African American girls’ are particularly likely to be overweight and obese and their physical activity levels are lower than other adolescents. The purpose of this study was to investigate urban middle school African American girls’ physical activity levels and their relationships to attitudes toward physical education.
Method:
African American girls (N = 649) from 14 urban middle schools participated in this study. The participants completed two instruments whose scores have been determined to be reliable and valid with middle school students. First, they completed a self-report instrument, the 3-Day Physical Activity Recall (3DPAR, Pate et al., 2003) designed specifically to record the physical activity of adolescents. Then the girls completed an attitude instrument (Subramaniam & Silverman, 2000) in their physical education classes.
Analysis/Results:
MANOVAs by grade were performed to examine differences for the 3DPAR variables. Pearson-product moment correlations were calculated to determine the relationships between the activity variables and the attitude variables.
Black girls in this study had relatively low amounts of physical activity (mean total METS =186.6). There was a significant difference in the number of intervals for the intensity variables (i.e., light, moderate, hard, and very hard) by grade (Wilk’s Lambda = .929, F(8, 1286) = 6.011, p < .001) and multilevel follow-up tests indicated 8th graders had more moderate and vigorous intervals than 6th and 7th graders. Total 6 MET intervals was significantly correlated with enjoyment-curriculum [r(646) = .094, p < .01], total enjoyment [r(645) = .093, p < .01], and total attitude [r(646) = .070, p < .04]. There were a number of correlations between physical activity and attitude variables for 6th graders, but not for 7th and 8th graders. Total 6 MET intervals was positively correlated with enjoyment-curriculum [r(168) = .231, p < .001], enjoyment-teacher [r(168) = .214, p < .003], usefulness-teacher [r(168) = .138, p < .04], total enjoyment [r(168) = .257, p < .001], and total attitude [r(168) = .221, p < .002]. In addition, for 6th graders, total METs across the three days was associated with enjoyment-curriculum [r(168) = .133, p < .05] and total enjoyment [r(168) = .145, p < .03].
Conclusions:
The correlations between attitude variables and vigorous physical activity patterns provide the first empirical data for a relationship between attitude and physical activity and enjoyment variables were largely responsible for these relationships support for the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behavior.