| The literature supports the contention that the school principal's attitude is a factor of influence in the implementation of any school program.;This study used the Physical Education Attitude Inventory (Wear, 1951) to assess the principal's attitudes toward physical education and a questionnaire of items to elicit pertinent personal, demographic data, and principals' opinion about physical education and sports programs in the elementary schools.;The population of the study was 352 elementary school principals in the Sorocaba Regional Division of Teaching, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The questionnaires were sent by mail. Two hundred sixty-four principals returned the questionnaire, representing an average return rate of 75%.;The data were subjected to the following statistical analysis: descriptive analysis, t test, analysis of variance, and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The level of significance was set at p < .05.;The purposes of this study were to identify the principals' attitudes toward physical education, the relationship of their attitudes with selected factors in their experience and background, and the influence of their attitudes on selected factors that can affect their administrative action toward implementation of physical education and sports programs in the elementary school.;Three major hypotheses were tested and the results showed that participation in physical education classes is a matter that have significant influence in attitude toward physical education. The results showed also, that participation in physical education classes and school enrollment had a positive relationship with attitude of elementary school principals toward physical education and length of experience as a school principal had a negative one. The analysis showed that there were a positive significant relationship of the principals' attitude toward physical education with his/her opinion of the importance of physical education and sports in the elementary school curriculum, agreement with the Scholastic Sports Games, and physical education teacher performance.;The results of the data analyses were consistent with those reviewed in the literature regarding attitudes, and showed that in the opinion of the elementary school principals participants there were needs for change in the current legislation regarding physical education and the school facilities were not at the level considered adequate for implementation of physical education and sports programs.;Reference.;Wear, C. L. The evaluation of attitudes toward physical education as an activity course. Research Quarterly, 1951, 22, 114-126. |
