{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/recreation-and-fitness-studies-teachers-postsecondary/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Recreation and Fitness Studies Teachers, Postsecondary", "soc_code": "25-1193", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 12630, "median_annual_wage": 77270 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 48, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 10, "embodiment": 12, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 13, "judgment_accountability": 10 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Half your week — the kinesiology lecture on the Krebs cycle, the quiz bank on anatomical planes, the rubric-scored reflection papers from a practicum journal, the CAAHEP self-study documents — is text generation that AI drafts credibly, while the other half, running a lab where students take skinfold measurements and VO2 max readings on each other and correcting a student's squat depth in real time, does not compress into a screen, which is what puts this at 10 rather than 6 or 14.", "embodiment": "You are on a gym floor, in a pool, or in a biomechanics lab several times a week — spotting a bench press, cueing hand position, running lifeguard or CPR practicals — but it is a controlled campus facility with mats, known equipment, and pre-screened students, not a job site or a patient's home, so this lands mid-scale rather than at the 16+ of athletic trainers on a field or firefighters.", "liability_shield": "Nothing in the professor role requires a licence: your ACSM, NSCA-CSCS, or NASM credential is what you teach students to earn, not what the institution legally requires of you to teach, and the 3 reflects only that accreditation reviews and the institution's insurance care whether a credentialed person supervises the practical lab.", "trust_premium": "Students choose your program because you write the internship recommendation, place them at the collegiate strength facility or corporate wellness site, and vouch for them to the hiring director — that named-mentor pipeline into a relationship-driven industry is the product, though it stops short of 17+ because much of the curriculum is delivered in large activity sections and general-education courses where you are interchangeable.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a student is safe to be turned loose supervising a client at a practicum site, whether a shoulder complaint means stopping a lab, and how to weigh a borderline internship evaluation — real calls with injury and licensure-exam consequences, but bounded by department curricula, accreditation competency lists, and institutional risk-management protocols rather than made from scratch." }, "rationale": "The screen half of this job — building syllabi, writing lecture slides on exercise physiology, generating quiz banks, grading written assignments, drafting program review documents — is already well within reach of current AI. The half that holds is embodied: demonstrating and correcting movement technique in the gym or pool, supervising practicum and internship placements, spotting unsafe form, and coaching students through certification exams and career entry. There is no licensure requirement for the professor role, so the moat is physical presence and mentorship, not regulation; adjunct-heavy staffing and enrollment pressure in this small field are bigger near-term threats than AI itself.", "outlook": "The lecture-and-grade portion of the job compresses and adjunct sections get consolidated, while faculty tied to activity labs, certifications, and internship pipelines keep their seats.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Accreditation bodies (CAAHEP for exercise science, NSCA/ACSM program endorsement) tightening required in-person supervised practicum hours and requiring a named faculty member physically present for hands-on skills assessment (goniometry, VO2max testing, spotting) rather than video-submitted competency checks — several programs loosened this post-2020 and reversal is under discussion in CAAHEP standards revisions", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State athletic-trainer or exercise-physiologist licensure expanding to require that clinical/practicum hours be signed off by a credentialed supervisor of record who is personally accountable for student scope-of-practice violations — analogous to the clinical preceptor sign-off already required in nursing and AT education. A handful of states license exercise physiologists (Louisiana) and licensure bills recur", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: once slide decks, quiz banks and rubric grading are AI-generated, the residual load is live skills assessment, practicum placement negotiation with clinical sites, and remediation of students who fail hands-on competency — genuinely two-tiered work in this field", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal faculty gatekeeping authority over practicum progression — a documented decision to bar a student from an internship or clinical site for unsafe technique or professionalism concerns, with the faculty member owning the appeal, as is standard in nursing and AT programs and increasingly written into kinesiology program handbooks", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Employers and certification bodies (NSCA CSCS, ACSM) restricting exam eligibility or preferred-program status to degrees with verified in-person faculty-supervised instruction, making the human-taught credential the marketable one", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Even with every lever, the binding constraint is enrollment and adjunctification in a small field: institutions can meet tightened in-person supervision requirements with low-paid part-time instructors, which protects the task but not the occupation's headcount or pay." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 16630, "wage": 60150 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 16490, "wage": 62620 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 15880, "wage": 64380 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 14730, "wage": 66290 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 13860, "wage": 72440 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 13400, "wage": 72650 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 13270, "wage": 75770 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 12680, "wage": 75890 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 12630, "wage": 77270 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -24.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "nursing-instructors-and-teachers-postsecondary", "title": "Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 71, "median_wage": 80250, "overlap": 87, "skills_to_close": [ "Mathematics", "Coordination", "Programming", "Social Perceptiveness" ] }, { "slug": "health-specialties-teachers-postsecondary", "title": "Health Specialties Teachers, Postsecondary", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 107310, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Mathematics", "Science", "Active Learning", "Equipment Maintenance" ] }, { "slug": "special-education-teachers-secondary-school", "title": "Special Education Teachers, Secondary School", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 74260, "overlap": 80, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Coordination", "Social Perceptiveness", "Mathematics" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }