Background/Purpose: Enjoyment has been implicated as a determinant of physical activity among children and adolescents (Motl et al., 2001). However, the effect of different sport activities on children's enjoyment remains largely unexplored. This study examined whether children's enjoyment in physical education varied as a function of different activities.
Methods: Participants were 326 third through sixth grade children (Mage = 9.80; 79% White Americans) from a suburban school at Mountain West region. They had a 50-minute physical education class every week. Participants responded to an 18-item questionnaire measuring their enjoyment (Kendzierski & DeCarlo, 1991) in physical education when they took traditional tag games in fall of 2009. Then they completed the same questionnaire in the following week when they took interactive dance games in physical education.
Analysis/Results: The 2-way (gender) MANOVA repeated measures yielded significant main effects for activity (Wilks' ˄ = .95, F1, 208 = 10.67, p < .01) and gender (F1, 208 = 4.40, p < .05). Follow-up tests revealed that children reported significantly higher scores in enjoyment toward interactive dance games than they did toward traditional games (p < .01). Also, girls exhibited higher enjoyment toward interactive dance games than boys did (p < .01). However, no gender difference emerged on enjoyment toward traditional games.
Conclusions: School children showed higher enjoyment toward interactive dance games than traditional games. In addition, girls appeared to enjoy more toward interactive dance games than boys. Therefore, it is practical and meaningful to integrate interactive dance games into physical education.