Relationship Between Parental Attitudes Toward Physical Activity and the Attitudes and Motor Competence of Their Daughters

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (1) to assess the relationship between high school girls' motor competence and the attitudes of their parents and themselves toward the six dimensions of physical activity as measured by Kenyon's Attitude Toward Physical Activity Inventory (ATPA), and (2) to investigate the relationships between the girls' attitudes toward physical activity and their parents attitudes toward physical activity. Subjects were 242 tenth grade girls and their parents.

There was no significant relationship between the motor competence of the daughters and their mothers' attitude toward physical activity. There was a signifi cant relationship between the motor competence of the daughters and their fathers' attitude toward physical activity, when the father viewed physical activity as an ascetic expression. Two attitudinal dimensions of the daughters were significantly related to their own motor competence scores; these were when physical activity was viewed as a social experience and when it was viewed as the pursuit of vertigo.

There were low positive relationships between the daughters' attitude scores and both mothers' and fathers' attitude scores on the six dimensions of physical activity. With the exception of two dimensions, all of the correlations were signifi cant at the .01 level.