10 steps to design a a physical fitness monitoring system

A mission statement is the bedrock to developing and sustaining a successful physical fitness monitoring system. By identifying the purpose of your work, all stakeholders can better understand the aims and scope of your monitoring system.

Key issues to consider include:

Create a clear, thorough, but simple mission statement which reflects the purpose of your physical fitness monitoring system. It should be a summary of what the system will do for its stakeholders. It focuses also on why your organisation provides a physical fitness monitoring system for its community.
Define the aims of your physical fitness monitoring system. The aims are statements of intent. They are usually written in broad terms and should reflect what you hope to achieve within the implementation of your monitoring system generally, as well as for certain groups of stakeholders specifically (e.g. teachers, students and their parents, policymakers, doctors).

Case Serbia: The mission and main aims of the Serbian physical fitness surveillance system

The mission of the Serbian physical fitness surveillance system is “to promote and raise awareness of the importance of lifelong physical activity and the value of healthconscious lifestyles among school-age students, their families and those in public education”.

The main aims for Serbia include the following statements:

To enable regular testing of all schoolchildren and adolescents (in physical education classes) using a systemized and standardized testing approach.
To provide age and gender-specific feedback to the teacher, the individual student, and his/her parents based on national centile values.
To enable follow-up feedback of the individual student and class changes in fitness levels across the child's growth and development.
To provide recommendations to students and their parents on how best to maintain or improve physical fitness levels.
To educate students and their parents concerning the importance of lifelong physical activity and the value of maintaining a health-conscious lifestyle.

A further aim of the Serbian physical fitness surveillance system is:

To support health-related scientific research in children and youngsters on various issues (biological, anthropometric, motor, physiological, etc), aiming to elucidate the importance and contribution of physical activity and fitness to the overall health.

Case Hungary: The mission and main aims of NETFIT®

The mission of the Hungarian National Student Fitness Test – so called NETFIT® - is “to promote and raise awareness of the significance of the physically active, healthconscious behaviour throughout a lifetime among school aged youth, their families, and the stakeholders of the public education system”.

The main aims for students include:

Objectively inform students and their parents about health-related physical fitness and potential health-risk factors.
Help track health-related physical fitness development of the students in different levels.
Support the fitness education process in physical education and beyond
Support physical activity and curricular intervention programmes on individual-, classroom-, school- and national level.

Your fitness monitoring system should be built with all interested stakeholders in mind, including teachers, the students’ parents, health-care professionals, and other interested third parties, with the student at the center of the system’s objectives. This will provide educational resources to various fields of knowledge, and other IT solutions that result in improvements of physical fitness and health. Meetings/ workshops can be organized to involve all stakeholders, to incorporate their points of view into the proposed national system in accordance to stakeholders’ needs and expectations, either throughout the system’s conception phase (using a co-design strategy), or after the system has already been implemented and open to minor adjustments along the way.

Students

The monitoring system should provide resources that endorse learning and physical literacy in the context of healthy lifestyles with an impact on the systematic measurement of 24-hour movement behaviors which commonly occur across the whole day, including all kinds of physical activities, sedentary behaviour, screen time, and sleep.
Through its content, the monitoring system should contribute to the involvement, education, and inspiration of students to motivate them to continue cultivating healthy movement behaviors.

Parents

Through the monitoring system, parents should be able to access individualized reports on their child’s physical fitness tests results, which can be used to help them track their progress. This information can be shared with other stakeholders, such as doctors, with the parents’ permission, in order to improve the articulation between health-risk-related fitness information and general health care providers.
The educational content in the platform should be made available for parents/families in order to improve their child’s physical fitness and health-related outcomes, and also to provide content aimed specifically for parents to increase their own physical literacy, in the context of maintaining a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their family.

Teachers

The monitoring system should be an appealing IT solution for teachers to use as an educational tool for enhancing students’ physical literacy, and also to provide the teachers with an easy interface for uploading their student’s physical fitness data, and for creating individualized reports.
Teachers can use available resources (exercise plans, reports, and videos) to inspire and optimize their pedagogical practices.

Health-care providers

Health-care providers, such as doctors, can be involved in the monitoring system as well by having direct access to the child’s physical fitness test reports. Reports can provide meaningful, up-to-date health-risk-related fitness information that can be used to track developmental issues for an individual child/adolescent.
Specific pedagogical material can be developed in partnership with the healthcare providers to increase child outreach and dissemination of sensitive topics (e.g. physical maturation changes, onset of menarche, menstruation), addressed privately with the child alone (in consultation with parents), and making these topics available also to all the remaining stakeholders, including teachers and families.

Other stakeholders

In order to reach a higher number of students and teachers, the monitoring system can also be implemented in partnership with as many institutions overseeing the educational process as possible, for example the country’s Ministry of Education, professional associations representing physical education teachers, or other stakeholders whose interests may be aligned with those of the monitoring system.

