Effects of adventure education and sport education participation on high school freshmen attitudes toward physical education

Abstract

This study was designed to determine if students' attitudes toward physical education change after being exposed to an adventure education, fitness, and sport education units. The sample included (N=41) with class one containing 23 subjects and class two 18. The length of the study was 30 class periods/days long. Class one (N=23) was given a pretest followed by posttests after experiencing a 10 day adventure education unit, fitness unit and sport education unit. Class two (N=18) was given a pretest followed by posttests after participating in the opposite order of units that class one was given. The three factors identified within the survey were the teacher, curriculum usefulness, and curriculum enjoyment. The factor scores were computed for each student, every time they took the survey. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to determine if differences existed between the classes. A significance level of a = .05 was used in all statistical analyses. When averaging across the four survey time points, there is no significant difference between the two classes. However, when considering the survey time points individually - pretest, adventure education, sport education, and fitness there were significant differences between the two classes.