Perceived Physical Competence and Physical Activity Participation for Children in Hong Kong

Abstract

PURPOSE: To investigate the perceived physical competence, physical activity participation and life satisfaction of children in Hong Kong. METHODS: The participants were 1007 children (Male=527, Female=480), between 9 and 14 years old (M=10.97, SD=1.04). They were divided into three age groups (9-10 years old =335, 11 years old=353, above 12 years old =324). The Perceived Physical Competence Scale (Kimiecik & Horn, 1998), the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C) (Crocker et al., 1997) and the Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (Cantril, 1965) were the testing instruments. RESULTS: Factorial ANOVA (2 gender × 3 age group) revealed that the perceived physical competence score for males and females was similar. A significant main effect was found for age group F (2, 745) = 4.0, p=.019. No significant interaction effect was found between gender and age group on perceived physical competence score. Post hoc test revealed that the perceived physical competence score for the 11-year old group (M =28.48, SD=6.33) was higher than the above 12 year old group (M =30.15, SD=6.55). The 9-10 year old group (M =29.23, SD=6.36) had similar score with the other two groups and the above 12 year old group had the lowest perceived physical competence level. Pearson correlation supported that there were significant relationship between perceived physical competence and physical activity score (r = −.356, p=0.00), and perceived physical competence and life satisfaction with present score (r = −.117, p=0.02). Regression analysis reported that these variables explained 13.6% of the variance in perceived physical competence, which was significant F (2, 515) = 41.52, p = .000. CONCLUSIONS: Physical educators should create positive learning environment and provide positive feedback to children in order to increase their perceived physical competence level.