Comparison of high school students' attitudes toward physical education with regard to sport participation

The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes of High School Students, who study in the high schools in Ankara, toward physical education with regard to sport participation.Ninth class high school students have farmed the extent of this investigation. Totally 558 students, who have been chosen as example at randomly from 7 different high schools, participated in the investigation.In order to measure the students? attitudes physical education and sport attitude measure that includes 24 items; 12 of them positive and 12 negative developed by Demirhan and Altay (2001) has been used.Attitude measure points of the students have been evaluated according to the results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test by considering the all sorts of variables (family support, friend support, teacher support, media, public school-private school, health, academic success). Also, the data has been evaluated with t Test and chi-square test for goodness of fit.When the results of this study were examined, there has not been found a relation between the support of family and friends and attitudes of students, who participate in sports or not, toward Physical Education (p> 0.05). However, there has been found a relation between the wish for becoming a popular person in media and teacher support and attitudes of students, who participate in sports or not, toward Physical Education (p< 0.05). The assumption that studying at either public or private schools influences the attitude of students, who actively participate in sports or not, has been found statistically meaningless (p> 0. 05). In addition, the assumption that health factors have role in students? not participation in sport has been found statistically meaningless (p> 0 .05). But there has been found a relation between participation in sports and academic success (p<0. 05)Key words: Physical education, attitude, active sportive, family, friend, media, health, school, academic success.