Young girls often feel uncomfortable in their PE kit. They feel more self-conscious about their bodies, and are less likely to want to take part in PE and are less likely to enjoy their PE lessons.
Researchers from Born in Bradford (Bradford Institute for Health Research) and University of Bristol would like to talk to Year 8 pupils who are female, non-binary or identify as female, and a member of school staff about their school PE Kit.
If your school would like to participate in this study, please contact Tiko through email
Tiko.Istiko@bthft.nhs.uk. Data collection will start in late May early June.
See the letter from the lead researcher for more information.
School Information Sheet PE Kit Study PFD
Centre for Public Health Research
Population Health Sciences
Bristol Medical School
Canynge Hall
Bristol
BS8 2PN
Lead researcher: Alice Porter Alice.porter@bristol.ac.uk
Information for Schools about a Research Study on School PE Kit Policies
We are writing to invite a small group of 6-8 Year 8 pupils and one member of school staff to take part in a focus group and interview as part of a research study. Please read this information sheet to help you decide if you are happy to help facilitate
this.
What is the purpose this research study?
Feeling self-confident and being physically active is important for the mental and physical health of adolescents.
Other research has shown that when adolescents (especially females) feel uncomfortable in their PE kit, they feel more self-conscious about their bodies, are less likely to want to take part in PE and are less likely to enjoy their PE lessons.
Therefore, we are interested in talking to Year 8 pupils who are female, non-binary or identify as female about what they think about their school PE kits. For example, we’re interested in knowing how comfortable it is to be active in their PE kit, their
opinions about what they can and cannot wear for PE, and whether this might affect their body confidence and enjoyment of PE.
We are also interested in talking to one member of school staff about how your schools’ PE kit policy (as part of the wider school uniform policy) is developed and enforced, and asking them about a potential new approach to develop PE kit policies with pupils.
With this information in our future research, we plan to work with pupils and schools to improve PE kits.
What will the school be asked to do?
Your school will be asked to help us organise one focus group (with 6-8 girls) and find
one member of staff to interview. We will ask you to complete a very short school-study agreement form. We have created an information sheet for Year 8 pupils, which can be printed and distributed within class or emailed. We have created an
information sheet and consent form for parents/guardians to give permission for their child to take part, which can be emailed and completed online. We have created an information sheet and consent form for school staff, which can be emailed and completed
online.
Once we have received parental consent for a group of Year 8 pupils to take part, we would ask a member of staff to help organise a convenient day, time and place within school for the focus group to take place.
What will the Year 8 pupils and staff member be asked to do?
We are inviting 6-8 Year 8 pupils, with permission from their parents/guardians to take part in an interactive focus group, lasting approximately 50 minutes (to align with your schools’ usual timetabling). The focus group will be led by 1-2 female researchers
at the University of Bristol. When School information sheet v4 07.02.24, Qualitative study with Year 8 pupils and schools about PE kits parents complete the online consent form they will also complete a few questions with their child. To make sure everyone
in the focus group can share their views, a maximum of 8 children per focus group can take part. If more than 8 children consent to take part, we will select pupils based on the information provided about them when completing the consent form, to make sure
we get a range of perspectives. However, if your school is interested we can also accommodate doing more than one focus group in your school so that everyone who signs up can take part. Pupils will be asked to bring their PE kit to the focus group (but not
wear it) to facilitate an interactive discussion, where they will be asked to stick post-it notes (sticky notes) to their PE kit items. At the end of the focus group, with permission from pupils and parents, we will take photos of the post-it notes stuck to
the PE kit items. These photos will be used to write up what is on the post-it notes and will not be shared with anyone. The pupils will receive a £20 gift voucher to say thank you.
