Student Practice, Attitude, and Perception of Competence in Physical Education

Purpose

Rooted in social cognitive theory this study examined attitude and perception of competence (POC) and their relationship with student skill practice (amount and type of practice), in middle school physical education (PE).

Methods

Participants (N = 81) were randomly selected from nine teachers classes in six different schools. Two consecutive, skill based lessons were videotaped and students completed a demographic sheet, a POC survey, whose scores were validated as part of a larger study, and the middle school PE attitude survey (Subramaniam & Silverman, 2000). Surveys were completed in a separate PE lesson so there was no disruption to the videotaped lesson. Practice trials for each student were coded during skill instruction as either appropriate or inappropriate using the teacher's cues for skill and task completion. Along with practice trials, the start and stop time for each task was coded. Prior to coding extensive inter-rater reliability training took place until Interobserver agreement reached .90. Training consisted of coding together, separately, and lengthy discussions that resulted in a decision log referred to throughout data collection.

Analysis/Results

A series of analyses were conducted including a descriptive analysis for all variables, correlational, and multiple regression analyses. Time analyses showed that most of the lesson was spent in skill instruction/practice (M = 31:21 minutes, SD = 14:01 minutes, range 14:18 – 59:15 minutes). The mean number of tasks, total trials, appropriate trials, and inappropriate trials across the two lessons was 7.7, 71.62, 43.57, and 27.71, respectively. Analysis revealed a significant correlation for the total number of tasks and appropriate practice trials per minute (r (7) = .689, p < .05). There was a low correlation between the socio-cognitive factors and practice variables. Only the relationship of the social factor of POC and inappropriate practice trials per minute was found to have a positive significant relationship (r (79) = .235, p < .05). Multiple regression for the same two variables yielded the same result (R-squared = .0587, F (1, 79) = 4.93) with the social factor predicting inappropriate practice trials per minute.

Conclusions

The results of this study suggest that including more tasks may increase the number of appropriate practice trials and provides further empirical evidence for task extension, refinement, and differentiated instruction in PE lessons. The lack of statistical evidence for the socio-cognitive relationship suggests that the relationship is not predictive in nature and needs to be examined more discreetly from both the student and teacher planning perspectives.