Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Research Article

Social Cognitive Beliefs Predicting Children’s Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Fitness in Physical Education

Peng Zhang^1*, Zachary Pope³, Chaoqun Huang² and Zan Gao³

¹College of Health Sciences, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, USA

²Wayland Baptist University, Plainview, Texas, USA

³University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Peng Zhang
College of Health Sciences
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
210 Zimbar Hall, 200 Prospect St.
East Stroudsburg, PA, 18301, USA
Tel: (570) 422-3050
E-mail: pzhang@esu.edu

Received Date: September30, 2014; Accepted Date: October 24, 2014; Published Date: October 29, 2014

Citation: Zhang, P. Pope Z, Huang C, Gao Z (2014) Social Cognitive Beliefs Predicting Children’s Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Fitness in Physical Education . J Child Adolesc Behav 2:172. doi: 10.4172/2375-4494.1000172

Copyright: © 2014 Zhang P et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Purpose: This study examined the predictive utility of children’s self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and satisfaction on their perceived persistence/effort, physical activity (PA) levels, and cardiovascular fitness. Method: Participants were 307 sixth through eighth grade students enrolled in a 90-minute physical education class on alternate days. Participants completed questionnaires assessing self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, satisfaction, and perceived persistence/effort during the second to last week of the school year. During the last week of school the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) test was administered and in-class PA levels were measured via pedometers (Yamax Digi-Walker SW-701). Multiple regression analyses were used to determine how self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and satisfaction predicted children’s persistence/effort, PA levels, and cardiovascular fitness. Results: Correlation analysis indicated all variables were significantly associated with one another (rs = .17 to . 59, ps < .01) while regression analyses showed outcome expectancy (ß = .36, p <.01) and satisfaction (ß = .34, p <. 01) were significant predictors for persistence/effort, accounting for 25.48% and 9.54% of the variance, respectively. Further, children’s self-efficacy (ß = .28, p <.01), satisfaction (ß = .18, p <.01), and outcome expectancy (ß = .13, p <.05) significantly predicted their in-class PA levels, and explained 20.14%, 2.72% and 1.00% of the variance, respectively. Finally, self-efficacy (ß = .35, p <.01) was the only significant predictor for cardiovascular fitness accounting for 12.16% of the variance. Conclusion: Results indicate that children who perceive the benefits of physical education, enjoy the sense of satisfaction physical education provides, and have higher self-efficacy persist and put forth greater effort during class while also displaying higher in-class PA levels and better cardiovascular fitness.

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