Case Portugal: Steps to involve stakeholders in Portugal

FITescola® is the name of the national fitness database in Portugal. Its initial goal was to increase the number of teachers and students utilizing the database within the Portuguese educational system. To achieve its objectives, FITescola® started by establishing a partnership between their main promoters, the Faculty of Human Kinetics (FMH) and the General Directorate of Education, which provided a direct access to the Portuguese educational system. The Faculty of Human Kinetics main roles were to develop, validate and integrate the software functionalities of the FITescola® platform, supervise from the scientific and technical point of view the training actions for physical education teachers, and perform the statistical analysis within an epidemiological scope.

The main steps were:

Establish a partnership with the General Directorate of Education allowed the FITescola® program so that it became a mandatory component of the physical education curricular documents, whilst also providing access to the FITescola® platform to teachers and students data from the Portuguese public-school system. Since its launch in 2016/2017, the number of schools and teachers using the FITescola® platform has increased steadily, starting in its first year with an adherence rate of 38% and increasing to 49% for the 2018/2019 academic term.
Through the General Directorate of Education, this collaboration was extended to include the national associations representing physical education teachers, (e.g. Portuguese Physical Education Society, SPEF, and National Council of Associations of Physical Education Teachers, CNAPEF), in order to increase the mobilization of teachers in this curricular area. A secondary aim was to develop training and dissemination initiatives for the FITescola® program. Through collaborations with SPEF and CNAPEF, (while under the supervision of the General Directorate of Education), there were several workshops promoted at the national and local level which covered 1612 physical education teachers across the current lifespan of the programme.
Finally, stakeholders whose interests were aligned with those of the monitoring system, were invited to be involved in the conception of the FITescola platform (e.g. Portuguese Olympic Committee). The collaboration’s goal was to increase the importance given to physical fitness in the development of young athletes, and to promote new technologies associated with data collection and organization in this area of study.
Throughout the conception of the FITescola® platform, several educational contents were built to bridge the gap between teachers, students, and their families. These contents concerned not only on the physical fitness reports, but also provided fact sheets and videos to emphasize learning and physical literacy in the context of maintaining healthy lifestyles that impact on modifiable behaviors such as sedentary behavior, physical activity, and diet.

The scientific integrity of one’s physical fitness monitoring system is important to ensuring confidence in the system. It should convince stakeholders and society-at-large that your system is evidence-based and provides reliable feedback for further decision-making on an individual as well as population level.

When designing the scientific background of a physical fitness monitoring system, the following topics should be addressed:

Describe the role of physical fitness as an important driver for physical literacy
When establishing a physical fitness monitoring system, the focus should be on the contextual information provided to students, teachers, and parents. Fitness testing is much more than just ‘one more school assessment’ since it helps increase the physical literacy of the children and parents as well. Those who have high physical literacy are more attuned to how their body works, what it needs to function properly, and are better able to foster life-long physical activity habits1–5briefly, the findings of earlier research (Whitehead, 1987).
Present scientific evidence on the importance of monitoring physical fitness

For example, evidence indicates that physical fitness of children and adolescents is a marker of health in youth6, and powerful predictor of detrimental health outcomes in adulthood. Moreover, improvement in physical fitness positively affects mental health8, and improves quality of life.

From an educational perspective, it is meaningful to acknowledge that physical fitness is important not only for physical health, but also for brain health and function. Higher levels of aerobic fitness have been associated with better cognitive functions, especially executive functions, and better learning outcomes. Lately, the growing body of literature states that other aspects of physical fitness, muscular fitness, and motor skills, had similar associations with cognition and academic performance. Especially, better motor skills may predict better academic achievement, while both aerobic and muscular fitness may have a positive predictive effect on academic achievement through motor skills performance 52% girls.
Be sure to define the physical fitness components you want to monitor within the system

Physical fitness “is a set of attributes that people have or achieve”, traditionally including cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, muscular power, speed, flexibility, agility, balance, reaction time, and body composition. Because these attributes originally have been perceived to differ in their importance between athletic performance versus health, physical fitness has been further typically categorized into either health- or skill-related fitness.

For example, the ALPHA-FIT test battery includes cardiorespiratory fitness, musculoskeletal fitness, motor fitness and body composition. In some health-related physical fitness batteries, motor fitness might not be included, if authors consider that this component is more related to skills or performance (i.e. skill-related fitness) than health outcomes per se, and it is not so related to public health.

Regardless of the different approaches used, it can be said that improving motor fitness is often one of the primary goals of any physical education and youth sports program, since acquiring motor skills contributes to the foundation of maintaining an active lifestyle.
Set the age range and frequency of monitoring

Chronic diseases originate in childhood. There can be indications of early arteriosclerosis found in children as young as 6-years old boys. Since poor fitness tends to track well during a child’s growth and development early assessment of an individual’s fitness is warranted in order to create meaningful interventions. Field-based fitness measurements have been shown to be reliable in 4-6-year-old children, so quantifying fitness levels early is critical to future health development of the child.

Schools provide an optimal setting for monitoring fitness since children and adolescents attend school for several years. The majority of children in a given age group can usually be accessed by testing in public schools, regardless of students’ socioeconomic background, and earlier experiences of sports and physical activity.

