Perceptual and Motor Skills, 2010, 111, 2, 324-332. © Perceptual and Motor Skills 2010
TURKISH ADOLESCENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD PHYSICAL EDUCATION1 DENİZ HÜNÜK
GİYASETTİN DEMİRHAN
Physical Education and Sports Department Middle East Technical University
School of Sport Science and Technology Hacettepe University
Summary.—1,163 middle school students (586 girls, 577 boys; Grades 6–8) were selected through a stratified random sampling method to examine their attitudes toward physical education (PE) by grade, student’s sex, sports participation characteristics, and teacher’s sex. They were administered the Attitude Toward Physical Education Scale for Children. Factorial analysis of variance indicated that Grade 8 students’ mean attitude scores were less positive than those of Grade 6 students, but the attitudes of boys and of sports participants were more positive than of girls and nonsports participants. Findings were similar regardless of the teacher’s sex.
Researchers have indicated that an adolescent’s attitude toward physical education (PE) may influence this participation in physical activity later (Carlson, 1995; Silverman & Subramaniam, 1999). This was supported by later studies, which added the observation that those with positive attitudes also engage in physical activities outside school hours, and further, that active children are more likely to become active adults (Telema, Yang, Laakso, & Viikari, 1997; Subramaniam & Silverman, 2007). An understanding of the characteristics contributing to students’ attitudes would be helpful in making PE curricula more attractive (Montalvo, 2007). Among such factors are sex, grade, sport participation, and ethnicity, which have been shown to be associated with attitudes (Stewart, Green, & Huelskamp, 1991; Tannehill & Zakrajsek, 1993; Greenwood, Stillwell, & Byars, 2001; Chung & Philips, 2002; Montalvo, 2007). A number of studies have indicated that boys and girls exhibit positive attitudes toward PE for different reasons. Boys reported more positive attitudes toward physical activities that were challenging and had an element of risk (Smoll & Shutz, 1980; Folsom-Meek, 1992; Wersch, Trew, & Turner, 1992), while girls’ attitudes were more favorable toward physical activities emphasizing aesthetics (Smoll & Shutz, 1980; Hicks, Wiggins, Crist, & Moode, 2001). Research has indicated that at the middle school level, girls may express less positive attitudes toward PE than boys (Solmon, 2003). Other research showed that students’ positive attitudes toward PE Address correspondence to Deniz Hünük, Physical Education and Sports Department, Faculty of Education, Middle East Technical University, Inonu Bulvari, Ankara, Turkey 06531 or e-mail (
[email protected]). 1
DOI 10.2466/06.07.11.13.PMS.111.5.324-332
ISSN 0031-5125
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seem to decrease with age (Wersch, et al., 1992). High school students’ attitudes toward PE with respect to their sex and sports participation showed that sports participants had more favorable attitudes toward PE than nonsports participants (Koca & Demirhan, 2004). Another study found no differences in the attitudes of middle and high school youth toward PE by ethnic group; however, it seems plausible that in some countries or cultures, teachers might need to design instruction for different groups of learners (Tannehill & Zakrajsek, 1993). Although little research has been done on the effects of the teacher’s sex on interaction patterns (Hopf & Hatzichristou, 1999), teacher’s sex was previously reported as not being a significant factor in positive learning outcomes for students (Lingard, Martino, Mills, & Barr, 2002). Apparently, there has been no previous study in Turkey examining students’ attitudes or achievement with respect to teacher’s sex. The educational system in Turkey has evolved in time, with a comprehensive educational reform established in 1997. The new Turkish curriculum developed by the Board of Education for Grades 1 to 5 was first implemented in the 2005–2006 academic year (Education Reform Initiative, 2007). The new education reform represents a great step in transformation from “teacher-centered” to “student-centered” education. With this education reform, ensuring equal educational opportunities for boys and girls, co-education became the norm. At the time of this study, the PE curriculum described by the National Physical Education Curriculum Guidelines had been implemented since 1988. In this previous version of the national curriculum, PE was compulsory in all schools from ages 6 to 16, and schools were also expected to provide two hours of PE per week. This national PE curriculum predominantly involved instruction in individual sports (e.g., gymnastics, track and field, wrestling) and traditional team sports (e.g., volleyball, basketball, handball, soccer). Although there has been a great deal of research on students’ attitudes toward PE in many Western European countries (Carrol & Loumidis, 2001), the possible effects of middle school students’ sex, grade, and sports participation and teacher’s sex on attitudes toward PE have rarely been studied in the Turkish population. Therefore, the purpose was to examine the attitudes of Turkish adolescents toward PE. Based on the previous research, it was expected that: (1) students’ positive attitudes toward PE would decrease with age, (2) boys would have higher mean attitude scores compared to girls, (3) sports participants would exhibit more positive attitudes than nonsports participants, and (4) teacher’s sex would have no effect on the students’ attitudes toward PE.
