Physical activity level in elementary education second level children, physical self description and self-esteem.

The aim of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the physical ego of children between the age of 11-13 considering the levels of physical activity and physical perception. Moreover to find out the impact of socio-economic level on physical activity and physical fitness levels.The main population of this study composed of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students from the center and other districts of Çanakkale. According to results of 2010-2011 Çanakkale National Education Questionnaire; 11 schools which have high and low economic status were randomly selected. Coopersmith Self-Respect Inventory, Marsh Physical Self Description Questionnaire and Bouchard Physical Activity Inventory were applied to the 993 students composed of 495 female and 498 male.The findings of the study were analyzed by using SPSS 16.0 Statistical Package Program. Firstly, descriptive statistics of variables was calculated. MANOVA analysis was used for the gender, socio-economic status, physical activity level, and physical ego level. MANOVA analysis was arranged as physical activity level (high-low), x gender (female-male), body mass index (thin, normal, heavy, fat), t-test was used in order to find differences between the independent groups. To determine the reason of the differences between groups, Post-hoc Bonferroni test was used when the variances were homogenous and Dunnett?s T3 test was used when the variances were not homogenous for the each independent variable. Pearson Correlation was used in order to find relationship between the independent groups. Alpha level was set to 0.05 for all calculations.According to the main findings of the research, it was found that the levels of physical activity, physical self description and self confidence of students differentiated in terms of gender and socio-economic levels of the students.