Examination of Physical Activity Attitudes and Anti-Social Behaviors of Middle School Students

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the physical activity attitudes and antisocial behaviors of middle school students. The research group of the study consisted of a total of 1046 students, 509 boys and 537 girls, aged between 11 and 13, studying in 5-6-7-8th grades in three secondary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Esenyurt district of Istanbul province in the 2022-2023 academic year. "Personal Information Form", "Physical Activity Attitude Scale for Secondary School Students" and "Antisocial Behavior Scale for Secondary School Students" were used as data collection tools. SPSS 25.0 statistical package program was used to evaluate the data and to find calculated values. Data were summarized by giving mean and standard deviations. Whether the data were normally distributed was checked with the range of Kurtosis and Skewness coefficients and it was determined that the data were normally distributed. Since the data were normally distributed, independent group t-test was used for pairwise cluster comparisons and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for more than two cluster comparisons. Tukey HSD multiple comparison test was used to determine the source of significant differences as a result of ANOVA. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to determine whether there was a significant relationship between the mean scores of the Physical Activity Attitude Scale and Antisocial Behavior Scale sub-dimensions of the participants who participated in the study. Within the scope of this study, the scale reliability coefficient was calculated as .77. The significance level was taken as 0.05. As a result of the analysis, no significant difference was found between the physical activity attitudes of secondary school students and family income level and mother's working status (p>0.05), while a significant difference was found between gender, grade level, mother's education level and father's education level variables (p<0.05). While no significant difference was observed between antisocial behaviors and family income level (p>0.05), a significant difference was found between other demographic variables (p<0.05). In addition, while no significant difference was found between the self-confidence sub-dimension of the Physical Activity Attitude Scale and the inappropriate behavior sub-dimension of the Antisocial Behavior Scale (p>0.01), significant differences were found between the other sub-dimensions (p<0.01) As a result, it can be said that students' physical activity attitudes affect antisocial behaviors.