Cypriot Urban Elementary Students’ Attitude Toward Physical Education

Abstract

This study examined the attitudes of Cypriot elementary school students toward physical education. Fourth, fifth and sixth grade students (N = 763) from six urban Cypriot elementary schools completed an attitude instrument. Adapting the attitude instrument developed by Subramaniam and Silverman (2000) for Greek-speaking students an extensive two-step pilot study showed the instrument scores were valid for a two factor model (affect and cognition) of attitude. The authors found that Cypriot upper elementary school students have an overall moderate to high attitude toward physical education. Comparisons indicated there was a grade level effect with sixth grade students having lower attitudes for the usefulness-curriculum sub-factor, the perceived usefulness factor, and for total attitude. There were no differences for other attitude variables and no gender effects. The results suggest that Cypriot students perceive the curriculum less useful as they get older.