The Antecedents Of Senior High School Students’ Physical Activity Participation

Regular physical activity is beneficial to health, but both Chinese and foreigners are rarely able to achieve an appropriate amount of exercise. In order to change this phenomenon, developing reasonable theories to promote physical activity is very necessary. Previous theories saw behavior as conscious and reasoned action. However, the behavior is not only decided by the reflective system which is based on the rational decision, but also influenced by the impulsive system which is based on the irrational decision.Based on the Reflective-impulsive Model of Physical Activity(RIM_PA), one pre-study and two formal studies were conducted to revise and improve the model, and the applicability of the model was tested in the senior high school students.In pre-study, 164 senior high school students(15.73±0.73) were chosen as participants. They were asked to wear accelerometers(New-Lifestyles NL-2000) for 7 days. After a week, the data from the accelerometers was gathered, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire was filled in and the related functions of the accelerometer data and scale scores was constructed for the following studies.In study 1, 1908 senior high school students(15.97±0.90) were selected as participants. The Reflective System Scale of Physical Activity was used to measure variables of reflective system. The Implicit Association Test was set into a positive test and a negative one to measure variables of impulsive system. By converting results of the IPAQ to the average activity steps which represented the amount of physical activity, structural equation modeling was constructed to test the RIM_PA by using Maximum Likelihood method. The results showed that two absolute fit indicators have reached requirements and four relative fit indicators all more than.900. The explanatory power of the model has improved from 14 % to 66%.In study 2, 973 senior high school students(15.53±0.80) were chosen. The Mamikin Task was used to measure approach and avoidance responses tendency and The Self-Report Habit Index was used to measure habit strength. The Revised Reflective-impulsive Model of Physical Activity(RIM_PA-R) was built by adding the two factors to the impulsive system. The model was examined using the method of Maximum Likelihood. The results showed that two absolute fit indicators have reached requirements and four relative fit indicators all more than.900. Although it had an expected fit indicators, the explanatory power of the model only improved 1%. There is little improvement in explaining the behavior of physical activity. The impulsive system has less effect on senior high school students’ physical activity behavior, the relective system dominates.It comes to the conclusions that:(1) Seeing the senior high school students as the research object, by improving the measurement of affect association and physical activity, the interpretation ratio of the model is improved greatly.(2) By adding approach and avoidance responses tendency and habit strength into the impulsive system, the RIM_PA-R shows little improvement in explaining the behavior of physical activity.