2.4MB
Blank physical education survey 156Kb	Blank heatlh survey 153Kb
go to: year 4 health survey results | year 4 PE survey results	| year 8 health survey results | year 8 PE survey results

Attitudes and motivation The national monitoring assessment programme recognises the impact of attitudinal and motivational factors on student achievement in individual assessment tasks. Students’ attitudes, interests and liking for a subject have a strong bearing on progress and learning outcomes. Students are influenced and shaped by the quality and style of curriculum delivery, the choice of content and the suitability of resources. Other important factors influencing students’ achievements are the expectations and support of significant people in their lives, the opportunities and experiences they have in and out of school, and the extent to which they have feelings of personal success and capability.

Health and physical education surveys
The national monitoring health and physical education surveys sought information from students about their curriculum preferences and their perceptions of their achievement. Students were also asked about their involvement in health and physical education activities within school and beyond. The surveys were administered to both year 4 and year 8 students in groups of four students, with most questions requiring short written answers and others a written response. Teacher help with reading or writing was provided where requested.

There are numerous research questions that could be asked when investigating student attitudes and engagement. In national monitoring it has been necessary to focus on a few key questions that give an overall impression of how students view health and physical education as school, home and community activities.

The students were presented with a list of 13 health activities and asked which they liked doing most at school. They were invited to tick up to three activities. They were also asked to indicate activities that they did not like doing at school, by putting crosses alongside up to three activities. Their responses are shown adjacent.

Many of the activities were viewed quite differently by year 4 and year 8 students. For instance, How to care for others and Families were popular with year 4 students, but much less popular with year 8 students. On the other hand, Food and healthy eating, How to keep healthy, How to keep safe and How my body works and how to care for it were distinctly more popular with year 8 than year 4 students. Both year levels agreed that activities about Friendships were particularly liked, while My feelings and how to feel good about myself was more disliked than liked. There has been little change between 2002 and 2006.

Responses to the seven rating items in the Health Survey are presented in separate tables for year 4 students and year 8 students below.

Health education in school is liked by more than 80 percent of students at both year levels, and students also continue to be very positive about the usefulness of learning about health. The responses to question 7 indicated that only 39 percent of year 4 students and 33 percent of year 8 students believed their class did things that helped them learn about health “lots” or “quite a lot”. These figures were essentially unchanged between 1998 and 2006. Questions 4, 5 and 6 were not included in the earlier surveys. Quite high percentages of year 4 students and very high percentages of year 8 students said they did not know how good their teacher or family thought they were in health education.

Year 4 HEATLH Survey Responses	% responses 2006 (02) [98]
1. How much do you like doing health education at school?	39 (41) [51]	51 (43) [34]	8 (10) [9]	2 (6) [6]
2. Do you think learning about health education is useful to you at school and out of school?	71 (67) [75]	22 (24) [17]	5 (5) [3]	2 (4) [5]
3. How do you feel about learning or doing more health education as you get older?	61 (49) [61]	29 (37) [27]	8 (9) [7]	2 (5) [5]
					don't know
4. How good do you think you are at health education?	27	44	10	2	17
5. How good does your teacher think you are at health education?	26	29	7	1	37
6. How good does your family think you are at health education?	52	21	4	1	22
	lots	quite a lot	sometimes	never
7. How often does your class do things that help you learn about health?	14 (18) [15]	25 (21) [25]	59 (56) [55]	2 (5) [5]

Year 8 HEATLH Survey Responses	% responses 2006 (02) [98]
1. How much do you like doing health education at school?	22 (22) [22]	61 (61) [58]	14 (15) [16]	3 (2) [6]
2. Do you think learning about health education is useful to you at school and out of school?	60 (57) [64]	34 (36) [31]	5 (7) [4]	1 (0) [1]
3. How do you feel about learning or doing more health education as you get older?	35 (28) [31]	52 (53) [51]	11 (16) [13]	2 (3) [5]
					don't know
4. How good do you think you are at health education?	14	55	11	1	19
5. How good does your teacher think you are at health education?	12	26	8	1	53
6. How good does your family think you are at health education?	23	29	5	1	42
	lots	quite a lot	sometimes	never
7. How often does your class do things that help you learn about health?	4 (6) [9]	29 (27) [22]	63 (65) [66]	4 (2) [3]

The physical education survey included one item that invited students to indicate preferred physical education activities at school, another that asked about preferences for different approaches to physical education activities and nine items that invited them to record a rating response. There were also seven items that asked them to write open-ended responses. Only some of the open-ended items are analysed and reported here.

The students were presented with a list of seven activities that they might do in physical education at school, and were asked to tick up to three activities that they most like to do. The responses are shown above, ordered from most to least popular for year 4 students. The notable differences between year 4 and year 8 responses are the lower enthusiasm of year 8 students for swimming (particularly), gymnastics and dance, and their higher enthusiasm for ball activities. Over the four years from 2002 to 2006, ball activities and athletics have become more popular at both year levels, but not at the expense of other activities.