We are inviting one member of staff (either a PE teacher, Head of PE, or part of the senior leadership team) to take part in an interview with one of our researchers. If more than one staff member would like to take part, we can accommodate this. The interview
will last approximately 45 minutes, and can be done online (e.g., Microsoft Teams or Zoom) or in-person at the school or in a public place. We can reimburse for any travel costs. We will ask staff to sign a consent form to say they are happy to take part and
complete a short form collecting some data on their role at the school. The member of staff will be given a £25 gift voucher to say thank you.
Both the focus group and interview will be audio-recorded (no video).
Timelines
The focus group is likely to take place between April and May 2024, however this is flexible depending on your availability. The focus group will involve 1-2 researchers visiting the school for around 1 hour 30 minutes. The interview with a member of school
staff may be done at school (but it is not required to be) and we will organise this directly with the member of staff. Nothing else is required from you after the focus group and interview have taken place. We will be working with 6-8 schools in total across
Bristol and Bradford.
We expect the entire study to take around a year to complete and we aim to send you a newsletter with the study findings by Spring 2025.
Will personal information be confidential?
All personal information will be treated confidentially and used only for the agreed purpose in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, if the pupils or staff member says something that that may indicate that anyone is
at risk of harm, we are obliged to notify the school or relevant authorities. You can find the University’s fair processing notice here: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/secretary/data-protection/policy/research-participant-fair-processingnotice/
Data protection
We will store the research data securely for up to 20 years in line with the Data Protection Act (2018) on the password-protected University of Bristol Research Data Service Facility (RDSF). Interviews will be audio-recorded and transcribed by a university-approved
transcription service. The transcripts will be anonymised, meaning identifying information such as names of people and places will be removed. Audio-recordings will be deleted after the transcription and anonymised transcripts will be stored on the University
of Bristol RDSF. Photos will be taken using a research camera. We will download and securely store the photos on the RDSF as soon as possible after the focus group and then photos will be deleted from the camera. Any school branding in the photos will School
information sheet v4 07.02.24, Qualitative study with Year 8 pupils and schools about PE kits be blurred. We will not link the photos to the Year 8 pupils or your school. The photos will only be used to write up what is on the post-it notes and will not be
shared with anyone.
Can the Year 8 pupils and staff member withdraw from taking part?
Both pupils and staff members are free to withdraw at any time during the focus group or interview, without giving a reason. They are also free to withdraw their personal information at any time. However, their data (i.e. the transcripts) cannot be withdrawn
after it has been anonymised because we won’t be able to tell who the data belongs to.
Data sharing
At the end of the study anonymised transcripts will be made available for future research. This will be done by publishing the transcripts as a restricted access dataset in the University of Bristol Research Data Repository, data.bris (https://data.bris.ac.uk/data/).
Only approved researchers will be granted access, and it will not be possible to identify anyone within the published dataset. Photos will not be shared under any circumstances. You can find more information on the University’s data sharing policy here: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/staff/researchers/data/accessing-research-data/
We plan to use the data (i.e. quotes from the focus groups and interviews) in academic publications, reports, and summaries, which will be shared publicly. All quotes included in these publications will be anonymous. At the end of the study we will provide
your school a summary of what we found.
Who is organising and funding this research?
This study is led by researchers from the Centre of Public Health Research at the University of Bristol. The research has been approved by Bristol Faculty of Health Science Research Ethics Committee (FREC Ref 17624), and has been funded by the Bristol Biomedical
Research Centre. The lead researcher of the study is Dr Alice Porter (alice.porter@bristol.ac.uk). If you have any concerns about this research study and do not feel you can speak to the research team, please e-mail researchgovernance@bristol.ac.uk.
What should I do now?
If you have further questions, please contact Alice Porter (alice.porter@bristol.ac.uk). If you think your Year 8 pupils and staff would like to take part and you are willing help facilitate their participation, please reply to this email. If you agree to
take part we will ask you to sign a school study-agreement form.
If you need us to make any adjustments or if there is anything we can do to make it easier and more comfortable for anyone to participate, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate this.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr Alice Porter (On behalf of the wider research team)