Development And Validation Of The Physical Education Attitude Scale For Indian Students

Abstract

Understanding student attitudes about physical education (PE) can help PE teachers to improve the curriculum and it also helps to design good activities for the students during PE classes. This research aims to develop and validate the Physical Education Attitude Scale for Indian Students (PEASIS). As a starting framework for identifying important aspects of students’ attitudes toward engaging in PE classes, researchers used the previously developed multi-factor efficacy standardized scales. Initially, 28 items were subcategorized and finalized as true and false, where; a total of 16 items were true and 12 false items. The convenience sampling method was used to collect data from 2093 participants and the survey was completed by the participant through the google form (N=400) and offline (N=1693).  All the selected subjects were from the different academic boards in different locations of India and studied through grades 10 to 12 class. To address the aim of the present study researchers conducted an exploratory factor analysis using a principal components analysis with a Varimax rotation and the results revealed a six-factor scale comprised of 20 items with factor loadings ranging from .347 to .701. Six factors were named; Learning, Obstacle, Interest, PE teacher behavior, Psychological usefulness, and School support. The results of this study provided psychometric support with reliability, representativeness, and homogeneity showing that PEASIS is a valid measurement tool for examining school students' attitudes toward PE.