The students were then presented with a list of six ways of doing physical education activities, and were asked to tick up to three ways that they liked. The responses are shown adjacent, ordered from most to least popular for year 4 students. The patterns are similar for year 4 and year 8 students, with the exception that between 2002 and 2006 competitions gained in popularity for year 8 students but lost favour with year 4 students. There was little change for other approaches between 2002 and 2006.

When asked to write down up to three very important things a person needs to learn or do to be good in physical education, year 4 students overwhelmingly emphasised physical or game skills, with subsidiary emphasis on both good sportsmanship and being fit and healthy. Year 8 students gave more balanced responses, with fitness the most common choice, closely followed by physical or game skills, and then positive attitudes and effort, good sportsmanship, and cooperating with others. These patterns changed very little from 2002 to 2006.

When asked to write down three really important things they had learned in physical education, the overwhelming response of students at both year levels related to the rules, techniques or skills of particular sports or activities. The need for good sportsmanship came next, mentioned by about one third of the students at both year levels. Year 8 students placed similar emphasis on the need for positive attitudes and effort and on cooperation with others. Ideas mentioned less frequently included the importance of fitness, warm-ups or stretches, having fun, and training or practising. These patterns changed very little from 2002 to 2006.

When asked to list interesting things done in physical education in their own time, independent, non-ball activities were mentioned by 68 percent of year 4 students and 58 percent of year 8 students. Team ball activities were mentioned by 49 percent of year 4 students and 58 percent of year 8 students. Independent ball activities and team non-ball activities were much less common.

Responses to the nine rating items are presented in separate tables for year 4 students and year 8 students below. The results show that year 8 students were almost as enthusiastic as year 4 students about physical education. In most other curriculum areas assessed in NEMP, use of the most positive rating declines substantially from year 4 to year 8. Year 8 students were less positive (perhaps more realistic) than year 4 students about how good they were at physical education, and about how good others thought that they were. The percentage of students who indicated that they didn’t know how good their teacher thought they were at physical education has declined about 10 percent at both year levels since the 2002 survey, and at year 8 level has declined 17 percent from the 1998 survey. Year 8 students reported a little more vigorous physical activity than year 4 students in the 24 hours preceding the survey. Reported activity levels have not changed substantially between 1998 and 2006.

Year 4 PHYSICAL EDUCATION Survey Responses	% responses 2006 (02) [98]
1. How much do you like doing PE at school?	74 (72) [74]	20 (19) [21]	5 (7) [3]	1 (2) [2]
					don't know
2. How good do you think you are at PE?	56 (61) [55]	34 (28) [32]	4 (5) [4]	1 (0) [1]	5 (6) [8]
3. How good does your teacher think you are at PE?	41 (38) [40]	33 (25) [23]	4 (4) [5]	1 (2) [1]	21 (31) [31]
4. How good does your family think you are at PE?	73 (72) [73]	16 (13) [10]	3 (2) [2]	0 (2) [2]	8 (11) [13]
5. How do you feel about doing things in PE you haven’t tried before?	46 (53) [44]	38 (33) [40]	13 (10) [12]	3 (4) [4]
6. How much do you like doing PE in you own time [not at school]?	65 (62) [64]	24 (23) [22]	8 (10) [7]	3 (5) [7]
	more	about the same	less
7. Would you like to do more PE or less PE at school?	73 (72) [71]	25 (23) [22]	2 (5) [7]
	yes	maybe/ not sure	no
8. Do you want to keep learning PE when you are older?	68 (61) [58]	29 (34) [37]	3 (5) [5]
	0	1–15	16–30	31–45	46–60	>60
9. How many minutes of vigorous physical activities have you done since this time yesterday?	16 (18) [15]	22 (27) [25]	27 (22) [21]	2 (3) [4]	15 (10) [17]	18 (20) [18]

Year 8 PHYSICAL EDUCATION Survey Responses	% responses 2006 (02) [98]
1. How much do you like doing PE at school?	63 (59) [68]	27 (29) [25]	9 (11) [6]	1 (1) [1]
					don't know
2. How good do you think you are at PE?	39 (35) [31]	46 (46) [54]	8 (10) [7]	1 (3) [1]	6 (6) [7]
3. How good does your teacher think you are at PE?	31 (23) [22]	41 (34) [33]	5 (9) [5]	1 (4) [1]	22 (30) [39]
4. How good does your family think you are at PE?	50 (45) [46]	30 (32) [26]	5 (5) [5]	2 (2) [1]	13 (16) [22]
5. How do you feel about doing things in PE you haven’t tried before?	40 (45) [46]	47 (40) [43]	12 (13) [10]	1 (2) [1]
6. How much do you like doing PE in you own time [not at school]?	54 (47) [54]	34 (35) [34]	10 (15) [10]	2 (3) [2]
	more	about the same	less
7. Would you like to do more PE or less PE at school?	70 (66) [65]	28 (30) [30]	2 (4) [5]
	yes	maybe/ not sure	no
8. Do you want to keep learning PE when you are older?	66 (62) [62]	32 (36) [35]	2 (2) [3]
	0	1–15	16–30	31–45	46–60	>60
9. How many minutes of vigorous physical activities have you done since this time yesterday?	18 (19) [19]	7 (10) [15]	18 (14) [16]	7 (6) [8]	13 (14) [18]	37 (37) [24]