Assessment and reconstruction of aahper test for sri lankan youth aged 10 – 17

Abstract

The physical fitness is the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigorous and alertness without undue fatigue. A fit and healthy person will live longer and youth are backbone to nation. Therefore the research question raised to assess the fitness level of the Sri Lankan youth and objective of the study was to construct a new fitness test norms for Sri Lankan age 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 years old youth boys and girls based on AAHPER test. To achieve the purpose of this study 1000 girls and boys (age 10-17 years) selected from various provinces in Sri Lanka by random sampling method. The data were collected using the AAHPER test batteries which consist with six test items 50 yard run, standing broad jump, shuttle run, pull-up for boys and flex arm hang for girls, sit up and 600 yard run respectively and was analyzed by using SPSS. From the results, following percentile norms were created 5th 10th 15th 20th 25th 30th 35th 40th 45th 50th 55th 60th 65th 70th 75th 80th 85th 90th 95th 100th. From the results it was concluded that, newly constructed norms are slightly lower than AAHPER youth fitness test battery. Hence it was recommended that, newly constructed fitness norms are appropriate to categorize fitness level of the Sri Lankan youth. Further studies are essential to enhance the reliability and validity of the newly constructed norms.