A comparison of college students' attitudes enrolled in required or elective physical education classes.

Abstract

This study was designed to assess and compare the attitudes toward physical education of male and female undergraduate students taking physical education as a required subject with those taking physical education as an elective subject and to analyze the results in regard to their implications for the East Tennessee State University program.

The subjects for the pretest of this study were 424 male and female undergraduate students enrolled in 25 randomly selected beginning activity classes at East Tennessee State University during the first week of the spring semester, 1981. The 375 undergraduate male and female subjects for the posttest were enrolled in the same 25 randomly selected beginning activity classes at East Tennessee State University during the last week of the spring semester, 1981. The Kneer Attitude Inventory was administered by the investigator of this study. The inventory consisted of twenty negative statements and twenty positive statements, which were scored 5-4-3-2-1 and 1-2-3-4-5, respectively. A summation of each subject's score on all items was used to determine the subject's attitude toward physical education.

The t test was used to determine if there was any significant difference between the students taking physical education as a required course and students taking physical education as an elective course. The .05 level of confidence was used for testing the null hypothesis.

Major findings of this study were that both groups of students had a favorable attitude toward physical education and that there was not a significant difference between the mean scores of the students taking physical education as a required course and students taking physical education as an elective course.