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Social Cognitive Beliefs Predicting Children’s Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Fitness in Physical Education

Peng Zhang, Zachary Pope, Chaoqun Huang and Zan Gao

Purpose: This study examined the predictive utility of children’s self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and satisfaction on their perceived persistence/effort, physical activity (PA) levels, and cardiovascular fitness. Method: Participants were 307 sixth through eighth grade students enrolled in a 90-minute physical education class on alternate days. Participants completed questionnaires assessing self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, satisfaction, and perceived persistence/effort during the second to last week of the school year. During the last week of school the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) test was administered and in-class PA levels were measured via pedometers (Yamax Digi-Walker SW-701). Multiple regression analyses were used to determine how self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and satisfaction predicted children’s persistence/effort, PA levels, and cardiovascular fitness. Results: Correlation analysis indicated all variables were significantly associated with one another (rs = .17 to . 59, ps < .01) while regression analyses showed outcome expectancy (ß = .36, p <.01) and satisfaction (ß = .34, p <. 01) were significant predictors for persistence/effort, accounting for 25.48% and 9.54% of the variance, respectively. Further, children’s self-efficacy (ß = .28, p <.01), satisfaction (ß = .18, p <.01), and outcome expectancy (ß = .13, p <.05) significantly predicted their in-class PA levels, and explained 20.14%, 2.72% and 1.00% of the variance, respectively. Finally, self-efficacy (ß = .35, p <.01) was the only significant predictor for cardiovascular fitness accounting for 12.16% of the variance. Conclusion: Results indicate that children who perceive the benefits of physical education, enjoy the sense of satisfaction physical education provides, and have higher self-efficacy persist and put forth greater effort during class while also displaying higher in-class PA levels and better cardiovascular fitness.