Sex Differences in Student Interest and Performances in Fitness Testing

Background/Purpose Boys and girls have similar situational interest in physical education (Shen et al., 2003).Yet, particularly for fitness testing, they have voiced different opinions (Graham, 1995). This study examined sex differences in student interest and performance in fitness testing, providing quantitative evidence on their levels of interest and performance.

Method Adolescents (N=356) including 180 females from three middle schools participated in the study. They took the one-mile run and PACER tests and situational interest scale (Chen et al, 1999) right after each test. Student BMI and both test scores were recorded. We analyzed the data using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

Analysis/Results Student situational interest averaged from 1.81 (SE=.09) to 3.20 (SE=.12) on a five-point scale. Result from MANOVA showed there were significant differences in situational components and performance between boys and girls (λ=.80, F=12.28, p<.01, η²=.20), between the two running tests (λ=.02, F=2339.74, p<.01, η²=.98), and a significant interaction between test and performance level (λ=.24, F=49.42, p<.01, η²=.51). Interestingly, student BMI had no significant effect (p>.05) on situational interest.

Conclusions In general, students reported low-to-moderate level of situational interest for fitness testing. Students reported significantly higher situation interest in PACER than one-mile run; boys reported statistically significant higher interest and higher performance than girls. There was significant interaction between sex and performance: low-performing boys reported lower situational interest than low-performing girls. Thus, it is not simply a sex issue that impacts situational interest; it is also the performance and its interaction with sex and the fitness test.