Background/Purpose African American girls' are particularly likely to be overweight and obese and their physical activity levels are lower than other adolescents. The Theories of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior strongly suggested that attitude is related to physical activity participation. The purpose of this study was to explore urban middle school African American girls' attitudes toward physical education.
Method An attitude instrument with previously validated scores was administered to a diverse sample of Black girls (N=992) in 6th through 8th grades. The girls were enrolled 21 middle schools in the NYC public school system.
Analysis/Results Descriptive statistics were calculated. MANOVAs, discriminant function analysis, ANOVAs, and ANCOVAs were performed to investigate differences among grade levels for the attitude variables (i.e., enjoyment curriculum, teacher; usefulness teacher, and curriculum) and for summary variables. Results indicated that Black girls had moderate attitudes toward physical education. There was a significant difference in attitude variables, among the three grades (Wilks' Lambda = .966, F(8, 1972) = 4.302, p = .001), with follow-up analyses indicating that enjoyment teacher was higher for sixth graders than others. Other significant differences for summary variables and total attitude were based on enjoyment being higher in the lower grades.
Conclusions As with other middle school students there is a decline in Black girls' attitudes as students get older. Given the risk for obesity among this group of girls, the data from this study suggest that attitude and, particularly the affect/enjoyment component is critical in examining physical activity patterns and adherence for African American girls.
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