Students' attitudes and predispositions toward physical education in greece

Abstract

Problem statement: Although the study of students' attitudes toward physical education (PΕ) is of particular importance, there are only a few tools that study a variety of factors. Developing a tool that evaluates various factors helps to a better understanding of students' attitudes. Purposes: The purposes of this research were: (a) the development, and investigation of reliable and valid instruments that evaluate students’ attitudes and predispositions toward PE, the assessment in PE, and how attitudes related to factors ‘enjoyment’ and ‘effort,’ (b) the examination of the statistically significant differences in grade, age, gender, and teacher’s gender, (c) the analysis of the correlations between the factors of the questionnaires. Method: A total of 638 students (327 boys, 311 girls) participated from fifth, sixth, seventh and tenth grade. Attitudes towards Physical Education were measured through Phillips and Silverman (2012) questionnaire, while Predispositions towards Physical Education were assessed through Hilland, Stratton, Vinson, and Fairclough Physical Education Predisposition Scale (2009). Furthermore, a scale of 8 items was developed to assess Attitudes toward assessment in Physical Education. In addition, effort and enjoyment were measured. Results: All factors demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (α > .70) and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed structural validity of the scales. Α one-way analysis of variance and post hoc test revealed that attitudes toward PE and toward assessment in PE were significantly higher in fifth, sixth and seventh grade compared with tenth grade students. Strong positive correlation was revealed between cognitive and affective factor. A total of 58% of enjoyment, and 44% effort were explained by the independent variables. Conclusions: The high validity and reliability of these instruments along with the variety of factors investigated, provide a strong base to conduct future research on students’ attitudes. © 2018, Editura Universitatii din Pitesti. All rights reserved.