A Study of Reliability of the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test as Applied to Male Visually Handicapped Students at the North Dakota State School for the Blind

The lack of physical fitness exhibited by American youth as compared to European youth has prompted the development of the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test to assay the physical fitness of children in the public schools. This test is being administered to thousands of public school children every year. Today, over sixty percent of the visually handicapped students are receiving their education in the schools of the communities where they live. The AAHPER Youth Fitness Test has been found to be reliable when administered to normal children. This study was formulated to determine the reliability of the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test as applied to visually handicapped children. The total male population between the ages of ten and eighteen, at the North Dakota State School for the Blind, was administered the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test on a test-retest basis. The two test dates were one week apart so that the subject\u27s physical condition should not have changed appreciably. Using Spearman\u27s Rank-Difference Correlation, a correlation coefficient was established for each test item. The null hypothesis stated that the reliability of the AAHPER Youth Fitness Test would be zero. The alternate hypothesis was that if the coefficients were above the designated level of significance, the items were related. The .01 level of significance was used in accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis. The rank order reliability coefficients obtained were 0.60 for the sit-up, 0.93 for the shuttle run, 0.99 for the standing broad jump, 0.98 for the pull-up, 0.97 for the 50-yard dash, 0.87 for the 600-yard run-walk, and 0.98 for the softball throw for distance. The rank order reliability coefficient obtained in the sit-up test item was not sig- I nificant at the .01 level. All other reliability coefficients were found to be significant