Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Physical education for children--Iowa--Cedar Falls; Physical education for children--Iowa--Waterloo; Self-efficacy--Iowa--Waterloo; Self-efficacy--Iowa--Cedar Falls; Physical education for children; Self-efficacy; Iowa--Cedar Falls; Iowa--Waterloo; Academic theses;

Abstract

Childhood obesity has nearly tripled in the past three decades. Because of these alarming numbers, government health officials are highly concerned with causes of this trend. It has been shown that poor diet, certain behaviors such as television viewing, and a lack of physical activity are some of the causes of this increase. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-efficacy and enjoyment and a child's motor skill level. The study participants included 80 third grade students (43 girls and 37 boys). The sample was split into an intervention group (n=43) and a control group (n=37). The intervention group received 4 weeks of the NutriActive experience before and after school. This experience included lessons on healthy eating, disease prevention, and motor skills. The control group participated in their normal physical education classes as usual. Self-efficacy and enjoyment of three motor skills including jump roping, kicking for accuracy, and throwing for accuracy were assessed using short questionnaires. The intervention group filled out the self-efficacy and enjoyment questionnaires at baseline and post-test. The control group filled out the self-efficacy questionnaire at both time points, but only completed the enjoyment questionnaire during the post-test. Motor skill was measured in both groups at both time points by assessing how many times a student completed each skill successfully. The jump rope, kick, and throw increased for the intervention group throughout the 4 weeks (p<.05). The control group experienced a 40.5% increase in jump rope through the 4 weeks (p<.05). At post-test, the intervention group was significantly better than the control group at all motor skills except for kicking. There was no significant difference between the groups or within each group in self-efficacy scores or enjoyment scores, even though the intervention group had significant increases in all motor skills except for kicking. Gender was a significant predictor of most self-efficacy and one enjoyment scores, whereas skill level emerged as a significant predictor of post-test self-efficacy in the jump rope, post-test enjoyment in the jump rope, and post-test enjoyment in the throw. Boys were better than girls at throwing, although the difference was not statistically significant. Compared with boys, girls had a higher mean jump rope enjoyment score (p<.001), as well as the mean jump rope skill score (p=.089). The results of regression analysis suggest that the higher the skill level of a child, the higher that child's self-efficacy of that skill. The results also indicate that children may have to reach a certain level of motor skill before it is reflected in their self-efficacy and enjoyment level.

Year of Submission

2008

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services

First Advisor

Oksana Matvienko

Second Advisor

Iradge Ahrabi-Fard

Third Advisor

Jennifer Waldron

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2008

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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