June 18, 1999

Setting the record straight

Not a ball or whistle in sight: Dr. Gordon Bell at work

Correcting misconceptions about university research is a challenge for any discipline. The language is often so highly developed, the knowledge so complex and specialized, and the evolution of many fields so rapid, the public can be completely in the dark about what goes on in the lab or library.

For some professors in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, the pervasive "jock" stereotype can be an additional, irksome hurdle. Dean Art Quinney says the U of A's phys-ed faculty is luckier than that of many universities, since it has a long-standing reputation for research excellence across campus. Because of the "extreme reliance we have with other disciplines on campus as partners," he says, students and faculty are taken seriously, and their work regarded as important and rigorous.

But when you step outside into the larger community, that's where the misunderstanding begins, say some researchers.

"There is clearly a problem out there," says Dr. Sandra O'Brien Cousins, who studies the benefits of exercise for the elderly. "It's very much in the lay community. It's our husbands, wives and neighbors who think we just go out with a stop watch and time people or something. I don't know what they think we do.

"I married an engineer, so I've had to deal with it at home," she says. "He's a convert now, and he's learned a lot about how important physical activity is."

Fighting a grade-school legacy
One thorny example of misconceptions surrounding physical education was a letter to the editor of the Edmonton Journal last month. The writer criticized the university's intention to create a centre of excellence for athletics, reducing those who participate in sports to "sweaty people who throw things or hit things or who run around in circles," and referring to the physed faculty as the Faculty of "Games and Play."

It's hard to know where to start addressing such an attitude, says Quinney. He worries even "by agreeing there is a stereotype out there that has to be corrected, we have the potential to prolong it." He does, however, understand where it comes from. Most people know physical education only from their public school experience, he says, and often that experience is negative, as the vast majority of phys-ed teachers don't receive specialized training. To turn things around, the physical education and education faculties have jointly instituted a new five-year BA to turn out properly qualified phys-ed teachers.

Beyond that, dispelling the myth of physical education as a soft discipline comes down to educating the public about what many on campus already know: the faculty's research touches on many issues of concern in areas as diverse as medicine, biochemistry, political science and sociology. The faculty's graduate program guide -under faculty research interests-says it all. The topics listed are a far cry from an analysis of soccer ball trajectories. Dr. Michael Mauws, for instance, explores "organization theory, management and sociology of popular culture, post-modernism and post-structuralism, qualitative methods, discourse analysis and moral theory." Dr. Dru Marshall looks at "the physiological and psychological aspects of childhood obesity and children's fitness." And Dr. Kerry Courneya has "a specific interest in examining exercise and quality of life in cancer patients both during and following cancer treatment."

Confronting 'the look'
Dr. Gordon Bell, in his work as exercise physiologist, agrees there is a level of ignorance about what goes on in physical education in the general community. "It's out there, but it's subtle," he says. "We buy chemicals from biochemical stores, and when you say you're from phys-ed, they kind of give you that look [that says], 'Why are you using chemicals in your faculty?'"

Bell's research is as advanced as anything going on in rehabilitation medicine, biochemistry or food and nutritional sciences, and relies on close ties with people in those areas. He has examined the physiological effects of spinal-chord injury, for example, and how such injuries affect muscle tissue and the immune system's ability to fight disease. Some of his research has led to a greater emphasis on early intervention in recovery, using techniques such as electrically stimulating muscle or placing patients on tilt tables where they can use the force of gravity to prevent muscle loss.

Bell also has a shared grant with the Canadian Space Agency and National Aeronautics and Space Administration to look at what happens to skeletal muscle in space flight. "I guess if you said to somebody out there [in the general community] that we're doing that in phys-ed, they'd kind of wonder."

Graduate student Allison Bonner, who examines the effects of exercise on victims of Alzheimer disease, says she's often had to defend her faculty. "If I were just to say phys-ed to people," she says, the assumption on their part is, "'Oh yeah, I guess you just bounce balls all day.'" Once Bonner explains her work, however, she tends to get a lot more respect.

Perhaps that's because, even at the master's level, she's already made an important difference in people's lives. For her MA project, Bonner put a group of seniors with Alzheimer disease on a mild walking program, five days a week, and found results were uniformly positive. "Before I finished my study they had already set up volunteers to continue it," she says. "Everyone decreased their problem behavior by a certain percentage."

Not all researchers in the faculty have had to deal with less-than-flattering stereotypes of physical education, however. Dr. Dan Syrotuik says because he works mainly in the hard sciences, "borrowing the techniques of biochemistry and neuro-physiology," he is not aware of any disdain or lack of respect. "Maybe I'm just a little na‹ve, but I haven't perceived it," he says.

Syrotuik studies the biochemistry of over-the-counter nutritional supplements used by the "weekend warrior" to see if they cause strength enhancement. And since he also has a number of collaborative relationships with other faculty members, most of the people he deals with know how complex and advanced his field of study is.

Stereotypes, he says, are the last thing on his mind.

"And if they exists, you know what? I don't really care," he says. "I do what I like a lot-promoting a healthy lifestyle-and that's kind of nice."

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