HW499 Unit 4 Needs Assessment Report Example

Fourteen Minutes and Thirty-Eight Percent Gone: A Unit 4 Needs Assessment Report on Activity at Six After-School Sites

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HW499: Bachelor's Capstone in Health and Wellness

Unit 4 Needs Assessment Report

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Cotter Bend, its sites, staff and every figure are composite; the observation tool and research cited are real.

Purpose

The evidence review established that children in after-school programs are often less active than they could be and that schedule, game format and staff behavior predict activity. This assessment asks whether those patterns hold at Cotter Bend's six sites, how large the gap is and where it comes from.

Methods

Three sources were used.

Direct observation. Two observers, trained together on a scan protocol adapted from SOSPAN, an established tool for after-school settings (Weaver et al., 2014), visited each of the six sites on four afternoons in October, twenty-four visits in all. At set intervals, observers scanned designated areas and recorded how many children were sedentary, walking or very active, along with what staff were doing. Training visits continued until the two observers' counts agreed closely; those early visits were discarded. Minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity per child per afternoon were estimated from the share of scans in which children were walking or very active, applied to the minutes children were present.

Sign-out records. Each site's paper sign-out sheets for October were reviewed to find when children left. No names were recorded; only the time of each sign-out.

Staff survey. All 31 part-time recreation leaders were invited to an anonymous survey about their training, the games they use and the barriers they see. Twenty-six responded.

Findings

1. Estimated moderate-to-vigorous activity: 14 minutes per child per afternoon on average across the six sites, ranging from 9 minutes at a school site where the program uses the cafeteria to 21 minutes at a recreation center with its own gym and field.

2. Children gone before the 5:00 activity period: 38 percent, based on October sign-out times.

3. Leaders ever trained in active games: 7 of 26 respondents.

4. Share of gym time spent in elimination games such as knockout or dodgeball: about half of observed gym minutes.

5. Staff joining in or encouraging play during gym time: recorded in about one scan in five; most scans recorded staff supervising from the side.

How Reliable Are the Figures?

Observation estimates are approximations. Scans record what children are doing at moments, not continuously, and the estimate of active minutes depends on how many scans were made and how long children were present. The two observers' agreement was checked before the counted visits began, and both used the same written definitions. The figures are best read as comparisons, between sites and between this October and future rounds, rather than as exact counts for any one child. The sign-out data are more precise, since they come from written times, though some sheets were incomplete on busy days.

Interpretation

Fourteen minutes is below the roughly 20 minutes reported in after-school programs studied elsewhere (Trost et al., 2008), and far from the hour children need each day (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018). The gap has local causes.

Schedule. The activity period comes last, at 5:00, and more than a third of children have already gone home. Those children receive no scheduled activity at all on a typical day.

Game format. Elimination games filled about half of gym time. In those games, children who are out sit and wait. Research comparing traditional games with versions that keep all children involved found substantially more activity in the modified versions (Brazendale et al., 2015).

Staff practice. Most leaders have never been trained in active games, and most supervise rather than lead or join play. The survey's most common comment was "We just do what the kids already know."

Site differences. The two recreation center sites, with their own gyms and fields, averaged more activity than the four school sites, where the program shares space with school events and is sometimes moved to the cafeteria.

The low activity at Cotter Bend is not a fact about these children; it is the result of a schedule that puts activity after many have left, games that send children to the wall and staff who were never shown another way.

Groups the Assessment Barely Reached

The assessment has gaps. Observers visited only in October, so winter weather, when outdoor time disappears, is not represented. Children were observed as groups, so the assessment cannot show which children were least active, though the evidence review suggests girls tend to be less active than boys (Trost et al., 2008). Parents were not surveyed, so their reasons for early pickup are unknown, and a future round could ask them.

What Leaders Said

The staff survey's open-ended answers added detail the observations could not. Several leaders said they would like to run different games but did not know any that worked with thirty children in a small gym. Some said children ask for knockout and complain about anything new. Others said the 5:00 slot felt like a reward at the end of the day and worried that moving it would make homework time harder. One wrote that they had never been told that activity was a goal of the program at all. These comments suggest that leaders are not resistant to change; they lack the tools and the direction.

Constraints for the Design

The design will need to work within several constraints the assessment found. School sites lose gym access on some afternoons for school events. Leaders work short shifts and turnover is high; the program manager estimates that about four in ten leaders leave each year. Homework time is a commitment parents value and the department has promised.

Comparison With Other Programs

Set beside published studies, the Cotter Bend figures are low but not unusual. Programs elsewhere have reported children reaching about twenty active minutes during the session (Trost et al., 2008), and the recreation center sites here come close to that. The school sites, with less space and less gym access, pull the average down. The comparison suggests that the gap is not about the children or the neighborhoods but about the space and how the afternoon is organized.

Conclusion

The six sites have a clear, local problem with identifiable causes: activity scheduled too late, elimination games and untrained staff. Each cause is within the department's control. The design that follows will address all three, and the evaluation will return to these same sites with the same observers to see whether they changed.

References

Brazendale, K., Chandler, J. L., Beets, M. W., Weaver, R. G., Beighle, A., Huberty, J. L., & Moore, J. B. (2015). Maximizing children's physical activity using the LET US Play principles. Preventive Medicine, 76, 14-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.012

Trost, S. G., Rosenkranz, R. R., & Dzewaltowski, D. (2008). Physical activity levels among children attending after-school programs. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 40(4), 622-629. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e318161eaa5

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2018). Physical activity guidelines for Americans (2nd ed.). https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/physical-activity-guidelines

Weaver, R. G., Beets, M. W., Webster, C., & Huberty, J. (2014). System for Observing Staff Promotion of Activity and Nutrition (SOSPAN). Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 11(1), 173-185. https://doi.org/10.1123/jpah.2012-0007