Educational Research - Book Report/Review Example

Associations between socio-motivational factors, physical education activity levels and physical activity behaviour among youth Introduction This article is a quantitative study about the motivational factors that middle school students have in order to perform physical activities at daily basis and in physical education classes. The study is done by Ning Weihong, Gao Zan, and Lodewyk Ken, and they have used a proper research method of quantitative statistics and concluded the question using first hand research.

Summary: Ning (2012)’s purpose of this study was to analyze the student attitudes towards physical activity and the prescribed socio-motivational factors that impact the student’s physical activities. This research was performed to make conclusions about the difference between physical activities on daily basis and physical education classes and how students perceive this difference. The sample included middle school students only having a total of 307 students with an almost equal number of boys and girls; girls being in majority by 9 (Ning et al., 2012). The sample size was a small one which showed that the research is based on a small number of students from a limited geographical area which was in the Southern United States and the school was a suburban public school.

The research design which is used for this study is experimental research design which is used because this is a controlled setting (Babbie, 2009). The research is done in a single school over students of the same age group. This type of research design is used to explore the relationship of cause and effect. In this research, the socio-motivational factors are the causes which eventually show the effect on the students’ physical activities on daily level and education classes (Al-Liheibi, 2008).

The method of collecting data is by giving standardized questionnaires to all the students. The students are given these questionnaires in the first week of the research in order to assess their socio-motivational factors that encourage them towards physical activities (Kirk, 2006). Then this data of one week is used in the next two weeks to assess the physical activity levels in education class.The statistical analysis method which is used in this research study is analysis of variance (ANOVA).

This method holds statistical significance as it uses two to three variables and compares them with a statistical test to make generalizations whether the means of the groups are equal (Kothari, 2004). In this research, the sample includes 307 middle school students and different groups were made for the observations and ANOVA method was used to make generalizations on the results. The results showed that the general physical activity on daily level of students had more strength over their physical activities in the physical education class.

Moreover, the results showed that friend support, self-efficacy, and enjoyment of physical activity are the factors that motivate the daily physical activities of the students. Analysis: The research study was based on a small sample size and was limited to the suburban area of Southern United States. The students belonged to the same age group and social class. These factors tend to make the study limited and the generalizations that are made cannot be applied to other studies or researches.

There is further research needed after this study as the sample needs to be larger and wider including several types of students who are involved in physical activities. Rivals can use this study and the data as it is made on a smaller level and generalizations are made on the findings. References Al-Liheibi, A. (2008). Middle and High School Students’ Attitudes Towards Physical Education in Saudi Arabia. ProQuest Babbie, E. (2009). The Practice of Social Research. Cengage Learning Kirk, D. (2006). Handbook of Physical Education.

SAGE Kothari, C. (2004). Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Age International Ning, W., Gao, Z., & Lodewyk, K. (2012). Associations between socio-motivational factors, physical education activity levels and physical activity behavior among youth. Journal of Research, 7(1), 8.