The frequency of fitness monitoring depends on the aims of the system you wish to create. Having said this, it is suggested that monitoring children’ / adolescents’ physical fitness should be done at least annually since this timeframe enables accurate calculation of an individual’s developmental trajectory. Measurements conducted more rarely provide less information from an individual point of view, but can still be valuable when looking at generational changes, to evaluate the prevalence of low fitness in a population, and/or to identify at-risk individuals who may be eligible for interventions. By measuring fitness more than once annually (e.g. at beginning and at the end of school year) one can gain more detailed information on particular treatments over time, study seasonal variability or other variations.
Provide a set of valid, reliable, feasible and safe field-based fitness tests according to defined physical fitness components and age ranges

The fitness test battery should be time-efficient, low in cost and require minimal equipment which can be easily be administered to many children simultaneously. Including students with special needs in monitoring system is an important consideration and one which is encouraged; it is important to consider how tests may be modified to encourage greater participation in all students attending school.
Accommodate references for evaluation of fitness tests results

Scores on a physical fitness test can be meaningfully interpreted using normreferenced (i.e. percentile) evaluation and criterion-referenced evaluation which have been previously established in the literature. Utilizing both approaches complement each other and provide meaningful feedback.

The advantages of norm-referenced standards are that students can learn how they compare to other children and youth in a well-defined group (e.g., their age, gender, school, etc.). Percentiles are also easy to interpret, and widely available since they are used in most national standardized tests. One possible limitation to fitness testing data being expressed as percentile is that test standards are based on the child’s current level of performance rather than the level, they are capable of to achieving. Consider how to message the interpretation of your test battery and whether it is, for example, “good” for someone to achieve “average” fatness if that person has a level of fat that may be considered unhealthy or puts them at health risk. An additional disadvantage is that percentiles, (particularly those set to high levels), might discourage students whose fitness levels are considered moderate or low in their own test population, but could be fine when viewed from another context or sample. Keep in mind that using percentile results do not consider the student's health status when interpreting the results.

With criterion-referenced evaluations, a standard on a field test is determined which is related to a specific health outcome (i.e., the criterion). With fitness tests, the criterion is often some sort of health outcome (e.g., heart disease, body fatness, low back pain, etc.). Criterion-referenced standards suggest that there is a minimum level of performance that must be achieved before a student is said to be fit or healthy or at reduced risk. The minimum level is called “cut-off” score. Be careful if you want to use monitoring system also for identifying sport talents. Provide also physical activity monitoring if possible, to enhance feedback.

Case Hungary: Understanding the Scientific rationale for the NETFIT® System

The main objectives of NETFIT® were to build a new physical fitness test battery for physical education that would be health-related, based on criterion-referenced standards, and accepted throughout the whole country from the 2014/2015 academic school year. The test battery also had to be scientifically well-founded and be based on the nationally representative data from Hungarian youth aged 11-19-years-old. To meet these objectives, the Hungarian School Sport Federation (HSSF) requested direct assistance from the Cooper Institute to assist in building an infrastructure for full deployment of their national student fitness assessment program.

In order to ensure a strong scientific foundation for the Hungarian schoolchildren, we first planned a representative study with the following aims:

Determine the levels of health-related physical fitness in a random sample of Hungarian youth.
Use the laboratory data to evaluate the utility of the existing FITNESSGRAM® standards for detecting health risks in a subset of Hungarian youth.
Directly evaluate the validity of the FITNESSGRAM® test items in Hungarian youth.
A combination of lab and field-based evaluations were used to test these aims and these were designed to ensure a strong scientific basis for the continued use of these test items in Hungary as part of the Hungarian National Student Fitness Test (NETFIT®). These data also provided valuable benchmark values of fitness that could serve as baseline data for future comparisons. Details of the study are summarized in a supplement of Research Quarterly for exercise and sport with 10 scientific papers.

Establishing and maintaining functional operational governance of the monitoring system is critical. Decades of experience from many countries have shown that until fitness measurements are regulated centrally, a widely adopted monitoring system will not be established.

Issues to be considered when structuring governance:

Define key players, their responsibilities, relationships, and the process of decision making:

Policy decision-making work is possible from two directions. The top-down approach is mainly typical of countries with a centralized education system. In this case, the introduction can be based on a policy initiative. At the same time, the bottom-up approach initiates the introduction in a form presented on the basis of wide-ranging collaborations and professional consensus, in a bottom-up form. This is particularly the case for decentralized education systems.

