimensional structure and is a major predictor of health among children and adolescents. It can
predict an individual’s health state later in life. The purpose of the study was to compare and assess
physical fitness variables (speed and agility) among school boys (11, 12 and 13 years) of Kashmir
Region. To achieve the purpose, 1200 school boys of age group 11 to 13 years, were randomly selected
from two areas (rural and urban) of Kashmir Region. The physical fitness variables selected for this study
were speed and agility and were measured by 50 meter run and Shuttle run test. The collected data on
selected criterion variables were statistically analyzed by using 2 × 3 factorial ANOVA to find out the
significant difference, whenever the interaction effect was found to be significant the simple effect and
then least significant difference (LSD) post hoc test was applied to find out the paired mean difference. In
all the cases 0.05 level of confidence was fixed to test the hypothesis. Findings of the study disclose that
significant difference in agility and speed was found between the interaction of region and age. The data
will be used as a motivator to encourage schoolboys to engage in physical activity. The study ends with
suggestions for acceptable evaluative measures and early intervention programmes for schoolboys.