Shanghai Middl’e Schooler S Expectancy

During physical education reform, it is crucial to consider students’ motivation,fitness knowledge, and physical activity. Based on expectancy-value theory andrelevant learning theory, this dissertation was aimed to addressing the following fourresearch questions:(a) did expectancy-value scale have acceptable structure validityand reliability when it is used in the population of middle-school students of China?(b) Was there any significant difference between/among different gender, grade andBMI students’ motivational level?(c) To what extent did expectancy-value constructsaffect fitness knowledge and physical activity?(d) To what extent did students’ fitnessknowledge affect students’ physical activity?A total of450students from four middleschools of Shanghai provided the data for this research. The variables studied in thisdissertation included expectancy-value motivation, fitness knowledge and physicalactivity. The measures of the above three variables were Expectancy-Value Scale forPhysical Education, Fitness Knowledge Questionnaire and Physical ActivityQuestionnaire for Older Children. To answer abovementioned research questions, dataanalysis methods mainly adopted in this research consists of descriptive statistics,Independent T test, ANOVA, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural EquationModeling. The results of this study suggested that (a) expectancy-value scale forphysical education showed acceptable structure validity and reliability when it is usedin the population of middle-school students of China. but it is noteworthy that thecorrelation between Chinese students expectancy belief and task values was very low.(b) expectancy-value motivational level of Chinese middle-school students wasrelatively high; male’s interest value for PE was significantly higher than female’s; sixgraders’ expectancy belief for PE was significantly higher than eight graders’; thinstudents’ utility value for PE was significantly higher than overweight students’.Besides, the research also found that male’ overweight rate was significantly higherthan females’.(c) students’ expectancy belief for PE significantly predicted theirphysical activity; however students’ task values for PE did not significantly predicttheir fitness knowledge and physical activity.(d) Students’ fitness knowledge levelnegatively predicted their physical activity. The results indicated that PE teachersshould emphasize students’ motivation adoption. During nurturing studentsmotivation, teachers should cultivate students confidence for fitness knowledge andphysical activity, guide students to know the attainment value of PE and design PEclass carefully to stimuli students interest to PE. During PE class, teachers should payextra attention to girls and overweigh students to promote their engagement andpositive emotional experience in PE. Besides, PE teachers should integrate fitnessknowledge teaching with physical activity because the research found that teachingfitness knowledge and physical activity separately did not positively affect theirexercising behavior.