Attitudes and Perceptions toward Physical Education: A Study in Secondary School Students

Physical education teaching and learning efforts obviously target the student. Like parents, teachers, administrators and any other directly or indirectly involved parties, students do have opinions based on their experience on their respective physical education classes and physical education in general. These opinions, or so-called attitudes, are important to research due to their potential of giving insight to the learner’s perspective, which may also serve as an authentic feedback from the student. This study investigated German secondary school students’ attitudes toward physical education. Results have the intention to reveal what attitudes towards physical education German students have and which factors influence these attitudes. The study sample contained students from the different school types Gymnasium, Realschule, and Haupt-/Werkrealschule. The students were surveyed via questionnaire that was developed based on validated research instruments from prior studies in the field. Data was analyzed integrating independent variables such as students' gender, physical education grade, grade point average, body mass index, socioeconomic status, type of school, citizenship, and the exercise and physical activity behavior of students, their parents and their peers.