The pros related to bottom-up form is the wide involvement of stakeholders and the higher rate of acceptance. However, this system can be inefficient in decision making. The top-down approach enables direct decision making but is more prone to resistance. The optimal governance model could therefore be something in between, or a hybrid model where bottom-up approach in used initially and gradually transferred to a top-down model.
Develop regulation and evaluate legislative requirements:

It is important upon starting to develop a fitness assessment system to prepare the regulation (legislation) within the mission and aims of the system. Specific emphasis is directed on:
- Effect and scope of the regulation (personal – e.g. from what age; subject: e.g. all schools or only certain schools; territorial (e.g. national or regional assessment)
- Data management matters: who manages what data and to whom may they pass them on?
- Is the operation the task of the Government or can it be outsourced to a professional organization?
- What level of legal regulation is needed (law, regulation) or is a professional recommendation enough?
- Monitor and react to changes in legislation

Case Hungary: Establishing the Legal background of NETFIT®

In the case of Hungary, one of the points of the Hungarian Government’s program for 2010 was the need to introduce a nationally-standardized fitness monitoring system. In accordance with the provisions of the government’s program, the Hungarian School Sport Federation became the designated organization that planned, discussed, developed, and operated the standardized and mandatory test battery that has been implemented in schools since 2015.

In the research and development work, there were continuous consultations with both the professional organizations of physical education, as well as with the Ministry of Education and the Educational Authority. As a result of the cooperation and consultations, the legal conditions were developed that ensure the obligation of the measurement, the measurement methodology and the regulations related to data management.
The Hungarian legal background regulates school measurements on several levels, including the fitness assessment. At the highest level, the 2011. CXC act on National Public Education (§80) disposes the matter. An important regulation is the Decree 20/2012 (VIII. 31.) on the operation of educational institutions and the use of names of public educational institutions published by the Ministry of Human Capacities on 27th of October 2014, which appraised NETFIT® as the nationally standardized fitness assessment system and requires the measurement data to be uploaded to the online IT system of NETFIT®. From then on, a ministerial decree prescribes the information on the assessments for a given school year annually.
It is therefore important to consider that the introduction of a national fitness assessment system is preceded by a high-level policy decision.

Case Slovenia: Regulation should promptly follow legal changes

According to the school legislation in Slovenia, all primary and secondary schools (i.e. grades 1-13) must follow the somatic and motor development of their students, and are obligated to provide them feedback on their fitness progress. Until 1996, participation in the national system SLOfit was obligatory for all students. However, when a new Data Protection Law was enacted, informed parental consent was introduced to the system. The introduction of parental consent did not affect participation rates in the programme, which have remained over 94% participation rates in the primary school population (6- to 14-year-olds) and above 75% in the secondary school population (15- to 19-year-olds). One of the important factors contributing to these high participation rates is that the national physical education curriculum obligates teachers to survey somatic and motor development of students and teach them how to monitor and influence their own developmental progress.

However, in the 2000’s, some school legislation changed in some sections (but not necessarily in a uniform way) which did impact the regulatory acts of the SLOfit measurements. The situation became more and more complicated as the years continued, especially as the key stakeholder (Ministry of Education) did not express/ accumulate enough political will to solve the compounding confusions. With the introduction of the privacy legislation GDPR, some secondary schools’ data protection officers advised principals not to participate in SLOfit. SLOfit devised an alternate legal solution (i.e. contracts with each school) within existing legislation framework, however, due to unknown reasons, the Ministry did not endorse this solution, and in effect, many of secondary schools did not participate in SLOfit for the 2020 academic year. These continuing issues mean that the SLOfit team must keep a vigilant watch over evolving legislation and provide continuous pressure on Ministry officials in order to ensure the smooth running of the national fitness surveillance system.

Case Portugal: The articulation between different partners and government structures

The articulation of the different strategic partners requires a clear explanation of the responsibilities that each one must assume in the development of the program. With a higher number of partners involved other problems may arise such as addressing the agendas of each institution creating possible issues on how quickly problems can be addressed. The solutions involve greater effectiveness centralized at the government level by the Secretary of State for Education.

It is extremely important to secure sufficient funding so that your monitoring system will be well-established, and guarantee that it can be maintained, otherwise the system will inevitably collapse. To ensure adequate funding, the monitoring system should rely on strategic partnerships within a country’s national/regional/ municipality educational and/or health-care authorities, and with other foundations/ institutions whose interests may be aligned to those of the monitoring system.

After establishing your initial source(s) of funding, secondary contributors can also be approached, including for:

Maintenance and technological development of the platform.
Marketing and information dissemination throughout all the stakeholders involved in the educational system.
Acquiring the materials needed to perform testing in schools.
Training and education for the teachers to implement the monitoring system.
Development of new features and applications of the monitoring system.

Case Portugal: Funding strategy of the FITescola platform in Portugal

The main phases related to securing funding were:

In the early stages of the development of the FITescola® platform, the Faculty of Human Kinetics (FMH) relied on the financial funding of the private sector. Once the collaboration protocol with the General Education Directorate (DGE) was established and the FITescola® program was mandatory in the physical education curriculum, the financial support for maintenance and technological development of the platform was assumed by two entities (DGE and FMH). DGE is responsible for maintaining the platform through a service contract with a specialized IT company (25 000€ per year) and FMH takes on the financing to develop of new features and applications for the FITescola program in partnership with the specialized IT company. The contract between the DGE and the IT company allows the correction of small computer bugs and the development of some additional features (e.g. direct email service to youth’s parents).
Additional financing was obtained through the Portuguese Olympic Committee to develop technological features within the platform that allowed the system to identify students with a high physical fitness levels for a given sports practice.
The establishment of strategic partnerships with foundations associated with the business sector is being studied, due to the need to increase the training rates of the entities involved (i.e. teachers), as well as the development of new gadgets associated with the App FITescola®.
Local authorities (Municipal Chambers) are also being considered, due to the need to develop a similar platform / program for pre-schoolers (i.e. PREFITescola®).
In the event of a failed attempt to raise additional funding, the FITescola® program built a proposal meant to signal children and adolescents associated with extreme body composition phenotypes, such as obesity and underweight, based on WHO BMI cut points. This add on to the IT platform would allow the physical education teacher, to share this information with the youth’s parents, who would be advised to get an appointment with their family’s doctor. This proposal was rejected by the Portuguese health care system, hence compromising the opportunity to bridge the gap between physical fitness testing within the physical education discipline and the healthcare system.

Planning a physical fitness monitoring system involves making decisions about data resources and products, such as feedback reports for different target groups and supporting applications. In the past, data administration was based on hand-filled, paper-based documents. Today, however, all the conditions are in place for fast, efficient, and reliable online data management systems for anyone. The implementation of physical fitness test batteries generates large amounts of personal assessment data, that can used and interpreted in diverse ways among different stakeholders. The direct users of such systems are teachers, students, and parents, whereas indirect users include school principals, school health professionals, school operators, educational-, health- and sport policymakers, political decision-makers and others involved in the use of public health data. Therefore, data access is an important issue, and producing a clear Data Management Plan is a must to for any physical fitness monitoring system. The plan should describe in detail how personal data will be collected, produced, and secured within the monitoring system; specifically, how will the data be collected, cleaned, managed, described, and stored, to what standards will one use the data, how will data be presented to target group users, and how will data be handled and protected even after users of the monitoring system leave the system.

Administering the results of the fitness testing, the following aspects should be addressed:

Policy regulations in accordance with the GDPR. Measurement data of students is sensitive data, thus administering, handling it anonymously requires special attention.
Ensuring the legal terms of the data linked to a specific student (i.e.: parental consent statement, consent statement from the students ages above 16 or according to national Data protection regulation).
Development of personal identification codes (in case they are not available centrally), without which longitudinal testing is not possible.
Designing the access interfaces for teachers, students, parents, and administrators in accordance with the needs of the given user group.
Univocal roles and responsibilities in the data management process.
Management of students and teachers in school level (i.e.: changes within classes, new teachers, new students’ arrival).
The system must be open for expansion and modification of the test items, provide alternative test items for students with special educational needs and it has to be able to handle on individual level.
Easy-to-understand data entry interface for feasible and fast data entry.
It must provide online (real-time) and offline (follow-up) data entry options for users
Design of clear, easy-to-use online and offline data entry interfaces that minimize administrational errors (e.g.: locked Excel files, error messages, setting minimum and maximum values)
Protocols and possibilities for handling false or incorrect data.
Protocols for the administration of missing data.
Development of a reporting system for stakeholders based on the database
Use of retrievable data for scientific purposes.

Case Slovenia: Data management plan in SLOfit

Data flow, data insight and data anonymization

Parents or students always access their personal and/or children’s personal information with a username and password. They have the right to change their personal data, add new data or change the data they had put in before, but they cannot change the physical fitness data that was inputted by the school. All the data in the SLOfit database is automatically anonymised one year after an individual finishes their education. All the users are notified before anonymisation; they are given the option to permanently store and access the data in the application. Anonymised SLOfit data are used afterwards for statistical and scientific research, in accordance with the agreement of the Commission on Ethical Issues in Sport.

Personal data protection

To provide meaningful feedback from physical fitness monitoring, identification of students is required. Therefore, all personal data treatment should be in accordance with data protection regulation (e.g. GDPR in Europe). If physical fitness monitoring is not mandatory by law for students, their parents, or students by themselves (if they are old enough according to local regulation) should give written consent for collecting and treating personal data included in monitoring system. If possible, physical fitness data treatment should be regulated by a special national legislation that defines the data treatment provider, i.e. the organisation which analyses fitness data and gives feedback to individuals and schools. If this is not the case, schools may enter into bilateral contracts with the fitness data processor which will process the data of their students. Schools and the data processor must take all necessary data protection measures to prevent unauthorised use of personal data. Moreover, Data Protection Officers from the schools and the data processor should double-check all personal data procedures.

Schools and data management

Based on previous activities with schools, the Faculty of Sport is the manager of the SLOfit national system. Schools use the system free of charge, based on the SLOfit service agreement, and appoint a school administrator who is responsible for the communication between the SLOfit national team and the school. Every school administrator is responsible for managing the users in their school (e.g. students, teachers, parents, doctors). They are the ones who acquire parental consent for involvement into SLOfit, import the lists of children and parental e-mail addresses, input the results of testing, verify the submitted school data, and communicate feedback to the school principal, other teachers, parents, and municipalities. All school administrators are required to attend an annual free training course at the Faculty of Sport, which is a prerequisite for schools to start using the My SLOfit application.

