Evaluation of Physical Literacy in Secondary School Students

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (a) to determine the physical literacy of secondary school students, (b) to investigate whether there were any inter-relationships among sub-domains of physical literacy (physical domain, psychological domain, and behavioral domain) in secondary school students and (c) to identify whether any gender and grade difference exists in physical literacy of secondary school students. The participants were sixth and seventh-grade students (76 boys, 82 girls) from three urban public schools in Ankara. For the data collection, the Physical Literacy Assessment for Youth (PLAY) instrument, developed in Canada, was used to evaluate student’s physical literacy. The PLAY instrument contains PLAYfun to evaluate the physical domain (motor competence) of students, PLAYself to evaluate the psychological domain of physical literacy, and PLAYinventory to evaluate the behavioral domain of physical literacy. For data analysis, The Pearson correlation was utilized to investigate the relationship between instruments. The independent t-test was run to determine whether any gender and grade difference exists. The findings were explained in three separate categories. First of all, the result of the psychological domain (PLAYself) indicated that students had 2.91 points. Psychological domain scores consist of two parts; (a) environmental participation score was 2.34 points, (b) self-efficacy score was 3.20 points. The students generally indicated that they were good at outdoor activities (X̄ = 3.22, SD = 0.93) and they never tried or were not good at activities performed on ice and snow (X̄ = 1.16, SD = 1.16). Behavioral domain (PLAYinventory) findings indicated that students generally participated in swimming, football, roller skating, bicycle, volleyball, running, walking, basketball. The physical domain (PLAYfun) findings indicated that the overall motor competence score of students was 37.96 which means they were placed in “emerging level”. The result of the Pearson correlation indicated that there was a statistically significant correlation between the average psychological domain score and behavioral domain score (r (156) = .392, r <. 05). Furthermore, the independent t-test result indicated that there was no grade difference between students. However, there was statistically significant difference between physical domain mean score of boys (X̄ = 40.63, SD = 7.42) and girls (X̄ = 35.49, SD = 6.13); t (156) = 4.76, r <. 05, r²=.13. In conclusion, students had higher scores in the psychological domain, on the other hand, they had lower scores in the physical domain. In addition, students in the sixth and seventh grades did not meet the physical education and sports curriculum objectives in the motor competence test. For further research, the sample size should be increased and studies should be conducted to examine the physical literacy of students from different grades, schools, and cities.