| Description |
In recent years, schools have been called upon to expand their efforts to increase physical activity related opportunities for children and adolescents. Although schools have been found to be a vital venue in obesity prevention, not all children and adolescents in the United States attend public schools. There are approximately 2 million homeschool students (K-12) in the United States. In recent years, there has been an increase of homeschool physical education clinical programs conducted by higher education institutions to provide homeschool children with quality physical activity opportunities. The purpose of this study was to provide insight into the parental attitudes toward physical education activity among parents whose children attend public school, parents whose children are homeschooled, and parents whose children are homeschooled and attend a homeschool physical education program at an institution of higher education. The Physical Education Activity Attitude Scale (PEAAS) was utilized to assess parental attitudes toward physical education activity. A total of N = 203 parents completed the PEAAS survey. The mean total PEAAS score for all groups was 75.94 ( SD = 7.59). A statistically significant difference among setting groups was found (F (2, 403) = 13.274, p < 0.001). For the general attitudes category, there was a statistically significant difference among the groups (F (2, 403) = 5.07, p = 0.007). For the physical education category, there was a statistically significant difference among the groups (F (2, 403) = 13.988, p < 0.001). For scientific basis category, there was no statistically significant difference among groups, (F (2,403)= 1.404, p = 0.247). Using the total PEAAS scores, the main effect of parent physical activity was also statistically significant, implying there is a difference in total scores across parental physical activity levels ( p = 0.008). A two-way-interaction was found for socioeconomic status (SES) and setting. Information from this exploratory study should be used to advocate for the inclusion of physical education classes in the curriculum for students that are homeschooled, as well as students who attend public schools. |
