The impacts of adolescent beliefs in performing a cardiorespiratory fitness test

摘要

This study examined the relations among expectancy-value constructs, self-efficacy, and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) test performance in adolescents. The participants were 141 middle school students, including 74 girls. The students completed the Expectancy-Value Questionnaire and the Self-Efficacy Scale, and then performed the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run in physical education class. Correlation analysis revealed that expectancy-related beliefs, intrinsic value, and self-efficacy were moderately related to CRF performance. Path analysis identified that the prediction from expectancy-related beliefs to CRF was partially mediated by self-efficacy, in total explaining 51% of the variance in CRF performance. The findings suggest that it is important to nurture middle school students with strong beliefs about the prospect of becoming successful and provide successful learning experiences that could enable them to feel self-efficacious. Taking into account these psychological factors generated by instructional strategies will help students to produce better performances in the fitness test.