Study On Sedentary Undergraduates' Self-Efficacy Of Physical Activities In City Of Chongqing

Self-efficacy of physical activities (PAS) means that one's beliefs on the degree of their capacity of participating in and sticking to one or more physical activities. It can explain the differences on physical activities and sedentary behaviors among persons. In this study, we have two main purposes to explore the structure of PAS, one is to offer the basis for improving undergraduates'health status by reducing the time spent in sedentary behaviors and increasing time in physical activities, the other is to enrich the theory of self-efficacy.In this study, 40 undergraduates were investigated by the open-ended questionnaires.We put forward construct structure of PAS on the basis of existing self-efficacy theory and learned about the status of the undergraduates'physical activities and their sedentary behaviors. Then we developed PASS and we examined PAS, physical activities and sedentary behaviors of 456 undergraduates with the questionnaire with good reliability and validity to explore the relationship among PAS, physical activities and sedentary behaviors, and the features of undergraduates'and 244 sedentary undergraduates'PAS. Finally, we validated the structure of PAS by interviewing four undergraduates, who are in different PAS.The main findings of this research are summarized below:(1) The structure of PAS is reasonable. It composes of two factors: internal factors for physical activities efficacy, which includes four factors, one is personnal charactors, one is capacity of physical activities and one is planning and the rest one is skills for protecting oneself in physical activities; external factors for physical activities efficacy, which includes two factors, time limited and the surports from outside.(2) The undergraduates'self-efficacy of physical activities doesn't allow us to be optimistic. The highest score goes to the factor capacities for exercise, the second highest score goes to the factor protecting oneself in exercise, and the lowest one goes to competences of making plans for exercise.(3)The PAS of sedentary undergraduates is evidently low. It is significantly lower than the score of the total. Contrasting to the general group, it is evidently lower than that of general groups'especially on these factors, self-efficacy of making exercises plans, protecting oneself in exercise and self-efficacy of overcoming the limit from time. (4)Interestingly, there is a common difference on the demographic variables whether in total or in sedentary. That is, boys'score of PAS is significantly higher than that of girls', the same results happens on the lower graders vs. the higher graders. As for the health status, those in good health get the highest scores, then those in common health, and those in bad health get the lowest scores.(5)There are medium negative correlations between PAS and the representative sedentary behaviors. There are medium positive correlations between PAS and the representative exercising behaviors.In conclusion, PAS has a good theoretic structure, which was testified by multiple ways and from different views. We may apply the results of this study to change sedentary undergraduates'PAS and to help them reduce time spent in sedentary behaviors. However, PAS is not the only factor that affects sedentary undergraduates'sedentary behaviors, other factors should be considerd.