Attitudes of High School Students toward Physical Education and Their Sport Activity Preferences

Problem statement: Identifying and understanding correlates of school children’s physical education activity participation are critical to promoting current and lifelong physical activity participation of children. Among other factors, children’s attitudes are considered to be a key element influencing physical activity participation. Children who have more positive attitudes toward physical activity are reported to be more likely to participate in physical activity outside of school and demonstrate higher physical activity amounts than those with less positive attitudes. Fostering children’s positive attitudes toward physical activity would be conducive to the promotion of current and lifelong physical activity participation of children. Aims at to examine high school students’ attitudes toward Physical Education Activity (ATPEA) and their sports activities preferences. Approach: Participants were 1,317 students in grades 9-12th (603 boys and 714 girls) from five urban public school districts. The Physical Education Activity Attitude Scale (PEAAS) adapted version was employed for data collection. One-way ANOVA revealed that the five highest scores were Items 2, 16, 11, 18 and 5 on the PEAAS. Results: The overall mean score (70.160±3.948) indicated positive ATPEA for the participants. The independent group ANOVAs identified significant (p<0.01) differences in ATPEA scores with respect to participants’ gender, ethnic group and Socio-Economic Status (SES). Girls scored higher than boys in Items 2, 13 and 15. Caucasian students scored higher than other four ethnic groups in Items 8 and 10. Students with middle SES scored higher than students with low and high SES in Item 2. Conclusion: The current ATPEA status of the participants appears to be positive. There are some crucial factors that structure the participants’ ATPEA. These factors are related to students’ perception, benefit, care and value about physical education programs and sports activities.