Quality of the data

The my SLOfit application provides school administrators the ability to enter physical fitness testing data directly into app or via an Excel document. When entering the data, there are simultaneously cleaning procedures which are initiated based on so-called smart algorithms. These algorithms compare entered values according to age and sex, previous fitness data, and other fitness data entered in current period to ensure the entered data make sense for that variable. For example, certain data cannot be entered out of a predetermined range (e.g. height greater than 180 cm at age 7) and alert the user that the data should be immediately corrected, while for other doubtful data, the school administrator is notified to check these data again. If the administrator confirms doubtful data has been entered, a communication tool within the application allows him/her to describe specific inconsistencies and communicate this to the primary SLOfit administrator who confirms that the school data entered into the central SLOfit database is correct. Once this condition is met, all users can immediately generate their feedback reports, otherwise the data is corrected at the level of the school, checked by central SLOfit administrators, and so on until accurate data is verified.

Case Hungary: Data administration procedures of NETFIT®

In Hungary, a standardized, mandatory, criterion-referenced, health-related, annual fitness assessment has been in force since 2015 (NETFIT®)22. Based on the experience of the last 5 years, an optimal administration path follows the following logic:

In Hungary, every student has a so-called measurement identification number from the moment they enter school, which is provided by the Educational Authority and which accompanies the students’ studies until they leave high school. Identification based on the measurement ID can only be done by the student’s teacher, who can pair the name and the measurement ID. The measurement IDs are transferred into the NETFIT® system via a software connection with the Educational Authority. Measurement IDs are transferred and managed by the authorized administrator of the schools. Once a year, the measurement IDs need to be transferred to the NETFIT® system.
The administrator then assigns the measurement IDs to classes and teachers.
Teachers are responsible for the steps taken following the administrative steps
- They check and validate the assigned classes (all students are assigned to the right class) by matching the measurement IDs to the name of the students.
- If necessary, they adapt the test system to students with special educational needs (select individually relevant, alternative tests).
Tests are then assessed in the appropriate testing environment in physical education lessons.
Followingly, the task of the teachers is to administer the results in the NETFIT® software, which can either be done online, or by uploading a predesigned, locked Excel sheet.
The system then sends an e-mail notification to the student and parents about the data entered.

It is critical to provide evidence-based, meaningful, user-friendly, and timely feedback (reports) to the different target stakeholders (students and their parents, teachers, doctors, schools, policymakers). This will establish and maintain their interest in the fitness testing programme, including its importance to creating impactful physical education lessons that can improve children’s health literacy, contribute to better interventions within the school, and assist with family and health-care needs of the child. Informative feedback will ensure the sustainability of the surveillance system.

The main features of the feedback include:

Status of current PF
Evaluation of the results related to selected outcomes (e.g. health-risk assessment, fitness development)
Instructions how to interpret the results

Case Slovenia: Feedback and procedures in SLOfit

Registered users of SLOfit, consist of physical education teachers, parents, children, and physicians, are able to use the on-line application My SLOfit. This application provides schools and individuals with administrative and analytical support in collecting, storing, and displaying the data.

Users can access their results and receive feedback reports immediately after data has been entered and checked (i.e. few days after testing), for example: the change rate in one year, the trends of their somatic and motor development throughout the years of their schooling, comparison of their scores with the population (expressed in percentiles), and in which group of physical performance or health risk individual results are classified based on the existing scientific evidence.
The presentation of physical fitness results also points out development trends and highlights the areas where elevated risk is emerging.
Parents can contribute to information on their own, and they can also obtain additional information from the child’s teacher.
Physical education teachers are trained in the correct interpretation of the physical fitness data and use this data to plan, implement and monitor the effectiveness of their work.
Additionally, My SLOfit improves cooperation and enables communication between the school, parents, and healthcare system. SLOfit data enable physicians to get a better insight into children’s development as a basis for writing recommendations for individualization in PE class, or inclusion in any other intervention program. Kinesiologists, as members of the healthcare team, can construct individual exercise programs in collaboration with the physical education teachers for every child with diagnosed increased risks. In the case of inclusion of a child in the treatment within health-care system, this information also enables the physicians to monitor the effects of the intervention. Algorithms of cooperation between the healthcare and school teams, and diagnostics for physicians using My SLOfit are constructed and the treatment is conducted to improve exercise capacity and nutritional status of children.
Moreover, My SLOfit enables reports for policy makers. Schools can create the School SLOfit report, while national administrator prepares annual regional and national SLOfit reports which are the backbone for possible interventions and their evaluation.

Case Finland: Feedback for policymakers

An open database and online service of physical activity indicators of children and adolescents aged 7 to 16 years in Finland has been designed especially for policymakers and published in 2018.

