An empirical study exploring female students' perceptions of personal disengagement in physical activity

Abstract

In this study, I explored reasons for fifth and seventh grade girls' personal disengagement from physical activity. Regular participants in physical activity were used as a comparison to a target group of irregular participants. One central finding was that girls who do not participate in physical activity on a regular basis demonstrated a much lower knowledge base of the benefits of physical activity than the regular participants. This suggests that the value girls place on physical activity (i.e. willingness to participate) is related to their activity level (i.e. more active girls have a greater knowledge base). The less informed one is, the less one values physical activity. New contributions to the field of girls and physical activity are made from the findings on how irregular participating girls feel about professional suggestions for increasing their participation rate in physical activity.