Video Technology and the Subjective Norm, Perceived Behavioral Control, and Attitudes Toward Physical Activity of Middle School Students: Does P.E.TV make a difference?

Abstract

This study examined the effects of Physical Education Television (P.E.TV) on 69 southwest Virginia middle school students' subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitudes toward physical activity. Four intact 8th grade physical education/health classes were selected for the study. The students were randomly assigned to the classes by school administrators at the beginning of the school year. The classes were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The treatment group (two 8th grade classes) viewed 10 P.E.TV shows over a period of nine weeks. The control group (two 8th grade classes) had physical education/health class as normal. The same teacher taught all four classes.

A pre-test post-test design was used. All students filled out a pre-test questionnaire at the beginning of the 9 weeks, and a post-test questionnaire at the end of the 9 weeks. The pre and post-test questionnaires included the "Children's Attitudes Toward Physical Activity" scale to assess the student's attitudes, and questions developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1980, 1985) to assess subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. The pre-test questionnaire also included the "Weekly Activity Checklist", which was used to categorize students into groups based on their activity level. The first three hypotheses stated that P.E.TV would have a positive influence on the students' subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitudes toward physical activity. These hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance, and rejected at the .05 level of significance. The fourth hypothesis stated that P.E.TV would have more of a positive influence on students categorized as "moderate to low active" than on students categorized as "high active". This attribute-treatment-interaction hypothesis was tested using a two way Analysis of Variance, and was also rejected at the .05. level. Suggestions for future studies are included in the discussion section.