The service includes key indicators of physical activity level and functional capacity as well as the status of physical activity promotion in schools across municipalities.
The data from different registers, research centres and institutes, including several nationwide surveys and monitoring systems (such as the national Move! – monitoring system for physical functional capacity), have been combined
Data are presented in simple figures through an interactive online user interface tool on the webpage of Ministry of Education and Culture (www.liikuntaindikaattorit.fi).
Data can be seen at national, regional, and local levels and can be used in municipalities and provinces in their welfare reports that describe the status and development of physical activity promotion and outcomes, and in further knowledge-based policy-making

Before you implement the physical fitness monitoring system, carefully evaluate envisioned organisation of testing because sustainability of the system depends on this.

Plan first version or even few alternatives of organization of the testing: test battery, equipment, space, personnel, and time required.
Take enough time for pilot testing and be especially attentive for feasibility of testing in school setting.
Testing should interfere as little as possible regular schoolwork.
Get feedback from teachers and principals about organization and make required adjustments based on findings.

Case Finland: The selection of the fitness measurements included in the Move! – monitoring system for functional capacity

Pilot testing was conducted three times, including test and system level experiments, during the development process of the Move! - monitoring system for physical functional capacity.

Initially, a review of the possible physical fitness measurements and testing batteries for children and adolescents was conducted. Also new measurements were developed for such fitness characteristics where limited number of tests were available (e.g. flexibility and fundamental movement skills).
In the first phase, 15 different test items were selected as candidates for the monitoring system. These tests included 2-3 tests from each fitness characteristic aimed to be evaluated (foundations of daily functional capacity: aerobic fitness, muscular endurance, power, flexibility, and fundamental movement skills). Out of those 15 tests, six items with limited prior information, including the novel test items, were selected for pilot testing conducted in two different schools and with 60 students to evaluate their reliability. The evaluations showed that all items were eligible for further assessments.
The second phase pilot testing included evaluation of 12 tests out of the 15 preliminary selected fitness tests (three tests evaluating cardiorespiratory fitness were excluded, as prior literature showed sufficient information). Pilot study included 310 students from 6 schools, and the feasibility and the reliability of the tests and the test material and equipment were evaluated. The measurements were conducted by educated professionals. Based on the findings, 9 test items were excluded, and the test battery was reduced to 6 measurements suitable for assessing physical fitness in physical education.
In the third pilot phase the feasibility and the reliability of the six selected fitness measurements were assessed. The final six measurements are presented in the description of Move! – monitoring system for physical functional capacity. A total of 156 students from two different schools participated to the third pilot study. The measurements were conducted by trained physical education teachers for their own students during school day. The findings were used to build the final test battery and instructions.
The first phase of pilot testing started during 2010, six years prior launching the national monitoring system. The three pilot testing phases lasted in total of 1.5 years. Procedures of pilot testing and development process related to the Move! monitoring system for functional capacity are described in detail in the final report of the project (in Finnish).

Case Slovenia: Lessons learned

The first national monitoring system, called the Physical Education Chart, was developed in 1969 and it was implemented on the population level. However, this system proved to be too ambitious for its time, due to time consuming testing, low awareness about importance of testing and no feedback provided because of analytical difficulties in the period when computer support was only in its beginnings. It ceased to operate in its original format by the end of the 1970s, but a simplified version called Sports Educational Chart was launched in the school year 1981/82. After a six-year piloting period (involving 37,000 students each year and a slight revision), the system was introduced to all Slovenian primary and high schools in the school year 1986/87. Every year thereafter, all schools perform testing every April. Each student spends approximately two hours on testing: one hour for tests within gym and one hour allotted for running outdoors.

Planning the implementation process well ensures the functionality and the operational quality of the system. Careful consideration is required for the launching phase of the monitoring system and for the long-term implementation. There are several important aspects to keep in mind to ease the implementation process.

Communicate with target groups. Communication is needed to provide a clear message about the philosophy of the monitoring system. Webpages, materials, and videos support in communication. The stakeholders are recommended to be involved from the beginning and the benefits for them introduced as described in Topic 2.
Prior to launching the system, provide training, education, and materials for the teachers and other personnel involved in the testing, give feedback, utilization of the findings, and the administrational procedures of the monitoring system. The training is recommended to be conducted early in advance to enhance implementation, and to be continued also the future.
Provide incentives for professionals involved if possible.
A direct communication channel between the system manager and schools is potentially required. Via this channel the important information can be sent directly to the schools, e.g. information letters.
In the launching phase the webpages are the main source for information. Make sure that the webpages include the relevant information for the different stakeholders.
Prepare to provide continuous support via help desk services during the launching
It is recommended to collect annual feedback from the end users of the system. Most especially, the student’s perceptions are important. Addressing any limitations raised enhances the quality of the monitoring system and enhances the long-term implementation.

Case Finland: Implementation strategies of the Move! monitoring system for functional capacity

Training, and education

National educational tours and training were conducted in 2014-2016, while the national system was launched in 2016. Conducting the measurements are also taught during the physical education training in the University of Jyväskylä. Additional online educational materials (webinars) are provided. These webinars address the good practises related to the monitoring system and are directed for teachers, health-care professionals, and policy makers. Training has been organized on how to adapt the Move! measurements for children with special needs.

