Attitudes Toward Physical Education and Physical Activities: A Comparison Study of Chinese and American High School Students

摘要

The Chinese structure of physical education as a high school curriculum differs greatly from that of the United States. The purpose of this study is to measure the difference in attitude toward physical education among Chinese and American high school students and to identify possible causes. Furthermore, this study aims to propose methods to improve high school physical education in order to boost student participation in physical activities. In this study, attitude is measured with the Physical Education Activity Attitude Scale (PEAAS) originally developed by Valdez in 1997. The research group is composed of 403 high school students. Data is collected via online survey platform Wenjuanxing in China and Google Forms in the U.S. and analyzed with SPSS. The result shows that there is a significant difference between the attitudes of Chinese and American high school students towards physical education, with the Chinese students scoring more favorably (Mean = 81.8) than American students (Mean = 77.6).