Background/Purpose
American College Health Association (ACHA) has attempted to promote physical activity (PA) on campus for at least two decades and no significant increase of student PA has been reported. Although studies have identified factors affecting university student PA, little attention has been given to relationships of these factors. This might have been one of the reasons that little student PA improvement has been demonstrated. This study aimed to explore direct and indirect effects of factors influencing student PA.
Method Existing data collected by ACHA-National College Health Assessment at a large southern state university in 2008 were analyzed. There were 1146 participants with 61.3% of females. Based on of previous research findings, three types of factors were chosen: demographic factors (i.e., age, sex, and ethnicity); academic factors (i.e., grade point average [GPA], full-time student status, and year in university); and health factors (i.e., number of weekly good sleep days, body mass index [BMI], weekly working hours, and perceived general health).
Analysis/Results Path analysis was performed to analyze the data. The results indicated that perceived general health, the number of weekly good sleep days, sex, and ethnicity had significantly direct effects on student PA levels. Through its direct effect on perceived general health, sleep, and BMI, GPA had a significantly indirect effect on PA.
Conclusions The study suggested that university student PA was affected by a number of factors, including academic factors, which provided a complementary perspective to understanding factors determining university student PA.