Webpages

Resources are available in the system’s webpages. The main philosophy behind the monitoring system is described in the webpages, with tailored instructions for different stakeholders. Additionally, a Teacher’s manual, a quick guide and videos of the measurements, feedback, and the utilization of the feedback can be found from the webpages. Only measurements requiring typical physical educational equipment were selected to ease the implementation.

Communication channel

The system manager (Ministry of Education and Culture) has an e-mail contact list including all the schools in Finland. Newsletters and other information related to the annual measurements, e.g. organizing the measurements during the COVID-19 pandemic, are distributed via this channel.

Help desk

Despite of the training and available materials, thousands of contacts were made by the teachers and principals in the launching phase for system manager. A help desk was established as a solution which operated for two weeks, and provided technical support related to the data administration and organizing the measurements.

Incentives

Once weekly physical educational lessons were added to the school curriculum in upper secondary school for one grade (45 min). Implementation of the Move! system was not the only driving force, but supported this decision. As teachers were at that time paid by teaching hours, this implementation of the national monitoring system did not only increase their working hours but also salary.

Feedback

Feedback was asked after the first round of national measurements. The most common limitations were listed, and an expert panel was asked to provide solutions for these issues. Steps towards addressing these most common limitations are being taken.

Case Hungary: Implementation strategies of the NETFIT®

Training, and education

A National, free of charge, 30-lessons-long CPD programme was conducted in 2013-2015, where 2-3 teachers could be trained per school on average. Free of charge, online and offline test procedure materials (handbook and DVD) were available for the teachers and schools. National and regional conferences helped to familiarise the system among different stakeholders – like teacher trainers, health-care professionals, sport professional, scientific community, and policy makers (including the ministry of education and the government). Educational materials (animation and how to use films) has been made for the parents.

Scientific updates

In recent years HSSF has been developed a module for adapted testing of the children with special educational needs25. Furthermore, the system developer group are consulting every year about the updates of the system (including technical and scientific issues.) From 2019 for example the grip strength standards have been updated.

Webpages

All resources are available free of charge in the system’s webpage.

Support

HSSF has a helpdesk including free of charge phone line, and e-mail channel. This is available for all the stakeholders. Newsletter for the schools and teachers also available 3-4 times per year, where we are communicating some important news and developments of the system directly via e-mail.

When a physical fitness monitoring system is established, its sustainability critically depends on excellent communication between all stakeholders and general public. It is vital for the system to communicate important messages clearly, like tips for fitness improvement for students and their parents, changes in generation fitness levels for PE teachers, parents and policy makers, and new features in the application for all users etc. Most especially, when communicating with the general public, it is important to work closely with science communication experts to ensure the professional content is clear and encompasses the main messages. This will help to recognize the added value of the system convince stakeholders to remain in the programme. Additionally, harmonised communication activities can provide operational funding opportunities for the system as well as establishing proper legal regulations. Therefore, nothing can replace a great Communication Plan- it’s essential for coordinating and performing all communication activities and ensure smooth operations of your fitness monitoring system.

Tips for communication best-practice:

Design web platform with essential updated information for all stakeholders.
Organise communication among stakeholders when appropriate.
Circulate only relevant information for stakeholders not to be perceived as spam provider.
- via e-channels (not too often, just when necessary or once per year).
- Create social media channels to communicate with selected groups of stakeholders
Use mass media to communicate major findings, best practice, and evidence-based suggestions.
- Publishing important messages on your system’s outcomes via mainstream media will raise public awareness of your monitoring system. Create list of important media and their journalists with affinity to fitness topics, organise media events to communicate with them (at least ones per year), maintain contacts with them all over the year, and respond on their requests.
Organise regular workshops to support professionals: school administrators, teachers, doctors.
Disseminate findings on physical fitness trends to policy makers, professionals, and scientists.

Case Slovenia: Examples from SLOfit

The on-line reports in My SLOfit application have links that lead students and their parents to tips for improving individual components of physical fitness and other important information related to physical fitness and physical development of the students, published on SLOfit web platform. Additionally, parents can directly communicate with teachers via My SLOfit app while teachers can involve the SLOfit team from Faculty of Sport into this communication when a higher level of expertise is required.
Teachers, parents, and general public can follow the professionally moderated SLOfit Facebook page with up-to date information on different aspects of physical activity, physical fitness and healthy lifestyles. Additionally, posts promote short evidence-based but lay writing advices published on SLOfit web page as well as on SLOfit YouTube channel.
When special public attention is required (e.g. extraordinary decrease of fitness levels after corona-virus measures), SLOfit team with support of Slovenian Press Agency organises media face-to-face and web event to present findings and suggested measures. Such event is usually covered by several mainstream media contributions and public debate.

Case Hungary: Public Relations in NETFIT®

HSSF is organising a broadcast message every year what contain the main results and conclusions of the national dataset of NETFIT®. Based on this initiative, 60-80 online and offline media news, radio interviews and television reports born every year, what is very important for the accountability and maintenance of the system.