ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the REACH (Reflective Educational Approach to Character and Health) after-school physical activity (PA) programme. The chapter focuses on a mixed-methods study that sought to understand the lived experiences of low-income, urban, elementary, Latino youth (aged 10–12yrs) from an underserved community and to examine the effects of the REACH programme on a variety of quantitative measures such as fitness, physical activity (PA) and literacy scores. In this paper I discuss how the qualitative portion of the study thoughtfully engaged with students in the programme, helped coaches (pre-service teachers) build relationships and facilitated coaches to teach while providing a safe place for students to participate in sports and PA. However, as I explain in the chapter, the study was disjointed. The quantitative data that were collected from the students were not meaningful to the students and led to many students not engaging in the data collection towards the end of the study, leading to missing data for the researchers, and a disconnect with the students. I explain how using the CREATE principles could re-design this, and future studies, to better engage with young people across all data collection times and how mixed-methods can better serve participants in research studies.