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Method Participants The study was conducted during the 2004–2005 spring semester. The sample consisted of 1,163 adolescents from 12 to 15 years old and was generated using a stratified random sampling method, with stratification according to the proportion of schools in the different districts in Ankara. This sampling method is used when the population reflects an imbalance with respect to a characteristic of a sample (Creswell, 2008). In total, there are eight districts in Ankara, with an imbalance in the number of schools in each district; thus, of eight districts, six were chosen, and of a total of 534 schools, 22 were selected for this study. Nearly half (45%) of the schools from each of the six districts were included in the study. Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is a multicultural society and includes different socioeconomic classes. The districts in Ankara chosen for the study are generally considered as middle- and lower-middle class (Güvenç, 2001). Selected students from the 22 different schools were invited to participate in the survey via the school principals and their teachers, and they were encouraged to complete a questionnaire. Consent was implied by a voluntary response to the questionnaire. The descriptive statistics of the participants are presented in Table 1. Sports participants were members of school teams or were members of amateur sports clubs outside school. Of the 586 girls and 577 boys, ratios of sports participants to nonparticipants were 220 to 366 among girls and 238 to 339 among boys. Measures The test packet included a number of questions related to the participants’ specific demographics followed by the Attitude Toward Physical Education Scale for Children (Sherrill & Toulmin, 1977). Demographics.—This section queried the participant’s grade, sex, teacher’s sex, and whether or not students had a sport license (participated in sports). Attitude Toward Physical Education Scale for Children.—This questionnaire, developed by Sherrill and Toulmin (1977), was adapted into Turkish by Özer and Aktop (2003). The validated Turkish version includes 49 items, with a 6-point Likert-type response scale with anchors of 1: Strongly disagree and 6: Strongly agree. (The “neutral” response was removed from the questionnaire in the Turkish version.) Total possible scores range from 49 to 343. Cronbach coefficient alpha reliability was .86, and the test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient was .83 (Özer & Aktop, 2003). Procedure Permission was requested from the Ministry of Education to conduct the study in the 22 selected schools. Students were asked to participate on
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a voluntary basis. Questionnaires were administered in their classroom setting by the first author of the paper. Data Analysis Descriptive analysis was based on grade, student’s sex, participation or nonparticipation in sports, and teacher’s sex. A 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial analysis of variance (Grade: 6, 7, 8; Student’s sex: boy, girl; Sports participation: yes, no; Teacher’s sex: male, female) was conducted to examine the differences in students’ attitudes toward PE. A significance level of .05 was accepted for all analyses. Results Before testing the hypotheses, to use a factorial analysis of variance, assumptions were checked. In this sample, the internal consistency reliability was similar to that of the original study of the Turkish version (Cronbach’s α = .86). To test the normality assumption, skewness and kurtosis were calculated. Normality assumption was not violated for any variable. The independence assumption was checked; the observations were independent of each other, and there was no relation between or within groups. Levene’s test of homogeneity of variance for each dependent variable was performed, and none of the tests (F2,1139 = 1.41, p > .05) was significant. Each group had roughly equal variances. Therefore, to test the hypothesis, the factorial ANOVA was performed (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the participants along with 95% confidence intervals for mean differences. Overall, students’ attitudes toward PE on the six-point scale were positive. With respect to the first hypothesis, the results of the 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect for grade (F2,1139 = 18.48, p
