COMPARISON OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVELS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

The aim of this study is to compare the physical activity levels of middle school and high school students in Canakkale province. The study included 426 female and 417 male students aged 10-17 years who voluntarily participated. The PAQ survey developed by Kowalski et al. was used to determine physical activity levels of students participating in the study. The responses of students to the survey questions had mean and standard deviation calculated and the T test used for analysis with SPSS. For middle school students, the mean age of female students was 12.16±1.23 and the mean age of male students was 12.23±1.24 years. For high school, the mean age of female students was 16.31±1.17 and the mean age of male students was 16.32±1.29 years. In terms of BMI, the value for female middle school students was 18.95±3.13 and for male middle school students was 19.18±3.78, while for female high school students it was 20.92±3.31 and for male high school students it was 22.21±5.36. The physical activity scores for female and male middle school students were 2.71±0.79 and 2.93±0.77, respectively. The physical activity scores for female and male high school students were 1.88±0.61 and 2.36±0.73, respectively. For middle school students the physical activity scores were found to be high for both genders compared to high school students. Physical activity scores for female students were lower compared to males in both school types. Article visualizations: